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AI War: First Four Years Postmortem (And By Extension Arcen History)

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TechSY730:
Aw man, how did I miss this awesome post for so long and thus had to resort to what would of been a large-ish bump if it wasn't for the fact this was already stickied (as of this writing).


--- Quote from: x4000 on June 18, 2013, 01:54:01 pm ---I will warn you that this is perhaps excruciatingly long of an analysis

--- End quote ---

Hooray!

I love excruciatingly long analyses! (as you can probably glean from some of my own posts. :D)

Thanks for the detail, and the very frank analysis.


--- Quote from: x4000 on June 18, 2013, 01:54:01 pm ---Of course 2013 looks depressingly low if you take it out of context

--- End quote ---

Um, yea, I can think of a very good reason for this. As of this posting, 2013 is less than half way through. ;)
(You do mention that earlier on, so that was covered, but still, I found this "warning" amusing)


I'm still amazed though, that while some of these games may have been financially questionable to downright financial failures, NONE of the games have been bad games from a design or a gameplay perspective. Probably the closest to a "bad" game was Valley 1, and even then, IMO, that was more of a "lack of extra polish" due to that game's model being "hard to polish" (I guess that's one of the reasons why Valley 2 changed a bunch of the core mechanics). The concept and most of the implementation of the game was pretty solid and fun. (In fact, I think I want to do some "spelunking" again soon, if for no other reason than "scratching" my exploration "itch")

eRe4s3r:
A very interesting read.. gonna just add my 2ct's because... well *reasons* ;p

Imo the problem with Shattered Havenwas the lack of a demo. Even after watching a gameplay video I had absolutely no clue whatsoever what the game was about. And even reading about it here didn't help. Of course, had someone told me it's pac-man with exploration, dialog, combat and inventory i'd have laughed and called em a madmen ;p

And A Valley Without Wind..... well lot's of talk about that in the past. AVWW1 was *fun* if slightly unpolished, and AVWW2 was something I don't think should even have been made. What that added in polish it basically lost because by the time people were aware of it.. well we had seen Dust: Elysian Tail ;) Not particularly identically games but after that I will never again want to read "We can't do idle animations" Dust is one of the prettiest and smoothest 2D-Sidescrollers there is. And it made me, who doesn't much like (modern) Sidescrollers, appreciate the genre.

Imo AVWW2 could have been a better (and it's own titled) game with a more unique mechanic, maybe a simulation style town building element where rescuing people and finding cool stuff in a random dungeon and world for the town would have been the main drive. Alas, it has a strategy element very much unlike that... I didn't like it ,/ Now AVWW1 owners got AVWW2 for free, and that was very nice. But I would have bought a new game with a much more unique take on the idea.


AI War and Skyward Collapse are by far the most interesting games in the bunch. I like both, although I don't own Skyward Collapse simply because the gameplay style itself doesn't appeal to me. The game seems very well balanced and fun though. It just isn't for me. AI War is for me, and I love it. Though I still didn't get the last expansion.... ought to get around to that at some point.

And Tidalis... I loved Tidalis. But I hope nobody was surprised that this didn't sell so well. It was a hardcore puzzle game at heart and a very good and unique one at that. But not a lot of people want to puzzle with a reflex element. And some of Tidalis' puzzles require reflexes and precision that no casual player will ever have. Which is why I loved it :D

Either way, I hope to see more strategy/tactics/dynamic/emergent games from Arcengames.  ;D

Cyborg:
AI War is still the reigning masterpiece. I can't get into skyward collapse. Part of it is the appearance, and the other is I feel annoyed by the gameplay. Trying to get enough of this resource, or enough of that resource, and convert those into something else all the while the numbers going around the board…I don't get that "pay off" as a gamer.

But apparently, a lot of people like that! More power to them and congratulations on another profitable title. As long as we still get our AI fix, doesn't really matter. Someday, when it's not profitable anymore, I hope you implement modding so the war never really has to end for good.

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