A Valley Without Wind 2 - a full sequel free for existing customers - is coming.

[eRe4s3r]

Very cool

Though I will reserve judgement of art style till it is viewable in motion ;P in the end, it will all come together smoothly and beautifully .. or it will not. Point is, until all art is in place, even the best mockups and previews are not gonna tell any story.

The thing with this news propagation by the way.. is not as surprising as you may think. Maybe people had opinions about AVWW1 .. the problem is, not all that many of those were extremely positive. This in turn, lead to discussions, which in turn lead to everyone noticing the game (which sadly, due to the fast changing nature of the game) lead to even more discussions... It has been brooding the past months.

I think this is a cool thing to do.. but like anyone else, I am bit a surprised, generous yes.. but I think it sets too high expectations. (not for AVWW2, for the future games and behavior)

By the way, Obviously I love the mock-up.. now if you get smooth transition animations with flowing green hair into the sequel... then I am gonna play it JUST FOR THAT ;P

[Panopticon]

I think the precedent for Arcen's generous behavior to the community (and in general, remember all profits from the Neinzul expansion go to charity), has been well established by the ongoing support for AI War, which goes beyond simple bug fixes by including so much free content and polish to the games mechanics overall.

[eRe4s3r]

Oh I love the behavior.. it's just.. I have no idea what to expect with AVWW2 .. It will be better and look spiffier (probably) but will it be finished, self contained, completed game when it releases? I don't mind patches that add new  content, but drastically changing gameplay... yeah.. not so much.

Assuming this is called AVWW2 because there'll be drastic changes to gameplay, of course ;P

[_K_]

Huh, i dont often come over to AVWW forums from the AI war ones, but this news is really interesting.

The OP is great. I liked to see you not being afraid to do some fundamental changes to the original game, and have very logical and thorough explanation as to why these changes must be done.

Surprised you decided to make the game free for people who have AVWW 1. I mean, being nice is, uh...nice, but your hardest fans who want to support you will now probably have to buy another copy of AVWW or two.

Anyway, at the development phase your new game sounds great, hope you dont hit any serious obstacles during the development phase. Good luck.

[LintMan]

As I was reading the plans for AVWW2, I was saying to myself things like YES! and Awesome!  Then I saw the parts about "no mouse/keyboard support" and "more like metroidvania".  Now imagine an over-inflated balloon popping (== my excitement).   

I don't like playing with gamepads and never really liked castlevania or those sorts of games.  (In general, I dislike console games)  So the move towards making AVWW2 more focused on console-like retro gameplay is really really disappointing.  Neither does keyboard-only aiming appeal to me, which I gather is intended to just make the aiming/targeting harder.

So good luck to you guys, but I think I'll be sitting this one out.

[MouldyK]

As I was reading the plans for AVWW2, I was saying to myself things like YES! and Awesome!  Then I saw the parts about "no mouse/keyboard support" and "more like metroidvania".  Now imagine an over-inflated balloon popping (== my excitement).   

I don't like playing with gamepads and never really liked castlevania or those sorts of games.  (In general, I dislike console games)  So the move towards making AVWW2 more focused on console-like retro gameplay is really really disappointing.  Neither does keyboard-only aiming appeal to me, which I gather is intended to just make the aiming/targeting harder.

So good luck to you guys, but I think I'll be sitting this one out.

You never know though. If you have the original, you might still wanna give the new game a whirl just to see how it is.

[x4000]

Yep, it's worth giving it a shot when it comes out, eh?

[Misery]

As I was reading the plans for AVWW2, I was saying to myself things like YES! and Awesome!  Then I saw the parts about "no mouse/keyboard support" and "more like metroidvania".  Now imagine an over-inflated balloon popping (== my excitement).   

I don't like playing with gamepads and never really liked castlevania or those sorts of games.  (In general, I dislike console games)  So the move towards making AVWW2 more focused on console-like retro gameplay is really really disappointing.  Neither does keyboard-only aiming appeal to me, which I gather is intended to just make the aiming/targeting harder.

So good luck to you guys, but I think I'll be sitting this one out.

.....but the first game was based on Metroid-vania and console platformer concepts to begin with, wasnt it?   That's how it felt to me.   Run around, explore big areas, get the items that you need in order to continue (in this case, crafting items usually), and then go through areas that you couldnt before.    Not to mention the gameplay was about as console-tastic as you could get.  Pure platforming, run and jump and shoot and dodge.

Hell, *I* dislike console games as a rule these days, and am about as negative a gamer as you will ever meet (seriously, I tend to hate everything), but even I thought the first game was pretty good.

