Exodus Of The Machine Teaser 1

[keith.lamothe]

What are the aspects you want to push the most?

That every decision matters towards how well you do   The rest is just fleshing out what kinds of decisions and consequences we mean.  Normally said fleshing out could wait until the bulk of the trailer or whatever, but I think we need at least some of it up front because otherwise "every decision matters" just blends into the background of every other game that's ever claimed that.

As far as the pressure: every day of travel (in the OT sense) is a turn, and you've got a finite number of turns to reach the end.  The game doesn't tell you how long you have (because the characters would not know), just that you need to be efficient with time.

How many turns you come in "under par" counts towards your score (and some other stuff, but I'm holding onto that info for now), as does the difficulty level, how many people are left alive (and in what condition), leftover equipment, whether certain events happened, etc.

[Teal_Blue]

But how do you concisely and compellingly communicate "Every round of offworld ammunition fired, every wound sustained, every medkit or power-pack used, every reputation-change from a choice, every bit of food gathered or eaten, every day spent... every consequence is permanent to your survival and your catching up to the Core before it's too late"?  I mean, I imagine that sentence is neat to some people, but if we tried to lead a trailer with it (verbatim, I mean)... well, I don't think that would work out very well.  So what do we say?  We're tossing around ideas internally, but feedback from you (and the rest of the folks here) is certainly welcome.  Though of course that will be easier when you can play the actual game.

And more generally the same problem exists when trying to communicate that we make thought-provoking games that reward creativity, discovery, etc.  Communicating that-we-do-that concisely and compellingly and (as you mention) non-condescendingly is actually in some ways more difficult than actually doing it   Suggestions welcome.

This is just a thought, but what if you had a video of gameplay, that shows a bit of the story, perhaps the ship crashing, or just the picture of the crashed ship, then goes into gameplay, for say a minute to a minute and a half? Or even two minutes to two and a half? But the main critical requirement is NOT to have any text, no explanation, no this is what this MEANS... sort of text or voice-over or anything. JUST the gameplay and perhaps of course Pablo's music. 

This way you are not leading your audience, you are letting your audience take a look at the game and either lead or leave it themselves. I mean, maybe its rather passive marketing, but at least you don't have people dumping saying, what does this mean?

All of this is only my opinion of course, and i agree with what you said earlier, about people seeming sometimes to be happier to see people fail. I don't understand people sometimes, or maybe its just the internet mindset, or the anonymous mindset. Or the modern mindset. Too much hate out there in the world lately. Scary stuff. Anyway, i think your Exodus title looks very interesting, i like the style, am looking forward to seeing how it plays. 

-Teal

[Echo35]

This is just a thought, but what if you had a video of gameplay, that shows a bit of the story, perhaps the ship crashing, or just the picture of the crashed ship, then goes into gameplay, for say a minute to a minute and a half? Or even two minutes to two and a half? But the main critical requirement is NOT to have any text, no explanation, no this is what this MEANS... sort of text or voice-over or anything. JUST the gameplay and perhaps of course Pablo's music. 

You can certainly draw a survival and resistance fighting back kind of theme from no dialogue or test at all. Just lots of creative imagery

[Nanashi]

I really don't mind HCS much. I wouldn't say they do memorable or noteworthy art, but they do it competently and quickly (Okay, so I quite dislike the player sprites in Valley 2, but that's irrelevant personal taste), which is probably far more important to game development.

I'm conflicted a bit about the continuity - Although I love strategy games, I still have yet to try AI War because it looks like micromanagement tower-defense-hell on an accelerating-to-unmanageable basis. My style of playing has always been to micromanage a handful of elite units and carve a path of near-unstoppable destruction rather than to micro-macromanage an entire world and fight 30 wars at once. Is there a sort of quick guide to AI war lore? Or maybe that won't be important.

[Panopticon]

The lore in AI War is definitely in the background more than anything else in the game. The last two expansions have had more lore stuff in them though.

As far as micromanagement goes, AI War is really only as micro heavy as you make it. I know it doesn't look that way but managing your fleets, planetary defenses and economy is the easy part. The hard part of AI War is learning how to filter the information at your disposal to see what's relevant to your planning and how to act on this information. The interface has any tool you could want to access and filter information. You can even pause the game at any time to soak up the details and make informed decisions. In many ways AI War is an information war, or at least it is the way I play it. I try to hide as much of my capability as possible, scouting for enemy infrastructure and force composition. You don't really have to worry about managing unit abilities or watching cooldown timers. Most of the game I usually have only two or three fleets with at least one of them being a purely defensive force.

And if all you really care about is the lore stuff you can always look at the AI War wiki. If you enjoy RTS at all though I think you should spend some time with the game. It's unique and once you get over the initial hump of learning the game's conventions I think you'll find a tactical and strategic wealth that is in a league of its own.

[tigersfan]

Not to get too far off topic... but... Nanashi, AI War has a pretty good demo. Give it a shot and see if the game fits for you.

