[FILLED] Looking for artist(s) to develop new style for A Valley Without Wind.

[yllamana]

It's really easy to blame the market for not buying the game. It's less easy to figure out how the game could be better in ways that might attract people.

I'll say that among other things, the game is perhaps still lacking in bubble-popping. That is the big problem, and really? At the end of the day, most of the AAA stuff is about bubble-popping and lowering barriers to that bubble-popping. Graphics? They're a big part of bubble-popping, too, as is sound (after all, the reason you pop the bubbles in the first place is the fun pop!).

The UI is also something I've heard singled out as offputting, and it's definitely a bit raw. That's part of the presentation (and it's the first thing the player sees) and could probably do with refinement.

Don't be too quick to write off the gaming market when the game itself is far from perfect.

[Nanashi]

I'd like to reassert a few opinions here to bring the discussion back down to earth:

1) Art is important.

It's all very well to use the time-old saying that "looks don't matter" - but if you're job hunting, you have to look professional and presentable. Soliciting purchases isn't altogether too different - I've already said Bastion is an example of a game that is 80% art/music and 20% actual gameplay. Myst would be somewhat closer to 90%.

I would not say that AVWW's art is bad (I don't think it is), but it I will say that it won't sell nor carry the game on its own.

2) I beg to differ - AVWW is not a complicated game.

NetHack is a complicated game. Dwarf Fortress is a very complicated game indeed.  AVWW does not require much knowledge to master, even with the esoteric citybuilding. There is little strategy behind AVWW, because progress is ultimately multi-linear without opportunity costs. I can describe a foolproof method to 'win' AVWW very easily - complete missions and build structures until you gain the resources to defeat enough lieutenants so that the overlord on every continent is beatable. You can use this same method for every single continent without fail, and your just reward is another continent with bigger numbers (and possibly a few more unlocked hazards).

Trying to describe a foolproof method to win at chess or NetHack would be far, far more difficult, if not nigh-impossible.

3) It's difficult to spread AVWW by word of mouth to my friends. Some games get exponentially better when played with friends (perhaps because they were designed to be played with friends). AVWW is not one of them.

The difference between AVWW and Minecraft/Terraria is also pretty obvious - AVWW is not a sandbox. Up until the citybuilding update, you have little control over the world whatsoever - and unlike in Minecraft or Terraria, where completing a personal project of great effort leads to you wanting to show off and people getting impressed, I can think of no reasons to show my AVWW game to my friends. Additionally, it's just transient - even with the citybuilding (if that for some surreal reason was something I was proud of and wanted to show off), the presence of the next continent eliminates any attachment to the previous one.

Obviously, AVWW doesn't have to be one to do well, but it helps to maintain perspective before saying something is unfair.

4) Ultimately, the problem with procedurally generated worlds is that they are procedurally generated. It's the difference between a cake made by a patissier and a mass-produced one  - and this is the biggest obstacle that AVWW has to overcome.

Edit: If there's ONE thing I could ask you to work on in AVWW (if you wanted popularity), it'd be this: Do something that makes people want to post on Facebook or Youtube or whatever and go "Hey, look what I did in AVWW!". It's not an easy thing to do, but if you find an answer, it'll be worthit.

[Misery]

Yeah, which is why I want side-scrolling for combat, but for building a town and traveling on the world map, a pseudo 3d view (or even a 3d-view) is superior. See Total War or Heroes of M&M

It's just that, I don't see how AVWW could ever have any pull on the masses. It has no feature where you would say "that is totally awesomely unique" and that means you have literally 0 hope to draw in people who don't like SHMUPS because while it is a platformer in a sense, with a story (barely) at the core it is a complex side-scrolling shooter. And imo a game in that kind of genre has nearly no chance nowadays, I mean, no chance to break-through into the million sales.

