Author Topic: In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor... well, released (Early Access).  (Read 26305 times)

Offline x4000

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Original: http://arcengames.com/in-case-of-emergency-release-raptor-well-released-early-access/



So... many... puns possible.  I look forward to seeing what the press come up with (as long as it's not along the lines of No Man Buy, heh).

At any rate, today has been really hectic and I had to push the release back by one hour so that I could finish getting the video and screenshots up and everything.  And that was even with Cinth doing basically everyone on the screenshots.

I really want to give a huge thanks to everyone who has been such a big help on this game: Blue, Keith, Cinth, Craig, Pablo, and Misery in particular.  But there have been so many other people as well, including in particular garpu and jerith, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some folks, for which I apologize.  And that's not even mentioning the recent raft of testers, who are all thanked on the release notes page.

Cicadabots

All righty.  Speaking of release notes, I'm calling this first build for EA "Alpha 14," because it follows 13 pre-EA demos.  That's on a new release notes page for during EA, since the pre-EA page was pretty darn huge by now.

Suffice it to say, the release notes for Alpha 14 itself are pretty pathetically thin.  It's just been one of those days where a ton of other stuff sucked up the time; that shouldn't be the case tomorrow or the next day, since the big time-sinks today were store-related things and creating the above trailer and so on.

I was up super late last night, so I'm going to actually take off at 5pm today rather than working into the night.  My son really really wants me to push him on the swings in about 10 minutes, too, so there's also that.  He's really excited that this is out now, and that hopefully I won't need to be working weekends constantly again for a while. :)

SewerGlow

Anyhow, I just wanted to say thank you again to everyone, and I hope you enjoy the game.  And I'll have more updates for you tomorrow!

Best,

Chris
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Offline Cinth

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Re: In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor... well, released (Early Access).
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2016, 05:12:09 pm »
 :D
Quote from: keith.lamothe
Opened your save. My computer wept. Switched to the ST planet and ship icons filled my screen, so I zoomed out. Game told me that it _was_ totally zoomed out. You could seriously walk from one end of the inner grav well to the other without getting your feet cold.

Offline Logorouge

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Re: In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor... well, released (Early Access).
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2016, 06:01:46 pm »
Raptor game acquired!
Well, I started playing the game without blowing into a cartridge (which I heard is bad anyway), so you have already improved my raptor gaming right there.

Question: Selecting my native resolution or lower (fullscreen or windowed) leaves me with a partially cut off image, did I forget some obvious basic setting somewhere?

Question 2: The missions are a bit silent, can I add some of my own music tracks somewhere for now?

Apart from that, getting used to the raptor movements and making my first steps into this game has been pretty fun. Also, I didn't expect the turrets to be so talkative. :P

Offline chemical_art

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Re: In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor... well, released (Early Access).
« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2016, 09:36:38 pm »
I am not a raft! I prefer my full title of riff raff thank you  :P

This game has legs I think...I couldn't resist
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Offline Pumpkin

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Re: In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor... well, released (Early Access).
« Reply #4 on: August 25, 2016, 01:15:08 am »
I love the voice. I dislike AI War's "taunts" for several reasons, but that voice really feels... like a true bad guy.
Well, I don't understand all the words, but it might not be the fault of the sound. ;)

And... God... That music! I freaking love it!
I guess it's from Pablo Vegas.
I remember when the first trailers were out, I was surprised by the different swings of tone because of the expectations I built up myself. But this tone really pleases me, and both the music and the voice work with it.
Ah, I'll have these four notes in my head for weeks... I might even dig up my earbud (or buy new, maybe) and put some music in my phone. :D
Is this music in the game? Will it be?

I planned to take this game only to gift it to someone I'm sure will enjoy it (It doesn't sound to be a genre I would truly appreciate, and my fiancée loves raptors, go figure :) ) but now I think I'll take a copy for myself too. That launch trailer really clicked with me.

Any more backstory? More links to the Arcenverse? We're somewhere between Bionic Dues and AI War... So many ways to explore that. Please, don't let the backstory sleep indefinitely like with Starward Rogue. That was really something that disappointed me in the long term.

Anyway.
Good job, Arcen; good job.
Please excuse my english: I'm not a native speaker. Don't hesitate to correct me.