My impression of all of the explained new stuff was:  More of the same, but better.   Or more specifically, more of the same, but more DIRECTION, and also more STRATEGY.   The first game, even to me, really is a little TOO open.  That's not to say that the second game WONT be "open" like that.... it's sounding like there's gonna be multiple possible solutions and paths to take to beat each game world;  having seen what I have of Arcen's games, probably a great MANY paths and options and solutions.  Wheras a pure Metroidvania game only allows exactly ONE solution for each "gated" area.

I can though understand the complaints about the controls, pure-aim (with the mouse) going to what I assume will be 8-way aiming? (for the love of cake, puppies, and kittens, tell me the new aiming system doesnt need the analog sticks).  That kinda thing can take some getting used to, but, I think 8 way aiming is used in platformers as often as it is simply because it WORKS.   Wether the game is console OR on a PC (I see alot of indie titles work this way).  Like Cave Story, for example.  Cant use the mouse with that one (unless there's some wierd hidden control scheme I've never seen) and the game really does work wonderfully anyway.


Never could use the bloody keyboard/mouse controls myself though anyway.  Me trying to run/jump accurately with the bloody keyboard mostly just led to dying, and me trying to aim with the mouse (and I'm incredibly inaccurate with a mouse) just led to everything taking 8 years to kill due to so many missed shots.  Not that I was able to use that control setup for more than about 15 minutes anyway.


I lost track of whatever else I was gonna say.

[x4000]

Yes, it's moving to 8-way aiming, which is present in the first game (though a bit less refined than the aiming we've got for the sequel).

And yes, in terms of the Metroidvania-ness of it, that basically means "more of the same, but better" as it was already Metroidvania-like.  We're just doing a better job of implementing it this time.

Anyhow, that's why I was saying that it might be best to hold off dismissing it until you can try it.  The proof is in the pudding, and if you have the first game you're getting it for free anyhow.

[Coppermantis]

By the no mouse/keyboard aiming do you mean the firing is in a similar vein to the Cave Story method, in which you maneuver with arrowkeys and fire with some key (always in a fixed direction) but the mouse is not used as it is in the current version? Or are mouse and keyboard just completely out of the equation.

[x4000]

By the no mouse/keyboard aiming do you mean the firing is in a similar vein to the Cave Story method, in which you maneuver with arrowkeys and fire with some key (always in a fixed direction)

Yes, precisely this.  Although there is a selection of four keys rather than just one (that way you can hit any of the four keys as opposed to switching between "active" abilities).

but the mouse is not used as it is in the current version? Or are mouse and keyboard just completely out of the equation.

I'm not sure what you mean by that as compared to the above.

[Coppermantis]

By the no mouse/keyboard aiming do you mean the firing is in a similar vein to the Cave Story method, in which you maneuver with arrowkeys and fire with some key (always in a fixed direction)

Yes, precisely this.  Although there is a selection of four keys rather than just one (that way you can hit any of the four keys as opposed to switching between "active" abilities).

but the mouse is not used as it is in the current version? Or are mouse and keyboard just completely out of the equation.

I'm not sure what you mean by that as compared to the above.

I was referring to the keyboard being totally unused, which I didn't think was the case but I was just checking. I'm kind of tired right now, sorry if I'm incoherent.

[x4000]

Oh, gotcha -- no problem.  Yeah, you can play keyboard-only or gamepad-only.  Or if you have some hankering to use the mouse buttons for firing but not for aiming, you can do that too.

[LaughingThesaurus]

hmm...
If we're getting 8-directional aiming, is it possible to have the same sort of limited aiming you see in Binding of Isaac? That game allows mouse aiming, but you can't "aim freely". You're stuck in one of four directions, and your shot's trajectory is influenced based on what direction you're traveling, keeping the complexity of aiming still intact.

[x4000]

Well, perhaps I misunderstand what 8-directional aiming is in your parlance.  If you're running forward, you can fire forward, or up at an angle.  If you stop, you can fire up.  If you duck, you can fire low shots forward.  If you jump and press down, you can fire shots down, or you can hold forward and down to fire down-forward.  To fire at anything behind you, you have to turn around.

It's the same system as Cave Story except:
-Valley 2 lets you duck and do low shots (Cave Story that's irrelevant since you are only 1 tile tall anyway).
-Valley 2 lets you shoot at the 45 degree angles.

I don't think that a mouse setup would fit well with those constraints.  For one thing, it would be incredibly easier to aim at the angles since you would not also have to move in those directions.  That gets us right back to the problem of where we were before.