This is mainly why I think that if the Kickstarter fails, AI War new expansion and then NEW GAME would be the better choice. AVWW is there, and it is what it is. Changing the graphics has as much chance not to draw in a single new customer as it has to draw in a million. The thing is, if Arcengames has other ideas to pursue maybe that should be done instead. Because unlike AI War which is always a different experience, AVWW is essentially always the same so an addon would need to add so much new content that it likely becomes prohibitively expensive. Particularly if the Kickstarter succeeds.

That's the thing though..... not every game is gonna be one of those.    And.... not everyone wants one of those.   Normally I like strategy games, for instance, but I find the total war games to be a bit dull, and frankly a bit strange.    There's the actual "RTS-ish" combat, but then you've got this..... funky management bit that is what you're doing when you ARENT in combat.  And it's like.... cant I just skip this?  Why is this in here?  They're good, popular games, but they always seemed to me like they were never sure what genre they wanted to be in.   Feels like 2 games squashed together, and they also *always* feel like each seperate half would be better off by themselves..... that's the impression I get, anyway.   If AVWW was like that, I'd have lost interest 2 hours in.  I bought the game for procedurally-generated Metroid-vania style action, with some (light) management on the side.  I think it does these things well, though I also think the management stuff isnt finished yet.   If the light management though were to turn into heavy-handed strategy complete with politics and economics and blah de blah, I'd be just done with it, and back to just Minecraft and DF.


I know I dont speak for the whole, but usually when a developer starts really obsessing over "reaching to the masses", this is when I start to lose interest (and no, I dont think that the art-change idea for this game is that, I just mean in general).   THE game that comes to mind with this:  Miner Wars.  It's been in development for AWHILE.   Why?   Because they've been UTTERLY OBSESSED with the graphical engine for a freaking year (and originally, it was supposed to have released..... about a year ago).  Because they see so many people that think graphics are everything (or something).   The game originally looked interesting..... alot of gameplay ideas that I thought might be kinda neat.   And then...... nothing.   For a year.  Because graphics.   My interest in the game isnt just dead, it was brutally murdered with a flaming pickaxe and then thrown into the sun.    THE reason, the central reason, I focus on indie games is BECAUSE most of them dont try to reach to the masses.   They make the games THEY bloody well want to make.  If it only draws a niche crowd?  Then so be it.  If something like Minecraft happens?  Hey, that's great.   And note with Minecraft:  Notch didn't design that to pander to the masses.  He made the game that *he* wanted to make..... and he happened to stumble upon a very winning set of ideas  (and heck, when he finally got tired of it, he didn't hesitate for even a moment to hand it over to Jeb and go work on something completely seperate).  I've always had alot of respect for him for this.

It's really easy to blame the market for not buying the game. It's less easy to figure out how the game could be better in ways that might attract people.

I'll say that among other things, the game is perhaps still lacking in bubble-popping. That is the big problem, and really? At the end of the day, most of the AAA stuff is about bubble-popping and lowering barriers to that bubble-popping. Graphics? They're a big part of bubble-popping, too, as is sound (after all, the reason you pop the bubbles in the first place is the fun pop!).

The UI is also something I've heard singled out as offputting, and it's definitely a bit raw. That's part of the presentation (and it's the first thing the player sees) and could probably do with refinement.

Don't be too quick to write off the gaming market when the game itself is far from perfect.

......what in the world is "bubble popping"?

Though I'm not entirely sure I want to know.   I absolutely and completely DESPISE most AAA games (and this is after actually TRYING them, mind you!), so anything that's a major aspect of most would likely just irritate me....


And the reason I tend to speak against the gaming market as often as I do is because of how unholy boring/bland it's become.   Just how many more super-ultra-grimdark-gritty-brown shooters do we NEED?  It'd be one thing if more of them were honestly creative and different..... like Borderlands' combination of FPS with Diablo loot and RPG elements.... but the vast majority (AKA, nearly all of them) are just clones of some other super-ultra-grimdark-gritty-brown shooter.    That genre is just one example, but it's certainly the most prominent.    Indie games, I find good because the developers will, you know, TRY new things, and be creative, and they dont think that graphics and cutscenes substitute for good gameplay (usually).