Offline Misery

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Re: In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor... well, released (Early Access).
« Reply #5 on: August 25, 2016, 02:26:47 am »
Theoretically more story for Starward will come later.  Dunno when.

As for this game.... yeah, I wonder that too.  All I know of the story myself is "Robots".  And then you have a raptor for some reason. 

Granted I'm not usually too focused on story in any game but since Arcen's games don't shove it in my face with cutscenes, I do know some of it.

Right now though, with the raptor smashing stuff seemingly at random, I have all I need to know.  All those chairs and tables are clearly connected to the robots.  I have to stop them.

Offline nas1m

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Re: In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor... well, released (Early Access).
« Reply #6 on: August 25, 2016, 03:50:15 am »
Got it first thing this morning. Looking forward to look into your first 3D-venture on the weekend.
Congrats!
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Offline x4000

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Re: In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor... well, released (Early Access).
« Reply #7 on: August 25, 2016, 12:30:48 pm »
Raptor game acquired!
Well, I started playing the game without blowing into a cartridge (which I heard is bad anyway), so you have already improved my raptor gaming right there.

That gave me a good chuckle. :D

Question: Selecting my native resolution or lower (fullscreen or windowed) leaves me with a partially cut off image, did I forget some obvious basic setting somewhere?

Partially cut off image of what?  The entire game, or just some menus, or...?  What are your system specs, and what resolutions are we talking about?  This is a new one to me, for sure.  Is there anything of interest in your output logs?

Question 2: The missions are a bit silent, can I add some of my own music tracks somewhere for now?

I would play with music from a different player (pandora or whatever) on there.  This game probably isn't going to have during-mission music, but there will be ambient sounds and so forth, which I haven't put in yet.

Apart from that, getting used to the raptor movements and making my first steps into this game has been pretty fun. Also, I didn't expect the turrets to be so talkative. :P

Glad you're enjoying it! :)

I am not a raft! I prefer my full title of riff raff thank you  :P

You had me really confused for a bit there, haha.  Then I finally put it together.

This game has legs I think...I couldn't resist

I hope so!


I love the voice. I dislike AI War's "taunts" for several reasons, but that voice really feels... like a true bad guy.
Well, I don't understand all the words, but it might not be the fault of the sound. ;)

Thanks!

And... God... That music! I freaking love it!
I guess it's from Pablo Vegas.

The vocal music on the main menu?  That is indeed him. :)  The other music from the trailers is not him unfortunately.

I remember when the first trailers were out, I was surprised by the different swings of tone because of the expectations I built up myself. But this tone really pleases me, and both the music and the voice work with it.
Ah, I'll have these four notes in my head for weeks... I might even dig up my earbud (or buy new, maybe) and put some music in my phone. :D
Is this music in the game? Will it be?

The trailer music?  It's not in there, but I may add that for something like the victory screen.  I love it also. :)  Originally it was all at one boring tempo, but I introduced two tempo shifts of my own into it to amp it up more.

I planned to take this game only to gift it to someone I'm sure will enjoy it (It doesn't sound to be a genre I would truly appreciate, and my fiancée loves raptors, go figure :) ) but now I think I'll take a copy for myself too. That launch trailer really clicked with me.

Awesome! :D  I'd planned that one for a while, but just finally got it put together yesterday morning literally before putting it up.  I was really pleased with it.

Any more backstory? More links to the Arcenverse? We're somewhere between Bionic Dues and AI War... So many ways to explore that. Please, don't let the backstory sleep indefinitely

It won't sleep indefinitely!  I wrote in more depth somewhere about this, and will do more in general.  But the overall bullet points are:

1. During Bionic Dues the robots were kind of sucky and buggy (the core mechanic of the game).

2. But as we know, those robots eventually became really good killing machines (AI War).  That's like 800 years later, though.

3. After leaving Earth, there was a civil war in space, and that was actually a long time before AI War's actual events, too.

4. Release Raptor takes place even before the civil war, basically when Earth is being abandoned.  However, it's after the point that the robots have become effective enough to push humans off the planet.

