Author Topic: AVWW Launch Week Press Continues To Roll In  (Read 1278 times)

Offline cupogoodness

  • Arcen Games business development/Jack of all trades
  • Arcen Staff
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 320
AVWW Launch Week Press Continues To Roll In
« on: April 26, 2012, 06:50:38 am »
Originally posted: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/04/avww-launch-week-press-continues-to.html

Some wonderful surprises arrived today on the press front for A Valley Without Wind, highlighted by Kate Cox's feature on Kotaku where she raved about the game so eloquently we had to have one of her best quotes added to our game page on Steam.

Rob Manuel gave us a very nice shout out in the 'What You Should Be Playing' portion of his That Indie Game Column.

Will Porter featured AVWW in Hookshot Inc.'s Hot Shot column, calling the title 'a pure-brew indie game.'

Still More Launch Coverage

PCGamer -- A Valley Without Wind out now, demo available

Rock, Paper, Shotgun -- A Valley With A Demo Version

Indie Game Magazine -- 'A Valley Without Wind' Now Available On Steam

PikiGeek -- A Valley Without Wind Released, Gets a Demo

More Videos Too

Check it out: A Valley Without Wind

A Valley Without Wind Gameplay

UserFriendlyGaming -- A Valley Without Wind

Offline KDR_11k

  • Hero Member Mark II
  • *****
  • Posts: 904
Re: AVWW Launch Week Press Continues To Roll In
« Reply #1 on: April 26, 2012, 04:55:54 pm »
Pretty much all news stories have comments that 75% of the time amount to "this is ugly"...

Offline chemical_art

  • Core Member Mark IV
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,952
  • Fabulous
Re: AVWW Launch Week Press Continues To Roll In
« Reply #2 on: April 26, 2012, 05:18:39 pm »
Pretty much all news stories have comments that 75% of the time amount to "this is ugly"...

They are mighty confused.

Because at least one of the reviews has a trailer with it still using the top down  view... which is a shame, because the modern trailer is much nicer.

It's not fair!
Life is short. Have fun.

Offline keith.lamothe

  • Arcen Games Staff
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 19,505
Re: AVWW Launch Week Press Continues To Roll In
« Reply #3 on: April 26, 2012, 06:00:15 pm »
It's not fair!
I find it a tremendous source of comedy :)

It was also fascinating to discover that image compression apparently doesn't (massively, disproportionately) hurt the opinions generated by screenshots/videos from most games, but just does a huge number on stuff from ours.  Almost always, someone seeing it uncompressed in-game is like "oh, well, that's another thing" (not always liking it of course, but very different).

Anyway, I'm not sure if the "it makes my eyes bleed!" crowd is actually just buying it anyway, or if they're just a vocal minority, but the game is selling really well (by our standards) so we're not worried about it.
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games? Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline KingIsaacLinksr

  • Master Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,332
  • A Paladin Without A Crusade...
Re: AVWW Launch Week Press Continues To Roll In
« Reply #4 on: April 26, 2012, 06:02:17 pm »
Think of it this way, it stands out so much ppl will want to play it just to see what's going on ;)

King
Casual reviewer with a sense of justice.
Visit the Arcen Mantis to help: https://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/
A Paladin's Blog. Long form videogame reviews focusing on mechanics and narrative analyzing. Plus other stuff. www.kingisaaclinksr.com

Offline Bluddy

  • Sr. Member Mark III
  • ****
  • Posts: 434
Re: AVWW Launch Week Press Continues To Roll In
« Reply #5 on: April 26, 2012, 09:02:23 pm »
I honestly don't get what people are complaining about graphics-wise. I posted a beautiful screenshot (IMO) in several of the comments on these sites and nobody responded to tell me what's objectively wrong with the graphics.

Offline KDR_11k

  • Hero Member Mark II
  • *****
  • Posts: 904
Re: AVWW Launch Week Press Continues To Roll In
« Reply #6 on: April 27, 2012, 10:39:31 am »
Incoherent style is the main complaint, that everything looks like someone raided a pile of stock model websites and shoved it all into one game.

Offline Bluddy

  • Sr. Member Mark III
  • ****
  • Posts: 434
Re: AVWW Launch Week Press Continues To Roll In
« Reply #7 on: April 27, 2012, 10:46:09 am »
Incoherent style is the main complaint, that everything looks like someone raided a pile of stock model websites and shoved it all into one game.

The thing is, that's a very specific complaint. How many people are exposed to stock models? The average person would have no idea what they are. I've never seen stock models before. Yet everyone keeps parroting this complaint somehow.

To say that they don't match is also curious. Every area has specific models. They're all done up in a very pretty (IMO) style. The houses look very pretty IMO, as does the water tower etc. And they each have their specific locations, where they mostly match the other models.

The only 'ugly' areas are the places where you have a repeating background texture that's not really attractive. Some of the caves have a vivid background, but others are bland. Some rooms have ugly backgrounds that repeat themselves, and the futuristic inside background of hexes isn't so great either. In fact, I'd say there are more ugly repeated backgrounds than pretty ones. But I don't understand the complaint about the models, especially when the style they're rendered in is so nice (again, IMO). And let's not even get into the trees and bushes -- those are really nice, as are almost all the ground textures.