That though, is a whole other (10 page) rant, so I'll stop here.

I'd like to reassert a few opinions here to bring the discussion back down to earth:


NetHack is a complicated game. Dwarf Fortress is a very complicated game indeed.  AVWW does not require much knowledge to master, even with the esoteric citybuilding. There is little strategy behind AVWW, because progress is ultimately multi-linear without opportunity costs. I can describe a foolproof method to 'win' AVWW very easily - complete missions and build structures until you gain the resources to defeat enough lieutenants so that the overlord on every continent is beatable. You can use this same method for every single continent without fail, and your just reward is another continent with bigger numbers (and possibly a few more unlocked hazards).

   

I dont think AVWW is SUPPOSED to be hyper complicated though  (and the devs can correct me if I'm wrong on this one....).  Metroid-vania games, and shmups.... the two things it appears to draw nearly all of it's inspiration from..... rarely are.  And complicated can turn players off just as much as "simple" can..... there are SO many players for instance that might really like DF, and will actually say so..... but wont actually TRY it because they immediately assume they cannot handle it.   Nethack, and the entire Roguelike genre, are very similar.   I love the hell outta Roguelikes, but I know full well it's a very niche genre, and I also know full well that pretty much everyone I know ISNT gonna want to play those.   That's fine, though.

The difference between AVWW and Minecraft/Terraria is also pretty obvious - AVWW is not a sandbox. Up until the citybuilding update, you have little control over the world whatsoever - and unlike in Minecraft or Terraria, where completing a personal project of great effort leads to you wanting to show off and people getting impressed, I can think of no reasons to show my AVWW game to my friends. Additionally, it's just transient - even with the citybuilding (if that for some surreal reason was something I was proud of and wanted to show off), the presence of the next continent eliminates any attachment to the previous one.

I have to wonder if this might actually be an issue..... some players thinking they're getting a full sandbox game, because they hear "procedurally generated"..... with games like Minecraft being so big, they may associate that with those, instead of with things like Roguelikes (which were doing it WAY before Minecraft..... and there's also just MORE of those than "sandbox" games).



And I apologize if I should sound a bit snappy here or, more likely, am not entirely making sense.     I kinda blanked out and started thinking about food partway into that, so I kinda lost track of just where in the world I was going with it.

[Ulrox]

I think so too. We've already had LP videos and series from a few pretty popular channels (and lots of smaller ones), though our one time WTF is? video from TotalBiscuit is far and away the most traffic our game has received via Youtube.

As far as getting in contact with these 'popular youtube personalities', I've found that to be about as difficult as getting in touch with any big name press (at least most of the time).

Regardless it's something we've tried and will keep trying. It's amazingly helpful to have someone other than us promote, and perhaps more importantly explain the game when trying to show potential players what exactly they're missing out on.

Totalbiscuit lives and breathes to try to give indies a chance though. I wouldn't think it would be that hard to get in contact with him, but I've not really tried. He has people reading his mail for him and stuff like that.

Edit: I've also just tweeted him about it, but god nows the guy never reads my tweets I bet

Ohh and I agree with misery on everything else. Dont need to write anything more on this subject cause misery has already done so

[x4000]

I'm really not up for a big debate here. But a few points:

1. We're not reaching for a million players. That would be nice, but also unneeded. Depending on the discount levels, 100k-200k would do fine. AI War has hit those numbers and is far more obscure, so don't lecture me about "mass appeal." Rather, our strategy is just the opposite, to appeal very strongly to a dedicated and smaller niche. It's what indies can do that AAA companies can not.

2. In terms of various gameplay deficits the game may have, points taken. I'd like to resolve those. However, I don't think most folks here understand how the PC game market works online these days. It's all about the steam sales. Not being found in their listings, not word of mouth, not even the demo. People buy on impulse when they see something intriguing that is on deep enough discount at the right time. For better or for worse that is the market as of today. So really, improving gameplay has no bearing on our ability to make more income from the game. The only thing that matters is getting more people to decide, during a steam sale, that yes they want to fork out the cost of a coffee for this game. My premise is that the art is the big thing holding this back, based on general reactions.

