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

[Scorcher24]

It is something that needs to be taught. I've actually looked up the algorithms behind random number generators. I don't quite understand them, but I have looked them up.

Well, if I am writing real world applications I always use boost and the Mersenne Twister.

Code: [Select]

int SystemController::getRandomInt( int min, int max )
{
    boost::uniform_int<> distance(min, max);
    boost::variate_generator<boost::mt19937&, boost::uniform_int<>> dice(m_rand, distance);
    return dice();
}
I was reading through the code of the Mersenne Twister once, I could feel my head exploding. I am not smart enough for that kind of code lol.
Here, good luck surviving it:
http://www.math.sci.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/~m-mat/MT/VERSIONS/C-LANG/mt19937-64.c

[Cyborg]

This is a much more directed title. I wonder if you will find any buyers, or if you have done any focus group work for this. Anyone that was likely to have purchased this kind of a title probably already did with your first version, and for your second version, it's going to be hard to convince people who may have already tried the first version demo and didn't like it. I don't see the return value here, just a fantasy of what could have been.

Move on to shattered haven.

[Panopticon]

Shattered Haven is coming too, so there is no reason to move on.

I know a lot of people who are very interested in Valley 2 but are waiting to see what people who own the first game and didn't like it have to say when the sequel hits.

[Mánagarmr]

I'm definitely a lot more interested in AVWW 2 than I ever was for the first one. We'll see.

[Cyborg]

Well sure, but we already own it. So… back to my point. What player base out there is worth the development effort here in sales?

[keith.lamothe]

Well sure, but we already own it. So… back to my point. What player base out there is worth the development effort here in sales?

For one, those who just couldn't stand the art in the first one, since the art will be all-new in the second.

For another, those who want, as you put it, a much more directed title.

Will it be enough to justify the effort?  I can't predict that.  But given that Chris has already publicly stated that we're doing the sequel, and paid for the art, and sunk about a month of dev time (between us) into it, it's really not likely that we'd just junk it and move on to something else.  The PR consequences alone would be pretty nasty.

Honestly, if anything, the design of this game is more different from the first than sequels are "supposed to be", which I think goes a long way to why it will reach parts of the audience the first one didn't.

[Misery]

Ok, I dont mean to derail the conversation too much here, but I gotta ask:

Beta for this, when is it coming?   Still, uh, November at some point I think it was?  Or did that change?  Or am I remembering something incorrectly again?


This one really cant come soon enough, in my view.

[x4000]

Will definitely be November!  I'm guessing about 3ish weeks from now, give or take a week (give more likely than take, heh).  It's coming along well.

[goodgimp]

This is a much more directed title. I wonder if you will find any buyers, or if you have done any focus group work for this. Anyone that was likely to have purchased this kind of a title probably already did with your first version, and for your second version, it's going to be hard to convince people who may have already tried the first version demo and didn't like it. I don't see the return value here, just a fantasy of what could have been.

Move on to shattered haven.

This isn't meant to be a dis, but your comment strikes me as very myopic. There is a veritable sea of potential customers that wouldn't give the game a chance due to the art style - that alone justifies this. As for the gameplay changes, that seems to me to be an evolution and improvement of AVWW1's gameplay, at least from Arcen's eyes (obviously no one else has seen it so we can't judge ourselves yet).

So, much better visuals and improved gameplay - those two bullet points alone don't strike you as substantial enough for a new project, especially in this day and age? I'll be honest, I'm kind of at a loss from where you're coming from on this one.

[x4000]

There is also the majority of players to consider who have never even heard of the first game at all.  That's what winds up making AI War expansions worthwhile -- we're capturing new players by providing an expansion to the game, since that gets the whole package in their eyes for the first time.  If it weren't for all the new sales of the base game and alien bundle and so forth, then new expansions alone would not be a cost-feasible thing for us to do with AI War.  It would cost us more to make them than we'd get in return.

For AVWW, quite aside from any of the other points, there's a sea of people who like this sort of game but who have not heard of the game.

[Cyborg]

This is a much more directed title. I wonder if you will find any buyers, or if you have done any focus group work for this. Anyone that was likely to have purchased this kind of a title probably already did with your first version, and for your second version, it's going to be hard to convince people who may have already tried the first version demo and didn't like it. I don't see the return value here, just a fantasy of what could have been.

Move on to shattered haven.

This isn't meant to be a dis, but your comment strikes me as very myopic. There is a veritable sea of potential customers that wouldn't give the game a chance due to the art style

I don't mind. I'm aware of the art snobbery, and I think it's a red herring. There are tons of people who play games with crappy graphics, and I wouldn't even say this game had crappy graphics. The problems with it were gameplay related. A lot of those issues look to be fixed, but even I don't know if I'm willing to give it another shot. We're talking about this hypothetical group of gamers who didn't play the game or haven't heard of it; just who are these people and how do you plan to reach them on your second pass?

I want the game to succeed. I do. I have been right about both tidalis prior to its release and valley without wind prior to its release. I'm actually really good at sales and success predictions for games. What I see here is probably the success you would get from an expansion. Hopefully that matches the development effort and art costs.

You may ask why would I bother posting, but it's only out of concern for the studio's sake.

[x4000]

I think the fact that you asked if we did any focus groups indicates a lack of understanding of just how risky indie game development is. Everything is speculative, all the time, and we go by our gut and our analysis and our prior experience. Everything is hypothetical until it happens. I'm glad you care about us enough to post, but suffice it to say we have access to a lot of sales data that you don't and that has substantially impacted our decision making. We looked at the numbers, and this is what made sense as the most likely gamble.

[Krasny]

A Valley Without Wind left me cold.

So I appreciate the generosity of giving me the sequel.

The two main reasons I could not play it were:

1. Controls were awkward and hard to set them up how I wanted to play.

2. It did seem awfully complicated, and threw you in at the deep end, learning curve wise.

[Whiterabbit-uk]

I can't wait to check  it out.  Thanks  for all your hard work. 

[Teal_Blue]

Looking forward to the Beta!