Announcing The AI War Alien Bundle And AI War Two Year Anniversary Sale!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2011/05/announcing-ai-war-alien-bundle-and-ai.html

Has It Really Been Two Years!?
It seems like just yesterday that AI War 1.0 made it's public debut, but it's actually been two years.  And what a busy two years!  In that time we've released three new expansions, changed the game to the Unity 3D engine, added Mac OSX support, created our puzzle game Tidalis, and released version 5.0 of the base game free to anyone who bought 1.0 of the game or higher.

In celebration, of the two-year anniversary of AI War's public debut, we're running a big sale on the entire Arcen Store from today through May 24th.  All of the individual titles are 50% off, and the bundle (see below) is 30% off its regular reduced price.

Two years later and AI War is more popular than ever, with more expansions planned, and with us still making the games we always wanted to make.  We couldn't be more grateful for the support of our players!

Alien Bundle: The AI Isn't Your Only Adversary...
Right from the start, the universe of AI War has always included a few alien craft.  However, it wasn't until each of the first three expansions were released that the three alien races from AI War were fully explored: from the ancient, venerable Zenith; to the short-lived, vicious Neinzul; to the massive Spire.

These first expansions represent something of a watershed for AI War, because these are the only expansions that will be focused on individual alien races.  Future expansions to the game will focus on other aspects of the AI War universe, as well as pulling in a few ships here and there from all three of the races.

That makes these three something of a matched set; and for the first time ever, we're bundling them all together with the base game at more than a 30% discount off their combined total price (and during the two-year anniversary sale, there's another 30% off applied on top of that regular 30% discount).

What's Included In The Alien Bundle?
* AI War: Fleet Command (standalone base game)
* AI War: The Zenith Remnant (expansion 1)
* AI War: Children of Neinzul (expansion 2)
* AI War: Light of the Spire (expansion 3)

Child's Play
When you purchase the AI War Alien Bundle, you're not only  getting a great game and three huge expansions, you're also supporting an important  cause.  Arcen Games is a platinum sponsor of the Child's Play charity, pledging 100% of the profits from sale of Children of Neinzul (excepting any taxes and distributor fees) to helping sick kids in need.  That works out to 9% of the purchase price of the AI War Alien Bundle.

[chemical_art]

These first expansions represent something of a watershed for AI War, because these are the only expansions that will be focused on individual alien races.  Future expansions to the game will focus on other aspects of the AI War universe, as well as pulling in a few ships here and there from all three of the races.

This is why I read these releases. There are always tidbits that reward me for my persistence. I don't know if you have explicitly said this before, but it is the first I've learned about this.

[x4000]

We talked about it some in this thread, but I think that's the first time.  And this is definitely the first time in a press release! Glad you like the tidbits; we try to make each notice more than just a dry explanation of something obvious.

[Giegue]

other aspects? like what? factions or something?

[x4000]

Here's the relevant bit; it was fairly well down in that other thread:

We've had a variety of ideas in mind for a while.  The most obvious one is to do another story-type campaign like the Fallen Spire campaign.  That was really popular, and we now have a great framework for doing that sort of thing. 

Another thing that is pretty definite is that this will be the first expansion that is NOT introducing a new alien race; we're done with that for a while, we have plenty to work with.  Instead I'd like to see a variety of new Zenith and Neinzul ships, and probably a few Spire ones, too.  It would be great to see some new golems, for instance.

Other possibilities that have been rattling around for a while:

1. It might be cool to have some sort of minor factions with a diplomacy sub-component, providing yet another way to win.

2. It might be cool to get into more space phenomena -- black holes, nebulae, asteroid fields, etc.  Though how exactly that would manifest, and whether it would really be feasible, are something I keep going back and forth on.

3. I'd really like to have some other really-different-feeling minor factions, something like the Dyson Sphere but way more involved, that players could interact with.  But I don't have any specific designs in hand at the moment.

4. We've been talking for a long time about possibly doing a map editor, so that players can make and share scenarios of various sorts.  Could be interesting, if there is interest.

5. It could also be fun to do some completely other campaign type, kind of like how Defender Mode is a completely new campaign type.  It might be fun to have something like an Insurgent Mode, where you have just a finite group of ships, and your goal is to impact the AI as much as possible before you die (and thus play for score on that, using a mode-specific scoring system). 

6. Or another variant of #5 would be to have to achieve some goal with a fixed set of forces, which could be sort of like procedurally-generated tactical scenarios, which could be interesting.


And... there's various other stuff that might come up as being interesting, but those are probably my top picks for the moment.  There's no way we could do all of that in one expansion, so we'll wind up going (as usual) with whatever seems the most interesting at the time.  A lot of times I really think that we could just keep doing expansions indefinitely, because there's just never a shortage of ideas -- here we are on version 5 with three released expansions, and we still have so incredibly much stuff sitting around that there's no way it could even fit in another two expansions.  Crazy!

[Echo35]

Two years? Wow, sure doesn't seem like it.

[x4000]

You're telling me!

[Red Spot]

Two years? Wow, sure doesn't seem like it.

Looking at the 1.0 graphics/gameplay video's .. I'd think it does seem like a looong road.

[x4000]

That sort of thing tends to fade from one's mind, though.  It's like with my son, who is almost 9 months old, unbelievably.  It's already hard to believe what he couldn't do just a relatively short period of time ago. 

That duality of "it seems like that just changed" and "it seems like that has been around forever" seems hardwired into the human brain in some weird way.   When I think about what things were like back then, it seems forever ago; when I think about AI War as a general concept, it doesn't seem like it's been that long.

[Spikey00]

You and your team has accomplished a lot in two years, and that's not in consideration of the other projects such as Tidalis.  The game has and will always change, and it seems we're at the point where even more awaits for the followers of AI War.  I am curious to see how many expansions will be available in another two years; imagine, at least four more expansions that will offer more than what we've seen with past packs involving new ships and minor gameplay additions. 

AI War tends to take many forms and we are all eagerly interested to see what you might have planned, or spontaneously concocted from you and your staff's brewing pot, along with the community collective. 


Congratulations on the milestone!

[x4000]

Thanks so much!

[Red Spot]

That sort of thing tends to fade from one's mind, though.  It's like with my son, who is almost 9 months old, unbelievably.  It's already hard to believe what he couldn't do just a relatively short period of time ago. 

That duality of "it seems like that just changed" and "it seems like that has been around forever" seems hardwired into the human brain in some weird way.   When I think about what things were like back then, it seems forever ago; when I think about AI War as a general concept, it doesn't seem like it's been that long.

I know what you mean, but I was more refering to that if you'd have said that the early youtube videos you posted were from '96 (or so) I'd have believed you, in that regard you have done a heck of a lot with this game in 2 years. You probably had some long nights (or very short ones, depending on how you look at it) here and there during those 2 years

[x4000]

Ah, yeah, I gotcha.  The original graphics for the game actually were all circa 1992, so that's not far off.

[blastpop]

I have the base game- but none of the expansions.

In what order should/could they be purchased? I might get one or two of them at this time.  I am interested getting bang and expandability for the buck.

Thanks!

[x4000]

There have been a couple of topics about that, actually -- Zenith Remnant is usually seen as the most must-have out of them, partly because it was the first but mainly because of the sort of things it added. Light of the Spire is the other full-sized expansion out of the mix, and the fallen spire campaign in it is particularly popular these days, too. Hope that helps!