A Valley Without Wind Alpha #12 -- Side View, Undergrounds, and Other New Mechan

[x4000]

Do we have an ETA for the public release yet? Seriously: Ready to throw dollar bills at you.

Thanks for that.   Should be the first week in August, if all goes well between now and then.  So far so good the last few weeks!

Edit!
Also, have you considered using a minimap similar to Odin Sphere (PS2) - might look slightly less obtrusive.

Had to look that one up to see it; I think it's a bit less informative than is really needed here, because just picking your way through the terrain here is pretty important.  However, I do plan to have a way to pop up an even larger map (probably just press the M key by default) on demand, so in that case if you don't like the minimap you could just turn it off or shrink it even further.

[zespri]

The traditional faux top-down perspective blends elements that are side view and elements that are top-down and elements that are partway between; this works with pixelart, which is more abstract, but really bothers people increasingly as you move into higher res stuff.

Since I've never played SNES or DS, I have very hard time understanding the above. Can you explain this better and perhaps to point me to some faux top-down screenines, so I could see what the problem is?
To clarify:
- I'm not sure what "traditional faux top-down perspective" is, and how it blends side view with top-down view
- I'm not sure what "pixelart" is.
- I have no idea how resolution can possibly affect all this. I thought that the higher res is better...

Now, I'm sorry for being completely clueless, and not following. I realize that you wrote your article assuming some basic level of understanding, that I don't have. I just hope you can give me some pointers, so I could understand this part better.

[Nalgas]

The traditional faux top-down perspective blends elements that are side view and elements that are top-down and elements that are partway between; this works with pixelart, which is more abstract, but really bothers people increasingly as you move into higher res stuff.

Since I've never played SNES or DS, I have very hard time understanding the above. Can you explain this better and perhaps to point me to some faux top-down screenines, so I could see what the problem is?
To clarify:
- I'm not sure what "traditional faux top-down perspective" is, and how it blends side view with top-down view
- I'm not sure what "pixelart" is.
- I have no idea how resolution can possibly affect all this. I thought that the higher res is better...

Now, I'm sorry for being completely clueless, and not following. I realize that you wrote your article assuming some basic level of understanding, that I don't have. I just hope you can give me some pointers, so I could understand this part better.

Secret of Mana is a pretty good example.  This screenshot came up quickly in a search and will do well enough as an example.  Some elements are drawn as if they're directly top-down, like the ground tiles being perfectly square in proportion, while the characters are drawn in side view.  The buildings I guess are technically using an oblique projection, but some elements of them like the shutters on the windows are drawn with perspective.  The longer you look at it, the more disjointed viewpoints and uses of projections/perspective you can find in any one screenshot.

With pixel art, which is low-res hand drawn art that's done at the individual pixel level like that, it has a sort of charm to it and lack of detail that makes up for all of that in a way, but the closer the art style gets to being realistic, the more noticeable all of those things become to most people's eyes, because you tend to instinctively interpret it more like how you would a real world scene rather than a stylized drawing, and the things that are "wrong" with it stand out more.

[x4000]

The traditional faux top-down perspective blends elements that are side view and elements that are top-down and elements that are partway between; this works with pixelart, which is more abstract, but really bothers people increasingly as you move into higher res stuff.

Since I've never played SNES or DS, I have very hard time understanding the above. Can you explain this better and perhaps to point me to some faux top-down screenines, so I could see what the problem is?
To clarify:
- I'm not sure what "traditional faux top-down perspective" is, and how it blends side view with top-down view

These are good questions, thanks for asking them.  Here's one picture of Zelda 3: http://www.danielthomas.org/Assets/Zelda3.jpg

Note that:
1. You can see the tops of the bushes only.
2. You can see the entire top of the houses.
3. You can also see the entire front of the houses.
4. You can see the top and front of the cliffs.
5. You are seeing link from the side only, not any of the top of him.
6. You are seeing the ground from a straight-down perspective.

So you've got houses that are partly from the top and partly from the side, you've got things like bushes and the ground (and, elsewhere, things like benches) that are entirely from the top down, and you've got things like characters and monsters that are 100% from the side view.

