Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.

[LaughingThesaurus]

While I love the enemies, I'm more excited about the multi-frame attack animations and stuff. 

[Mánagarmr]

I'm just excited to see how the damn thing plays ^^

[Panopticon]

Yep. Chomping at the bit over here too.

[tigersfan]

I'm just excited to see how the damn thing plays ^^

It's pretty different from the first game.

I think it's a lot better. Just this morning I was doing the first bits of balancing out the enemies. They're no where near ready, but, already I think the game is a lot more fun. Of course, I'll admit there might be some bias.

[x4000]

Yeah, getting the movement of the characters, and the interplay of their spells, was done a long while ago.  And we've been gradually perfecting that, and then starting to get numerical balance on the players spells as well.  Now we're just getting into the enemy detailed implementations, although the designs for them were largely complete ages ago (spells aside).  So many things all to do at once for us!  But it's coming together well at this stage, I'm super pumped about this too.

[icepick37]

Yay! I can't wait for beta.    If I had more time I'd totally jump into the alpha.  :p

[Cyprene]

Maybe I wasn't reading the forums at the right time, but I feel like there's more enthusiasm for this release on the Arcen side than there was for AVWW1.

[x4000]

I definitely think that's true.

[tigersfan]

It's true for me, and I was pretty hyped up for AVWW.

[MouldyK]

Maybe because they already learned a lot from the first one's pros and cons and now know that this new game will hopefully be better received due to all things learned over the past year?

I also feel a much better vibe around here than before.

[LaughingThesaurus]

I actually wasn't around then or anything, but I did peruse some very old AI War posts... and Chris seemed very enthusiastic to present his updates, but didn't quite know how to by then. Hadn't figured it all out yet, and was taking feedback, which has led to how awesome this company is. That is, being open to critique, not that the community "made" Arcengames or anything.

But like, I can see less enthusiasm for some of the AVWW stuff. The blog posts about worldgen and stuff were awesome, but I dunno, it wasn't as positive as this was. What I see here are more awesome elements of AI War mixed in with the awesome elements of AVWW, with a fair amount of knowledge-from-experience being put into practice as well. It's almost like every favorite element of the creative process had all come together, at least from the outside looking in. Almost as if like, you know enough to really know what you're doing, but there's enough room for you to make your own interpretations of how to do things as well. It's a happy medium in that they look happy with everything! =D

I might be a bit off on that though.

[Aklyon]

Minor question: will it use a new wiki page for updates? The current AVWW page still has the "we're working on it!" text below the first number.

[MouldyK]

That is, being open to critique, not that the community "made" Arcengames or anything.

I believe that companies who listen to their community do change because of it though. But like you said, not enough to have "made" it.

And Aklyon, I believe it would get it's own wiki page for updates so people don't get confused.

[LaughingThesaurus]

That is, being open to critique, not that the community "made" Arcengames or anything.

I believe that companies who listen to their community do change because of it though. But like you said, not enough to have "made" it.

And Aklyon, I believe it would get it's own wiki page for updates so people don't get confused.

It's their own devotion and passion that makes them great, I feel. You don't get this kind of quality because they're just in it for money... and if you read Chris's blog, you get the abundantly clear message that they aren't just making games for moneys.

[Misery]

I've been off for awhile with travelling, so I'm only just seeing all this now for the first time.

As probably expected, I'll jump for a chance at this, definitely.  I do alot of alpha/beta testing, so I'm used to things like this.  Not to mention I have alot of time to spare.  I'm thinking I've given a good amount of examples over at your Mantis thing of my general style of testing/reporting, so I'd be doing things very similar to that.  Lots of detail.


Excited for the game nonetheless though!   Definitely eagerly awaiting this one, since AVWW the first is one of my favorite indie titles.

And the graphics stuff is looking good so far, by the way.  I think your choice of art studios (or whatever they're called) was a good one.  It'll be neat to see how that all fits together.


And I'm sure you've answered this question before (I cant remember), but what about the music?  Same guy doing it, I hope?   Or even re-using the songs in AVWW 1?