5. During the period of Bionic Dues, as we know, Corporations had become the dominant force on the planet.  They owned cities, and they were the ones paying the mech drivers, etc.  Different corps were working on different kind of tech in general (genetics, bioengineering, etc), and the mechs themselves were a lot to do with bionic implants in general, though not bioengineering in the larger sense.

6. At one point between BD and RR, the machines became effective enough to not only defeat the mechs reliably, but actually take them over.  So that whole remote-piloting mechs thing was out the window, and there was no good way to defend humans from robots.  Nukes worked, and a few other approaches (direct assault with tanks or whatever), but those involved a lot of human casualties.  Not that the corporations cared particularly, but it depleted customers as well as available resources for fighting (humans being slow to replace).

7. One corporation was working on genetically-engineered animals to go kill robots, since these would be quicker to replace and also more adept at fighting in ground combat than humans.  And not something that can be overridden or taken over like the mechs.  The raptor that you play as was one of these.

8. Unfortunately things went downhill in a huge way, and humans in general fled the Earth.  I say "in general," though, because the poor underclass was left to die.  The rest of humanity went off into space and had their history unfold into what went on in AI War, but the pocket of poor people who were left on Earth were never heard from again and I'm not aware that anyone came back to check on them (humans were a bit busy in the main, being slaughtered throughout a galaxy and all).

9. This raptor was never actually released to fight the robots at all.  But some of the people who were left behind during the exodus into space found the raptor and thought "eh, why not?  What do we have to lose."  There was a sign there on the wall that said "In case of emergency..."

And that's where things begin.

All those chairs and tables are clearly connected to the robots.  I have to stop them.

Ahahaha. :)

Got it first thing this morning. Looking forward to look into your first 3D-venture on the weekend.
Congrats!

Thank you!
« Last Edit: August 25, 2016, 02:29:33 pm by x4000 »
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Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor... well, released (Early Access).
« Reply #8 on: August 25, 2016, 02:12:46 pm »
Raptor game acquired!
Well, I started playing the game without blowing into a cartridge (which I heard is bad anyway), so you have already improved my raptor gaming right there.

That gave me a good chuckle. :D

Question: Selecting my native resolution or lower (fullscreen or windowed) leaves me with a partially cut off image, did I forget some obvious basic setting somewhere?

Partially cut off image of what?  The entire game, or just some menus, or...?  What are your system specs, and what resolutions are we talking about?  This is a new one to me, for sure.  Is there anything of interest in your output logs?

Question 2: The missions are a bit silent, can I add some of my own music tracks somewhere for now?

I would play with music from a different player (pandora or whatever) on there.  This game probably isn't going to have during-mission music, but there will be ambient sounds and so forth, which I haven't put in yet.

Apart from that, getting used to the raptor movements and making my first steps into this game has been pretty fun. Also, I didn't expect the turrets to be so talkative. :P

Glad you're enjoying it! :)

I am not a raft! I prefer my full title of riff raff thank you  :P

You had me really confused for a bit there, haha.  Then I finally put it together.

This game has legs I think...I couldn't resist

I hope so!


I love the voice. I dislike AI War's "taunts" for several reasons, but that voice really feels... like a true bad guy.
Well, I don't understand all the words, but it might not be the fault of the sound. ;)

Thanks!

And... God... That music! I freaking love it!
I guess it's from Pablo Vegas.

The vocal music on the main menu?  That is indeed him. :)  The other music from the trailers is not him unfortunately.

I remember when the first trailers were out, I was surprised by the different swings of tone because of the expectations I built up myself. But this tone really pleases me, and both the music and the voice work with it.
Ah, I'll have these four notes in my head for weeks... I might even dig up my earbud (or buy new, maybe) and put some music in my phone. :D
Is this music in the game? Will it be?

The trailer music?  It's not in there, but I may add that for something like the victory screen.  I love it also. :)  Originally it was all at one boring tempo, but I introduced two tempo shifts of my own into it to amp it up more.

I planned to take this game only to gift it to someone I'm sure will enjoy it (It doesn't sound to be a genre I would truly appreciate, and my fiancée loves raptors, go figure :) ) but now I think I'll take a copy for myself too. That launch trailer really clicked with me.

Awesome! :D  I'd planned that one for a while, but just finally got it put together yesterday morning literally before putting it up.  I was really pleased with it.