Or check out this one from FF6: http://pocketmedia.ign.com/pocket/image/article/764/764961/final-fantasy-vi-advance-20070215044811900-000.jpg

Note that you can see the entire top of one roof on the right, and on that same building on the L hook to the top of that room, you can then only see the front.  This gives the impression of something like a straight-on 3/4 perspective, but unlike an actual isometric view it's not technically a valid perspective at all.

My favorite example of this is from secret of mana, which has slightly worse graphics than either of the other two: http://withfriendship.com/images/i/41321/Secret-of-Mana-image.jpg

Note that the walls and windows at the top of the screen have the exact same perspective as the floor.

- I'm not sure what "pixelart" is.

Everything you could want to know, explained better than I could: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_art

- I have no idea how resolution can possibly affect all this. I thought that the higher res is better...

Well... "better" is a funny concept.  If you're talking 3D, then sure higher-res is better... in most circumstances.  But 3D is a realistic approximation of what we see that is created by trying to mimic the laws of nature in some ways (well, that applies to raytracing more than raster, but go with me there -- technically that was wrong, but in the effect on the user that's right).  Anyway, so with 3D, increasing the resolution just makes things crisper but doesn't really change anything else.

With 2D art, increasing the resolution increases the amount of detail that you see.  When it comes to pixel art, that has a very distinctive style that you can get away with specifically because it is pixel-y.  It is neccessarily abstract by very definition.  Think of Picasso.

Now lets say you increase the resolution of your art, and it's no longer pixelart but it's still 2D.  Now you have something that is much more detailed.  It's hard to exactly explain why, but as things get more detailed, we expect more realism from them.  At least in this sort of instance.  And I don't mean it's a semantic preference of the viewer, I mean that our brains literally start rejecting the always-was-wrong perspective that it formerly accepted.  I think it's a small form of the uncanny valley, which despite what some folks think, I think is a real thing when it comes to animation in particular.

Now, if you keep the art as being actual pixelart, but just increase the sharpness and smoothness of that pixelart, then you can increase the resolution safely.  So, that's how you get retina-display type games like Zenonia 3, and they don't fall into this same trap.  For example, this doesn't look any more off than the SNES versions, but it came out this year on the iPhone: http://nodpad.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/zenonia3.png

The problem was that the type of art I was doing was raytraced prerendered 3D, not pixelart, and so it was showing literal realistic angles per object... but a variety of angles for the scene as a whole.  That mix of realism and detail with the fakey perspective threw the game into the uncanny valley, I think.  Much as I tried to add more detail and so forth to fix that, it just swirled things around instead -- players were getting increasingly happy with the visuals of the top-down version of the game, that's true, but I felt like I had hit a wall where it wasn't going to get any better and where people still were not really happy with it.  Hence the switch.

Now, I'm sorry for being completely clueless, and not following. I realize that you wrote your article assuming some basic level of understanding, that I don't have. I just hope you can give me some pointers, so I could understand this part better.

No worries, sorry about that.  Hope this helps!


EDIT: Ninja'd by Naglas, who also explained it really well.

[Hunam]

I only had a few seconds to look at the original post about going 2d before I got too wrapped up in work to read more, and I was definitely concerned about the loss of gameplay depth in making the switch to 2d. However, the very detailed response post helped put to at ease once I got home to read it. Love the comments about the strategy of selecting spells (especially the seize spell) and not simply throwing the same attack repeatedly; however, I do think it is a little strange to have certain areas locked in constant night or day but no big deal.

So I think I remember a previous post stating that different playable characters will have different skills before you start playing with them (ex one guy is good with melee but another magic). I really liked the idea of your strategy depending on what NPCs you had around. So now that melee is out are we going to have characters that have a preference for different types of spells like support or damage dealer?  

Overall very much looking forward to the game and am very interested to see how it will develop in the future. The video looked great!

[Cyborg]

1) previously to today, I was concerned. The art style didn't make much sense and was getting roasted on so many forums that I frequent. I don't think anyone can complain now, it actually makes sense going this route. I'm sure that putting old work in the graveyard is hard to do, but this might be your biggest reward and best thing you could have done for this project.

2) the lava explanation sounds like a dare. As long as there is a reward at the end that matches the difficulty, I consider it a path I must travel.