3. All of the stuff in point 2 sounds cynical and like we don't care about games. But that's just where the dollars come from, which then let us make the kinds of games we want to make. We are being patronized by large numbers of people who buy the game (or not) in a snap decision, and that makes all the rest of the business possible.

4. Yes we are going to also be working on a new game before the holidays. No hints at this time, though. Unless the kickstarter floods us with money and then requires our attention more, we hope to be to beta/preorder of this new game in September. It has already seen 8 months of heavy development, so it is very far along.

5. In terms of the social component and the urge to get friends to see what you are doing in the game or to share with them, that certainly is one secondary vector for spread. That leads to the terraria-like success. I think it even helps some with ai war, though only 30% of ai war players seem to play multi by my rough estimate. In an ideal world this would be a problem that we solve. But it's like putting on your things on your feet and then putting socks on -- that doesn't work so well. The art is a turnoff enough for many people that it even seems to stifle word of mouth from anecdotal evidence.

Hence our focus.

EDIT: That's not to say that your efforts a spreading the game via word of mouth are pointless. To the contrary, that's been absolutely instrumental for AI War through forums far and wide. But generally most forums that discuss AVWW seem to devolve into slamming the art pretty fast these days, too.

Arguably better art will even help with the sense of exploration and adventure for all of us. It's more exciting to be exploring a cool-looking world.

[x4000]

Back to the subject of art, just how in love with studio g are people? Their estimate for the whole project is more like $50k instead of $30k with studio h. That makes a kickstarter that much less likely to succeed.

Also bear in mind that some of the studio h stuff is very sketch-like because these are storyboards, and once the general style is found then we come to a final style with h that incorporates many elements. For instance #1 is very sketchy, but it has an amazing sense of perspective, scale, and style. Just not detail. I think that one was done with their sketch artist.

Now imagine that person laying down sketches, and then the details being filled in in the style of one of the other three. And bear in mind there are still four more upcoming pieces from this studio, as well as a painterly piece from studio k to arrive soon.

[yllamana]

I like G a lot more than H so far, but it's been my understanding that all of the H pictures are works in progress where the G ones have been more or less representative of the final style. Not really a fair comparison! Also, how well they animate could be a pretty big deal too.

[zebramatt]

G have managed to produce something which is stylistically exciting and appropriate for Valley in the quickest timeframe for a fairly decent estimated price. That makes them incredibly difficult to discount at this stage. 60% harder? Maybe not. Adages about birds, hands and bushes are nonetheless appropriate.

H are starting to close in on something, for sure. For me, something with the aesthetic of 1 and the detail of 4 above would completely blow G out of the water - making it No Contest. But can they get there, hearts-and-minds, as G did so very quickly? And if (when) they do, will they be able to maintain the momentum? Their collaborative approach is a certain kind of advantage; but is it also a hindrance?

Basically, we (I) don't have enough information all round - but my gut says stay the course for now and see where we're at once H get something concrete together.

[Ulrox]

1. We're not reaching for a million players. That would be nice, but also unneeded. Depending on the discount levels, 100k-200k would do fine. AI War has hit those numbers and is far more obscure, so don't lecture me about "mass appeal." Rather, our strategy is just the opposite, to appeal very strongly to a dedicated and smaller niche. It's what indies can do that AAA companies can not.

Sorry if I sounded like I was lecturing. That was not the point at all. I simply made the point - I'm not a video game developer so I obviously dont know more about market functions than you do.

[Shroom Mage]

Studio G's stuff looks very good, but I think the more painterly style of Studio H a little better. Pixel art would also be nice, but after looking at the sketches, I think painterly works better, especially considering the unpredictable nature of world dungeon generation.