Any more backstory? More links to the Arcenverse? We're somewhere between Bionic Dues and AI War... So many ways to explore that. Please, don't let the backstory sleep indefinitely

It won't sleep indefinitely!  I wrote in more depth somewhere about this, and will do more in general.  But the overall bullet points are:

1. During Bionic Dues the raptors were kind of sucky and buggy (the core mechanic of the game).

2. But as we know, those robots eventually became really good killing machines (AI War).  That's like 800 years later, though.

3. After leaving Earth, there was a civil war in space, and that was actually a long time before AI War's actual events, too.

4. Release Raptor takes place even before the civil war, basically when Earth is being abandoned.  However, it's after the point that the robots have become effective enough to push humans off the planet.

5. During the period of Bionic Dues, as we know, Corporations had become the dominant force on the planet.  They owned cities, and they were the ones paying the mech drivers, etc.  Different corps were working on different kind of tech in general (genetics, bioengineering, etc), and the mechs themselves were a lot to do with bionic implants in general, though not bioengineering in the larger sense.

6. At one point between BD and RR, the machines became effective enough to not only defeat the mechs reliably, but actually take them over.  So that whole remote-piloting mechs thing was out the window, and there was no good way to defend humans from robots.  Nukes worked, and a few other approaches (direct assault with tanks or whatever), but those involved a lot of human casualties.  Not that the corporations cared particularly, but it depleted customers as well as available resources for fighting (humans being slow to replace).

7. One corporation was working on genetically-engineered animals to go kill robots, since these would be quicker to replace and also more adept at fighting in ground combat than humans.  And not something that can be overridden or taken over like the mechs.  The raptor that you play as was one of these.

8. Unfortunately things went downhill in a huge way, and humans in general fled the Earth.  I say "in general," though, because the poor underclass was left to die.  The rest of humanity went off into space and had their history unfold into what went on in AI War, but the pocket of poor people who were left on Earth were never heard from again and I'm not aware that anyone came back to check on them (humans were a bit busy in the main, being slaughtered throughout a galaxy and all).

9. This raptor was never actually released to fight the robots at all.  But some of the people who were left behind during the exodus into space found the raptor and thought "eh, why not?  What do we have to lose."  There was a sign there on the wall that said "In case of emergency..."

And that's where things begin.

All those chairs and tables are clearly connected to the robots.  I have to stop them.

Ahahaha. :)

Got it first thing this morning. Looking forward to look into your first 3D-venture on the weekend.
Congrats!

Thank you!
that's pretty interesting and all and I'm looking forward to it being implemented but.......I had no idea raptors were in bionic dues that must have been something I missed but the real questions is though how can raptors be buggy when their organic?.  :P
(that last part was to do with part one of your explanation of release raptors connection to the arcen verse)
c.r

Offline x4000

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Re: In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor... well, released (Early Access).
« Reply #9 on: August 25, 2016, 02:17:42 pm »
No raptors in Bionic Dues!  This came later.

We had raptors in Valley 1 and 2, though. :)
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Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor... well, released (Early Access).
« Reply #10 on: August 25, 2016, 02:22:56 pm »
No raptors in Bionic Dues!  This came later.

We had raptors in Valley 1 and 2, though. :)
not according to your last post
 ,1. During Bionic Dues the raptors were kind of sucky and buggy (the core mechanic of the game). ,
in fact according to that there was nothing BUT raptors now while I would not be against that as an alternate game mode.
 they are most certainly not in the base game.  :D
c.r

Offline x4000

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Re: In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor... well, released (Early Access).
« Reply #11 on: August 25, 2016, 02:29:46 pm »
Robots!  Ack!  Just fixed it, thanks. :)
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Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor... well, released (Early Access).
« Reply #12 on: August 25, 2016, 02:33:19 pm »
Robots!  Ack!  Just fixed it, thanks. :)
  :D
c.r

Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor... well, released (Early Access).
« Reply #13 on: August 25, 2016, 02:35:50 pm »
also don't forget to actually play invisible ink some time since you did mention you were going to play it after rr released.
c.r

Offline Tolc

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Re: In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor... well, released (Early Access).
« Reply #14 on: August 25, 2016, 04:25:34 pm »
Yay, congrats!  :D Wishing you much success with this one!