3) I was really concerned-as you know-about overlords. Without villains, I could never be a hero. I am more than happy now, and I look forward to destroying evil wizards and other such beings. To be fair, I actually have the same criticism about Skyrim, if you know what that is. They are a AAA studio, great graphics, flying dragons, the whole 9 yards... But not one word about a villain. I won't purchase that game unless it has one. I don't want to buy a tech demo; it's really nice and all when you develop emergent gameplay, procedural generated stuff, but you have to have motive because otherwise it's just intellectual exhibitionism. Making games has to be about having fun, not just proving you can do something. If it's not fun, it's not really a game.

4) I'm unsure about the magic system or how that works, a little worried that I'm going to get stuck somewhere without the supplies I need enough magic points. In other games like final fantasy, one tends to hoard ether, x-potions, and the like because they are so rare that they are just for the boss fights. I am wondering if the gameplay is going to encourage hoarding and melee spell fighting, so as to avoid spending finite resources. This could impact the level of fun, as folks will not want to cast spells for fear they will be caught without enough to escape some enemy. And that is where melee weapons and skills/tactics/special abilities/limit breaks come into play in other games.

5) Specializing in different magic and choosing which magic would be fun.

6) If you could get a character that looked a little bit mystical or some kind of man-beast, that would be enticing. I have to say, the gas mask guy and the regular male are not that great compared to the female.

7) What do you think about trains? And if it's a magic world, why not some kind of magic cloud or gust of wind? This Valley is not really lacking wind so far, might as well. Shippuuden!

Anything you can do which adds choice should be considered. My character should be different than whomever I jump into multiplayer with. Do you foresee twinking if someone jumps into my game that is far ahead of someone else?

9) Somewhere you mentioned player contributed writing. Even if you leave behind jokes, Easter eggs in destructible areas, hidden rooms, anything that is frosting on the cake, it's always a joy as a player to be surprised by something even if the reward is nothing more than a trifling fortune cookie Confucianism.

10) having trophies or some kind of way to show your exploits to a multiplayer friend would be fun. Or settlements or however that works.

[BobTheJanitor]

I'm kind of ambivalent about the switch. Admittedly, I had a lot of complaints about the old style, and this does take care of them almost completely. Kudos! On the other hand, I'm concerned that there won't be nearly as much exploration now. I probably need to see some run-throughs of some indoor areas though. It's hard to have a lot of exploration in a surface world setting, which was most of this video, without having silly contrivances like little floating platform islands. But I'm hoping once I see some more of the caves and indoor areas I'll grow to like it better. Right now my mind sees 2-D and says 'my options are left and right, how much exploring is there in that?'

But ultimately, I trust that whatever the end product is I will still buy it as soon as I can and no doubt end up putting countless hours into it.

[eRe4s3r]

Theres only 1 thing i'd really want, please put the minimap in the top right, make it round, and add an opacity setting Yes it makes sense to have a box-map for a box-world - sadly it occludes way too much of important game area. Namely the ground, and thats not good In best case, allow us to move the gui elements around and rescale the minimap, change its display-scale and change its colors ;p

Mhh, other things

1) Love the switch to 2D side scrolling. Makes modding in new characters (And animations, effects, buildings, graphics) SO much easier. And generally is less of a pita in terms of "seeing whats going on"

2) But grass should not be drawn on walls and "inverted" surfaces, or at least not the same grass thats drawn on the surface plane. (for the "inverted" surfaces you could do branches and roots) and for walls.. well no grass actually...


Well, thats about it. Thats really a big change ;p

Still.. with this change there needs to be a lot more stuff to interact with now in the maps (don't mean enemies).. because you essentially reduced the explorable area. Things like magical switches, some arcane to-discover secrets, trap doors, hidden walls, ladders and stairs.... bridges etc.

While in top down a puddle can be walked around in side view its a possibly insurmountable obstacle - if we can build wooden bridges then one has to ask whether we can build slopes and stairs as well? ;P

[x4000]

So I think I remember a previous post stating that different playable characters will have different skills before you start playing with them (ex one guy is good with melee but another magic). I really liked the idea of your strategy depending on what NPCs you had around. So now that melee is out are we going to have characters that have a preference for different types of spells like support or damage dealer?