I only just found out about this game a day or two ago. Someone on Steam asked me if it was any good because it was on sale. I hadn't even heard of it. I checked the store page was really turned off when I saw the screenshots. He tried it out and said I should too so we could maybe get the 4-pack, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

The only reason I haven't purchased the game yet is because I want to find two more people and get the 4-pack. Once I tried it, I was immediately impressed. I couldn't figure out how I hadn't heard of it before. I thought that maybe it had just come out. Surely the Internet was now abuzz with news of its arrival.

The graphics actually aren't so bad once the game is running. They're just... odd. I learned that they could be modded, and I figured that since the game must be popular, I could probably find a website dedicated to AVWW mods. I stumbled across this thread before finding any texture packs at all.

I was surprised when I discovered that the game had been out for months already and never achieved a great deal of popularity. After reading the thread and considering my initial judgement, I think it's obvious why.

It's an interesting point in time to jump on board, but I'm really looking forward to seeing how this evolves.

[x4000]

1. We're not reaching for a million players. That would be nice, but also unneeded. Depending on the discount levels, 100k-200k would do fine. AI War has hit those numbers and is far more obscure, so don't lecture me about "mass appeal." Rather, our strategy is just the opposite, to appeal very strongly to a dedicated and smaller niche. It's what indies can do that AAA companies can not.

Sorry if I sounded like I was lecturing. That was not the point at all. I simply made the point - I'm not a video game developer so I obviously dont know more about market functions than you do.

Sorry, I didn't mean that to come off it like it sounded.  I'm just extremely stressed these days, to the point that I was quite ill yesterday.

[Hearteater]

I'm just extremely stressed these days, to the point that I was quite ill yesterday.

When your stressed, just remember you are awesome.  Some guy on the internet said so, and he seems like a pretty trustworthy kinda fellow.

[LayZboy]

I absolutely and completely DESPISE most AAA games (and this is after actually TRYING them, mind you!)

I lol'd.

[x4000]

I'm just extremely stressed these days, to the point that I was quite ill yesterday.

When your stressed, just remember you are awesome.  Some guy on the internet said so, and he seems like a pretty trustworthy kinda fellow.

 

[Stx11]

Back to the subject of art, just how in love with studio g are people? Their estimate for the whole project is more like $50k instead of $30k with studio h. That makes a kickstarter that much less likely to succeed.

Also bear in mind that some of the studio h stuff is very sketch-like because these are storyboards, and once the general style is found then we come to a final style with h that incorporates many elements. For instance #1 is very sketchy, but it has an amazing sense of perspective, scale, and style. Just not detail. I think that one was done with their sketch artist.

Now imagine that person laying down sketches, and then the details being filled in in the style of one of the other three. And bear in mind there are still four more upcoming pieces from this studio, as well as a painterly piece from studio k to arrive soon.

Ideal solution... get H to produce something close to the style and quality of G (with I'm sure their own touches and flourishes). In what's become a somewhat blunt thread, focus most on what's important. The are does NOT need to be amazing, just "good enough" to get people to look at and buy it on Steam. It's the gameplay that will sell the game long-term.

Speaking of "long-term" - how interested are you (or the studio) in an "initial commission" followed by "micro-updates" with new spells, gear, "cosmetic enhancements" (hair/appearance stuff, or building/settlement art, etc)?

Because if that is something that you (and/or they) are interested in, then your comfort working with them in a long-term relationship also comes into play, but might also give you the possibility to structure a different kind of contract/deal based on ongoing work.

I love the 1 (ONE) concept piece I've seen from G, but I hope you've seen more from them, as basing the decision on one mockup seems risky to me. H seems to be truly "hungry" for the job - redoing work, providing a variety of examples, and also negotiating price. There's certainly something to be said for that.

I'm truly sorry to hear how this is stressing you out and affecting you physically. I'm trying to steer all my friends to your games now as I have amazing respect for both the quality and types of games you produce.

I really hope that one day I'm able to pop on these forums and read a "Remember when?" thread about the AVWW 1.x days before the art change, the game's deserved resurgence, and all the features added to it 2.x-5.x