Valley 2 Official 1.001-1002 "Mouse Aiming For Those Who Stood And Fought" Relea

[madcow]

I haven't really seen any reviews for AVWW yet. There's only one on metacritic. Is it usual to take a week+ before they start coming out?

[x4000]

Generally it takes a week to a month after the reviewers get their hands on it.  With AAA games, since they have to go to manufacturing they have a month delay anyhow, so stuff is ready right at launch.  With indie games, there's not usually a lag quite like that unless the indie is unusually flush with cash or unusually low on fixed expenses.  In our case we got the game in the hands of maybe six reviewers a week before the game came out, and then in the hands of 300ish more at launch and after.  A lot of those 300 are youtubers or what have you, etc, too.

There's been a lot of interest in reviewing the game, frequently 1-2 requests from the press coming in per hour during US working hours over the last week.  We'll see how this really winds up going in the end, but there's nothing out of the ordinary yet (aside from an above-average interest in talking to us at all on the part of the press).

[Pattoe]

The above-average interest in reviewers getting you involved in reviews does not surprise me at all. I can imagine this title has raised the eyebrows of a lot of reviewers and Youtube personalities. Not only does the game play in a very unique style but the business model behind the game is very curious. Not often do developers give their core customer base a full game for free. I bet that move has given you quite a bit of publicity.

[x4000]

To some extent, yeah.  Thus far it's not exactly putting food on the table, but we'll see how it goes with time.

[Pattoe]

To some extent, yeah.  Thus far it's not exactly putting food on the table, but we'll see how it goes with time.

It might not be a profitable strategy in the short run but you're building a great image for yourself and building a lot of consumer goodwill. I couldn't imagine any reviewers or personalities in the gaming industries questioning Arcen Games' ethics regarding consumers.

[x4000]

Yeah, I think that's working out well at least.  In the short term we have to really focus on getting Shattered Haven out the door or else major layoffs come in April, though.  I had hoped for a better short-term start for Valley 2, but I'm pleased in general with how it's long-term prospects look.  And I'm really proud of how the project itself has turned out.

[Panopticon]

@Misery

Well I was mainly talking about the technical features.. like fog + smooth light volumes. ^^ And the way backgrounds in caves mixed with the assorted flowers and glows looked... you can't tell me that wasn't nice to look at in Darkout Just think as a 2D game the game (AVWW) lacks some features that are required nowadays. Like color mapping and light sources that interact with fog... ;p

But yes, apart that the graphical style is of course subjective, the feature comparison is objective at least.

The only thing 2D about Darkout is the perspective. Everything else is 3D models, polygons all that stuff. You may prefer the look but it's not exactly a valid comparison. Personally I vastly prefer the look and feel of 2D hand drawn artwork over a bunch of shiny modern effects, and I'm not alone.

Arcen has always used traditional 2D graphics, and it's one of the things that I like about their games.

[keith.lamothe]

Arcen has always used traditional 2D graphics, and it's one of the things that I like about their games.

Well, a lot of it is renders from posed 3D models, and it's all drawn as rectangular quads (two triangles stuck together) by a 3D graphical engine, but yea

[Panopticon]

Ewww. It was hard to tell what it was in the videos I'd watched. I've never really liked that technique much. At least with 2.5D or whatever it's called if you throw enough artists and money at it, it looks absolutely awesome.

Qasir Al-Wasat is a game that uses 2D techniques similar to Valley 2 and its looks have reviewed favorably. The perspective is different, top down instead of a side view, but everything is hand drawn and uses animation frames.

[eRe4s3r]

@Misery

Well I was mainly talking about the technical features.. like fog + smooth light volumes. ^^ And the way backgrounds in caves mixed with the assorted flowers and glows looked... you can't tell me that wasn't nice to look at in Darkout Just think as a 2D game the game (AVWW) lacks some features that are required nowadays. Like color mapping and light sources that interact with fog... ;p

But yes, apart that the graphical style is of course subjective, the feature comparison is objective at least.

The only thing 2D about Darkout is the perspective. Everything else is 3D models, polygons all that stuff. You may prefer the look but it's not exactly a valid comparison. Personally I vastly prefer the look and feel of 2D hand drawn artwork over a bunch of shiny modern effects, and I'm not alone.

Arcen has always used traditional 2D graphics, and it's one of the things that I like about their games.

Actually the ONLY thing that is 3D about darkout are the characters and assorted tools they use or hold... the rest of the environment is 100% sprite based. I wouldn't have brought it up if I didn't know exactly how the game works

[Panopticon]

Yeah, that's a valid point. I think it doesn't completely invalidate the point that I made though. Sure the assets are implemented in a similar way but the method of how they are produced is completely different.

Personally I feel like the hand crafted style of Valley 2's art is the better of the two games. I also prefer good cell animation like Disney's classics to the CGI of modern animated films. It's just my personal preference when it comes down to it. I also believe the hand drawn, frame animation style will age better than the techniques games like Darkout use.

[keith.lamothe]

Ewww. It was hard to tell what it was in the videos I'd watched. I've never really liked that technique much. At least with 2.5D or whatever it's called if you throw enough artists and money at it, it looks absolutely awesome.

In case it wasn't clear: by "a lot of it" I'm talking about compared to everything we've done.  Valley2 and Tidalis have primarily hand-drawn (rather than rendered-from-3d) art.

[Panopticon]

Ah, gotcha. I think. I could still be confused, it happens, more often than I like.

I guess my ultimate point though is that all of this is terribly subjective, and I think that Valley 2 has a very "pretty" art style in its own right.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Now if you want a beautiful sprite based game, look at Knytt Underground. In terms of lighting effects and assets, it looks really pretty.

[x4000]

Valley 1 was the one that had all the art 3D rendered first and then post-processed.  Valley 2 is all hand-drawn from the ground up, just to be clear.