That I'm not sure about.  We might make some sort of elemental affinities for characters, so they are better at using/resisting certain magic and weaker at using/resisting other magic, something like that.  But the worry with elemental stuff of that nature is that it really ups the surface complexity of the game, which has pluses and minuses with something like this.  We don't want to make it so that, for instance, players are suiciding one character or another to get one that has an affinity they prefer.  Or so that they are suiciding characters between runs into different areas with elemental entities that vary, etc.

So, we'll see.  There are still variations in your resistance to physical attacks from monsters, magical attacks from monsters, several types of magic proficiency (spellcasting speed versus raw magic power), max health, max magic points, and so on.  So... we'll see what develops, we've got some time to experiment with that part, and I want to see how things feel in playtesting with more spells and enemies in place.

1) previously to today, I was concerned. The art style didn't make much sense and was getting roasted on so many forums that I frequent. I don't think anyone can complain now, it actually makes sense going this route. I'm sure that putting old work in the graveyard is hard to do, but this might be your biggest reward and best thing you could have done for this project.

I'm just happy to have something that works so well now.   I don't really care about lost prototype work, and we didn't really lose that much work in the end -- most stuff carried over.

2) the lava explanation sounds like a dare. As long as there is a reward at the end that matches the difficulty, I consider it a path I must travel.

Haha.  Well, I think you'll be pleased.

3) I was really concerned-as you know-about overlords. Without villains, I could never be a hero. I am more than happy now, and I look forward to destroying evil wizards and other such beings. To be fair, I actually have the same criticism about Skyrim, if you know what that is. They are a AAA studio, great graphics, flying dragons, the whole 9 yards... But not one word about a villain. I won't purchase that game unless it has one. I don't want to buy a tech demo; it's really nice and all when you develop emergent gameplay, procedural generated stuff, but you have to have motive because otherwise it's just intellectual exhibitionism. Making games has to be about having fun, not just proving you can do something. If it's not fun, it's not really a game.

Well, generally I agree about the villain.  But mostly it's about motivation.  For instance, in Silent Hill games there are icons like pyramid head, to be sure, but they aren't what sticks out in my mind.  What REALLY sticks out to me there is the town itself, and how hostile and how much of a being it is.  At one point I thought I wanted to do that with the world itself in AVWW, but that got subsumed by other goals.  Anyhow, tangent.  General agreement.

4) I'm unsure about the magic system or how that works, a little worried that I'm going to get stuck somewhere without the supplies I need enough magic points. In other games like final fantasy, one tends to hoard ether, x-potions, and the like because they are so rare that they are just for the boss fights. I am wondering if the gameplay is going to encourage hoarding and melee spell fighting, so as to avoid spending finite resources. This could impact the level of fun, as folks will not want to cast spells for fear they will be caught without enough to escape some enemy. And that is where melee weapons and skills/tactics/special abilities/limit breaks come into play in other games.

A little trust, please.   Please don't jump to the stupidest way we could do it and assume we'll do that.  We have a pretty good record at balancing complex games, with AI War and so on.  There's a difference between having to conserve and being permanently strapped for resources.  This isn't a survival horror game, and we aren't planning to balance it like that.  I, too, hate always using my pipe or crowbar instead of actually using my fifteen bullets in my handgun.  It destroys games like Resident Evil for me personally.  Anyway, any design direction we take there are ten thousand terrible ways to do it, right?  The trick is just doing things the right way.

5) Specializing in different magic and choosing which magic would be fun.

Yes, you'll be doing that on a rolling basis with how you craft stuff and what you choose to make. Some of that will be based on the kinds of gems that you find, but you'll be able to influence that based on where you look for gems.  At any rate, by the time you've got access to all the kinds of spells, there's more than you'll be able to ever unlock at one tier before you hit the next tier, so you can really specialize and revise as you go.

6) If you could get a character that looked a little bit mystical or some kind of man-beast, that would be enticing. I have to say, the gas mask guy and the regular male are not that great compared to the female.

The "gas mask guy" is a skelebot from the era after people.

7) What do you think about trains? And if it's a magic world, why not some kind of magic cloud or gust of wind? This Valley is not really lacking wind so far, might as well. Shippuuden!

I'm not sure what you mean, but trains are most likely out, though I'm very fond of trains.  Always had train sets, etc. But I don't think it fits with this world.