[keith.lamothe]

I really don't mind HCS much. I wouldn't say they do memorable or noteworthy art, but they do it competently and quickly (Okay, so I quite dislike the player sprites in Valley 2, but that's irrelevant personal taste), which is probably far more important to game development.

My tastes are similar to yours on that particular point, at least.  Though they were better than the AVWW1 player sprites.

Anyway, it's hard to evaluate an art studio on one game, because so much of it is coming through the "lens" of the game studio's requirements and whatever chipper-shredder of manipulations (both during development and at runtime) is involved in getting it into the game.  With this project we're trying pretty hard to not get between you and the quality of the art.  Can't do that with every game idea, but it's worth a shot.

Although I love strategy games, I still have yet to try AI War because it looks like micromanagement tower-defense-hell on an accelerating-to-unmanageable basis.

I... (looks speechless for a moment) ... I'm trying to be polite here, but honestly I'm not sure what game you could be talking about  

(the rest of this post is on AIW, not on Exodus, in case some bystander could be confused on that point)

There is some micro in AIW, and as you're learning the game things will take longer (in player wall-clock-time) than they will later, but overall the game is far lower on micro than any other RTS-like game I'm aware of (though I don't have a lot of time to try tons of other games).

My style of playing has always been to micromanage a handful of elite units and carve a path of near-unstoppable destruction rather than to micro-macromanage an entire world and fight 30 wars at once.

For initial learning I suggest leaning mainly on the fleet ships (little guys) but then you could try a starship-heavy game (starships are much larger individual units) and just use the fleet ships for support (on low enough difficulty you can probably get by with just the starships on offense and use fleet ships for defense).  Even if you have a fleet with 1000 units, though, remember this is a strategy game rather than a tactics game.  The tactical portion is important but unless you're playing really high difficulty you don't have to micro much at all to simply achieve local superiority (casualties can be high, but you can learn to control that).

For more of the elite-unit experience you can later try the Champions (basically immortal hero units)  in the Ancient Shadows expansion or the Fallen Spire campaign of the Light of the Spire expansion.  Or the Golems in the The Zenith Remnant expansion, though you'll want to support those due to their irreplaceable nature.

Defense is mostly a matter of setting up the turrets and other fixed stuff, and optionally setting some mobile units to FRD, and only paying attention when an attack is going after you that you think has a serious chance of cracking something.  You can have rebuilder units and engineers on FRD that will automatically rebuild and repair any damaged/destroyed fixed defenses, and a local space dock to replenish any lost mobile units.  And you can set a control on the planet to have the command station automatically build more rebuilders/engineers up to your specified quantity on that planet (or just all planets you own) in case they die too.  And a control that automatically puts them into FRD when they're built.  Nowadays the rebuilders can even rebuild a destroyed command station (that's what makes the planet yours) once its disruption timer is up.

I could go on for quite a while, but suffice it to say the thing is designed to avoid unnecessary micro for the most part   It can take a while to learn, but there's a number of tutorials and if you have any trouble there's a forum of generally-pleasant people, many who actively enjoy helping other people learn the game and figure out strategic problems.

Anyway, like Josh, I encourage you to give the demo a try.

Is there a sort of quick guide to AI war lore? Or maybe that won't be important.

Exodus's storyline comes before the AI War, and honestly there isn't much lore in AIW (though there is a chunk in the Fallen Spire campaign of LotS, and basically Exodus is explaining a lot of what led to certain pieces of that narrative, among other things).  I think you'll enjoy Exodus more if you've played AIW, but it's just a bonus to the experience rather than the core of it.

[Cyborg]

"One sack of tools and your wits. Is that enough?"

Subliminal attack on masculinity unintended.

[Cyborg]

I'm conflicted a bit about the continuity - Although I love strategy games, I still have yet to try AI War because it looks like micromanagement tower-defense-hell on an accelerating-to-unmanageable basis.

No. Very much macro management. It originally incorporated a lot of tower defense mechanics, but there's plenty of giant space battles to go around.

[x4000]

"One sack of tools and your wits. Is that enough?"

That's an awesome line!

[madcow]

"One sack of tools and your wits. Is that enough?"

Subliminal attack on masculinity unintended.

Can we play as Felix the cat?

[Cyborg]

It can take a while to learn, but there's a number of tutorials and if you have any trouble there's a forum of generally-pleasant people, many who actively enjoy helping other people learn the game and figure out strategic problems.

Yes. Go on and pick up the title. You'll be glad you did. Then join us in the AI forums as we dissect one of the best strategy titles out there.

[Cyborg]

"One sack of tools and your wits. Is that enough?"

Subliminal attack on masculinity unintended.

Can we play as Felix the cat?

That would be one sack, a tool, and your bits, which is an entirely separate title.

[Aquohn]

Will there be a planet-naming contest for this one too?

I WANT MAH FREE GAME TO HELP DEVELOP AN AWESOME GAME

[Aquohn]

On the topic of taglines, perhaps we could play on the AI War one?

You know:

"You are outgunned. You are massively outnumbered. You must win." These are your orders.

This was the clincher for me that got me hooked on the goodness that is ArcenGames.