Anything you can do which adds choice should be considered. My character should be different than whomever I jump into multiplayer with. Do you foresee twinking if someone jumps into my game that is far ahead of someone else?

See our interview on co-optimus, there are no character levels, so there's no "far ahead of someone else."  It works really differently from all other games of this sort, all levels and EXP are shared by the whole world.

9) Somewhere you mentioned player contributed writing. Even if you leave behind jokes, Easter eggs in destructible areas, hidden rooms, anything that is frosting on the cake, it's always a joy as a player to be surprised by something even if the reward is nothing more than a trifling fortune cookie Confucianism.

Yep, that's still there.

10) having trophies or some kind of way to show your exploits to a multiplayer friend would be fun. Or settlements or however that works.

The world is essentially a living exhibition of your past deeds.  I suspect people will be showing off their graveyards and memorials, too.

I'm kind of ambivalent about the switch. Admittedly, I had a lot of complaints about the old style, and this does take care of them almost completely. Kudos! On the other hand, I'm concerned that there won't be nearly as much exploration now. I probably need to see some run-throughs of some indoor areas though. It's hard to have a lot of exploration in a surface world setting, which was most of this video, without having silly contrivances like little floating platform islands. But I'm hoping once I see some more of the caves and indoor areas I'll grow to like it better. Right now my mind sees 2-D and says 'my options are left and right, how much exploring is there in that?'

But ultimately, I trust that whatever the end product is I will still buy it as soon as I can and no doubt end up putting countless hours into it.

Well, thanks for the trust. In terms of the exploration, I thought I talked about that a lot up there in the original post, but the short version is that you actually gain more options, not fewer.  More meaningful options, anyway.  When all directions are the same, all directions are... the same.  With a side view game, down is easy because of gravity and up is hard because of gravity.  That immediately makes for some differences in how you explore in those directions.  Anyway, this is instantly familiar to Metroidvania subgenre fans, but for the rest I guess the proof is in the pudding as usual.

[x4000]

Theres only 1 thing i'd really want, please put the minimap in the top right, make it round, and add an opacity setting Yes it makes sense to have a box-map for a box-world - sadly it occludes way too much of important game area. Namely the ground, and thats not good In best case, allow us to move the gui elements around and rescale the minimap, change its display-scale and change its colors ;p

Hmm, that seems like it would be in the way, too.  But at any rate there's no chance of it getting round or having opacity settings.  But being able to turn it off and just use the M key periodically to show the full map is certainly possible.  Putting the minimap at the top of the screen might be more out of the way in some cases (the surface), but indoors I think it would be more in the way and underground it would be even odds.  And I think it would be uglier up there, all by itself -- that just doesn't feel like an adventure game to me, I dunno.  But if there's demand for it when you see it in practice, we could probably make the minimap anchorable to the different corners of the game, as well as disableable.  I don't really think it tends to be in the way too much now in practice, but we'll see.

1) Love the switch to 2D side scrolling. Makes modding in new characters (And animations, effects, buildings, graphics) SO much easier. And generally is less of a pita in terms of "seeing whats going on"

Glad you like it!

2) But grass should not be drawn on walls and "inverted" surfaces, or at least not the same grass thats drawn on the surface plane. (for the "inverted" surfaces you could do branches and roots) and for walls.. well no grass actually...

Nah, it's a stylistic thing.  I might do some roots and such at some point, but it's not a priority compared to larger visual things.  I like the way this looks quite a bit, honestly.  You can chalk it up to the mangling of the universe if you like.

Still.. with this change there needs to be a lot more stuff to interact with now in the maps (don't mean enemies).. because you essentially reduced the explorable area. Things like magical switches, some arcane to-discover secrets, trap doors, hidden walls, ladders and stairs.... bridges etc.

No ladders, as that requires more animations and doesn't really add much in terms of actual gameplay -- making it an obvious thing to cut.  But switches, keys, doors, secret passages, possibly mechanical stuff that gets triggered, possibly bridges... oh yeah.  All on my todo list.  Plus a number of other things that I haven't mentioned quite yet, for various areas.  But the explorable area is actually larger now than it's ever been, there's just less walking through empty fields. Still, in top down or side view there really is a need for a heavily interactive world; it's something I really believe in when it actually improves gameplay and doesn't add inordinately to the art.  Oh, for instance on the lack of ladders: instead there will be a system of magical "elevators" for lack of a better word.  And a number of other things like that, doing more unique-to-the-world stuff rather than just crates and ladders and stairs and all the regular things.  We'll have some stairs, but not enormously many of them as those are basically the same as slopes outside and they take up a lot of room.

While in top down a puddle can be walked around in side view its a possibly insurmountable obstacle - if we can build wooden bridges then one has to ask whether we can build slopes and stairs as well? ;P

Well, think of it this way -- you're able to build little things inside the world to get around in it, but you're not able to ever add to or destroy the ground itself.  That's one fundamental difference between this and Terraria and Minecraft.  I really feel like an adventure game needs to have solid boundaries in order to actually give a sense of exploration -- when I get lost in Minecraft, I just start digging upwards at an angle until I hit the surface.  That's very fun in Minecraft, but Minecraft is a really different sort of game.  Here the stuff you construct is more rickety in nature, and just for getting around the existing areas you find yourself in, rather than changing the fundamental nature of it.

Anyway, so with that proviso in mind, I'm definitely going to want as many ideas as possible for things of that nature.  Not really quite yet, because there's a lot of stuff more pressing, but that will definitely be a focus going on through beta and afterward.  So we definitely appreciate the ideas.

[c4sc4]

Preface: A very long post is coming. I really tried not to sound rude or bashing in this post, but these are just some worries I have and why. Really, I'm not sure if it comes of as rude or insulting but that was not my intent if it does.

So I saw the change to 2D sidescroller and was shocked, it seemed like you guys completely changed what kind of game AVWW was. After read this very long developer diary, I felt a little better about it. I don't really want to make to rash of judgments on this change until I can actually play it or at least see more of it in the coming weeks but, it really seems like you've destroyed what I was expecting. Although, that really isn't fair either because I never played the previous iteration and only had this idea of what I was expecting the game to be, but after months of seeing this game and getting excited about it, it is a little hard to see the whole thing get turned on its head.

I really liked the faux top-down perspective that AVWW had. It reminded me of Zelda and Diablo (well not really Diablo but kind of) and the idea of having this infinite world of Zelda to play and explore with more RPG elements was really appealing to me. I liked the idea of exploring these huge chunks in this top-down perspective. Maybe though, having not played AVWW, there was something off playing this perspective but, from the screenshots and videos, I really liked it.

I feel that this 2D sidescroller view limits exploration. I mean, I do love the Metroid games (mainly Fusion and Super Metroid but others as well, but not the 3D Prime games for some reason) and Castlevania (well I've only really played SotN) and they do have some fun exploration but, I think a lot of this fun comes from the fact that you gain new abilities to explore (Screwball, morphball, ice beam etc...) that made backtracking and being able to explore new places in old areas fun. Would the Metroid game really be as much fun if Samus didn't lose all of her powers at the start of the game? Maybe that isn't really a fair comparison to AVWW but I feel that it will become more like that after X amount of hours playing were you aren't really getting something new, but maybe I am really far off here.

For some reason, the above doesn't seem to apply (for me at least) for 3Dish games. Dungeon crawler type games, Titian Quest, Torchlight, Champions of Norrath, have randomly generated dungeons that are fun to explore even if you can get to all the areas without having to gain new powers to do so. I really do feel that this has to do with the perspective you are playing in (and I do play these games in a top down perspective).

As for Terraria, I have played ~54 hours of that game and loved it. It is a 2D sidescroller and the exploration is fun, but I think it really has to do with the destructible environments. For example, I find a natural cave and go exploring it, once I reach the end, instead of having to find another cave, I just start digging through the walls until I find some new cave deeper down, likely this cave is completely blocked off from the rest of the world. The game does have a sort of, really stretching it way, Metroid progression to it as in you have to find new materials to craft new weapons and digging tools to be able to better explore the world. I haven't yet reached the last tier of tools, but from what I've read, the game seems to lose most of its fun at that point because you don't have more goals to reach. Maybe I'm wrong about AVWW's exploration and it will be fun like Terraria's and also hopefully AVWW will have more lasting appeal because there will be a lot more other goals than just exploring.

I also feel a little sad that it is going to be a magic only combat. I like the idea before that you could use swords and maybe make a sword that shoots fireballs as well. You don't really like close combat? How about become a mage with tons of spells or go stock up on guns and shoot you foes from afar, possible making you gun shoot fire or ice bullets too. Again, maybe this change will be alright when I see more and if there is a huge variety in the spells.

Another thing on the combat change is the idea of limited use scrolls. I really hate powerful, limited use items. In nearly every RPG I play, whenever I get some rare or limited item, I tend to save it because I don't want to waste it because there may be a more important time to use it. The problem is that the more important time never comes because I always think there will be more important time later on. In Final Fantasy, I never use elixirs or even ethers because of this. In Pokemon, I never use the legendary Pokemon because I fear I'll screw it up and teach it the wrong moves or not properly EV train it (you may not have played the Pokemon games but they have some real surprise depth to the RPG portion of training that really is for the adults who play it). In Elder scrolls games, they have scrolls with spells that I never use because they are limited. Maybe this is more my problem than the games fault though. Also, it may be better in a game where you craft these items because I can craft more but then it falls into the problem of not wanting to waste resources crafting these limited items. I really don't know where AVWW will fall on this point.

One thing I noticed in the video that you didn't seem to address (or I just missed it) is that the characters now have varied colored clothing. Care to elaborate on that? (how did you manage to do that, how much variance will we see, etc...)

Also, I noticed in this video, and maybe it was changed before but, I really like how you changed, on the world map, when new tiles are uncovered that they fade in now instead of swirling in. I think it looks much better.

I think that is long enough for now. I really do want to like AVWW and hopefully as I see more, this change will not seem horrible but will be a good one.

[Ozymandiaz]

Very interesting change.

I do not have time to read it all in this lunch break, but it does look good. I am sad I do not get my miniguns though (not really that sad)

My first impression was actually that of a old Turtles game i Played on the NES. Were you ran around on a map and could enter buildings and such, and fight stuff. In other words, very different then Zelda/FF6 on the SNES, but not bad at all.

I am really looking forward to seeing more

[Pariah8472]

I think this looks fantastic!  I liked the angled perspective, but now having seen it side on, the whole style just seems to fit together better.  I can't wait to enter some of those lava areas, the detail and effects look amazing 

[Ixiohm]

A very interesting change, not at all what I had expected.

I have to admit, I was skeptical at first but reading the extensive blog post has alleviated most of my initial fears. I also think that I would have remained more skeptical if I hadn’t played a lot of Terraria lately; that game has a surprising amount of exploratory depth considering being a ‘simple’ side-scrolling game.

However I still have a few concerns.

My biggest issue with Terraria is the extensive need for backtracking. Sure, I have found a magic item that lets me travel back to my base of operations; but each time I need to get down to the bottom of my excavation tunnels I  have to find a way back down my ant hill of tunnels. I’m glad to hear that you are evaluating different solutions to this problem, and trust that you will come up with some suitable solutions.  An idea that came up was a spell that, the first time you cast it stores the coordinates you’re at and after that it brings you back to those same coordinates.

A second concern is with the “meta third-dimension” when going thru underground doors and doors inside buildings (is this working in the same way?). That sound very interesting, but also as if this cross chunk traveling can get quite complex (which doors leads where). If that’s the case - which I hope it is, more exploration! – I think that Itchykobus idea is a map similar to that of Odin Sphere could be useful for showing the connections between the chunks you have explored.

Anyway, that’s my 2c, hope it came across as constructive critique.

Lastly - just out of curiosity – the lava environments, being as hostile as you describe them, can you get dropped off by a windstorm in them? Or is there some game mechanic that prevents this from happening.

Thanks for a great update, glad to see the progress made.  I eagerly await beta, possibly more so now than before

[Cyborg]

In Final Fantasy, I never use elixirs or even ethers because of this. In Pokemon, I never use the legendary Pokemon because I fear I'll screw it up and teach it the wrong moves or not properly EV train it

I asked the same question. He responded with asking for an amount of trust for balancing. I'm not sure how you achieve scarcity without hoarding, but I look forward to finding out. He understands the point at least, he references the right games that have those problems.

Interestingly, I never felt this way about any of the Castlevania games I've played. Or Zelda. So maybe the secret lies there.