Achron

[Wingflier]

Has anybody tried it?  I read several reviews then played it myself.  It has amazing concepts and ideas with the time manipulation aspect, but the execution of the game seems fundamentally flawed.  The graphics are horrible, the skirmish AI only plays 1 of the 3 races (and is easy to beat), and the pathfinding isn't very good either.  I guess the developers are working hard on the pathfinding and should be releasing a patch for it early next week, but that only solves one of the major problems.

I really want to like this game.  The ability to jump back and forward through time and make decisions is awesome.  I feel bad for the developers as well, since apparently the game has been in production for over 10 years now.  I can only imagine how difficult it would have been to make such a complex time-manipulation system (and the result is stellar btw), but if the rest of the game is subpar, I find it very hard to enjoy.

What are your thoughts?

[zespri]

This game appeared on my radar about half a year ago when I spotted its banner is a signature on this very forum. (I think it was RICX who has it). I read some reviews and I think I may even watched some game videos, but I've never played it.

The conclusion was that it was one of those games that are awesome on paper, but may be not much as fun in reality. I'm sure that the game has its devoted followers and if you can like it that much - good for you. For me however, the graphics looks dated and I'm not sure that the time-line concept is that cool as it sounds. It certainly makes the game play challenging, because humans are not used to think this way, but that would be the case of difficult vs interesting. Sometimes game designers make rules difficult on purpose, to keep players interest but it's not always fun. (In AI War we have this lot of ships and combination their interactions, that Chris made not possible to predict quite on purpose and in this case this worked out well, however some people keep asking, why is that that it has too be that complex).

Anyway, try playing Archon, and report back if you enjoyed it!

[Ozymandiaz]

This game appeared on my radar about half a year ago when I spotted its banner is a signature on this very forum. (I think it was RICX who has it).

Same here. I picked it up, but so far only tested the first mission. Will test a bit more before I really can judge it, but it is an interesting idea

[Cyborg]

From my perspective, it looks like a cash grab. If the game is really missing that much, really basic stuff, that probably means the developer needed the money now for some reason. I wonder if that has to do with the Department of Defense being interested and thus needing a larger team/more resources?

[Echo35]

This game appeared on my radar about half a year ago when I spotted its banner is a signature on this very forum. (I think it was RICX who has it).

Same here. I picked it up, but so far only tested the first mission. Will test a bit more before I really can judge it, but it is an interesting idea

I've been following it for a year or so and picked it up in the beta, about a month ago. I enjoy it quite a bit. Yes the pathfinding is bad (Which is more a flaw of the fact that he wants it to have relatively low system requirements for playability, but the time mechanics suck almost all of the allocated CPU), and the AI is chronal and worthless (I assume for the same reasons. Temporal processing takes up a lot of time). I'll admit there are a number of technical issues. I'll also admit it's the most damn fun I've had with an RTS in a good while. Multiplayer makes my brain hurt!

[Wingflier]

In terms of multiplayer, how hard is it to find a match?  Obviously, it seems like the game shines in the multiplayer category, but some reviewers were saying that the MP lobby kind of looked like a ghost town.  Do you have friends you know that you play it with or is it that quick to find a game?

[Hearteater]

I just tried to imagine a 8 person free-for-all in this game.  My computer threatened to kill me.  So did my brain.

[eRe4s3r]

If i'd judge it by concept alone it would be awesome, sadly in the age of 2011 this game is the saddest excuse of an RTS I ever played.

AI War uses sprite graphics exactly because doing it all 3D'ish and flashy would detract from the gameplay, for no real gain or benefit. Achron should have done the same, do really nice sprite graphics and make 2D maps, or make it a space-game, really anything to get it of those butt-ugly planets.

Now as i am 3D Artist i judge it on this basis, and the 3D part of this game is terrible. I don't really mean the units, i mean the effects, the maps, the textures, the engine itself. The lighting particularly is horrible and there ain't any "CPU" excuse for that, the GPU does all these things, and its pure laziness NOT do a proper graphics engine when the game is a 3D-ground-rts. The graphics API's all support EASY access to light and dynamic light routines ... even a first year student can code an half-way working OpenGL engine and the coders working on Achron clearly are superbly skilled.. which begs the question.. WTF?

Now the game also is fundamentally flawed because of the TERRIBLE unit AI, which makes it a micro-management hell when your units are in the past or in the future (and you are in the past ,p) (and i want to say, this is what i said even in the Alpha) comes Release, and the pathfinding and unit AI is still the worst of any RTS ever made. The "grouping" system is also one of the silliest things ever developed and is basically only in the game because pathfinding and unit AI are broken. the last thing you want in this game is for all units to move slow when in combat.

So this comes to a saddening conclusion, as a RTS Achron sucks. As an "proof of concept" its awesome.

[Wingflier]

If i'd judge it by concept alone it would be awesome, sadly in the age of 2011 this game is the saddest excuse of an RTS I ever played.

AI War uses sprite graphics exactly because doing it all 3D'ish and flashy would detract from the gameplay, for no real gain or benefit. Achron should have done the same, do really nice sprite graphics and make 2D maps, or make it a space-game, really anything to get it of those butt-ugly planets.

Now as i am 3D Artist i judge it on this basis, and the 3D part of this game is terrible. I don't really mean the units, i mean the effects, the maps, the textures, the engine itself. The lighting particularly is horrible and there ain't any "CPU" excuse for that, the GPU does all these things, and its pure laziness NOT do a proper graphics engine when the game is a 3D-ground-rts. The graphics API's all support EASY access to light and dynamic light routines ... even a first year student can code an half-way working OpenGL engine and the coders working on Achron clearly are superbly skilled.. which begs the question.. WTF?

Now the game also is fundamentally flawed because of the TERRIBLE unit AI, which makes it a micro-management hell when your units are in the past or in the future (and you are in the past ,p) (and i want to say, this is what i said even in the Alpha) comes Release, and the pathfinding and unit AI is still the worst of any RTS ever made. The "grouping" system is also one of the silliest things ever developed and is basically only in the game because pathfinding and unit AI are broken. the last thing you want in this game is for all units to move slow when in combat.

So this comes to a saddening conclusion, as a RTS Achron sucks. As an "proof of concept" its awesome.

That's pretty much the conclusion I came to as well.  I really WANT to like this game, but it fails in all the important ways.

[BobTheJanitor]

From some cursory examination of their forums, it appears that they are sort of in the Arcen boat of being a little indie developer and having to work with what they have available. They simply don't have anyone to do art for them outside of volunteers. Not that I'm saying it doesn't look pretty terrible for a game released in the last decade. They also apparently thought for a long time that their time sim took so much CPU that path-finding AI was impossible to fit in. Of course, then they found a bug that was apparently causing the path-finding issues just recently. So, oops.

Also it sounds like they drastically tried to over complicate their gameplay. It seems to fit to a starcraft-ish sort of style, as far as I can tell (never having played Starcraft) but with some weird bizarre methods by which new units are built (for some races, at least) and so on. If you're introducing a mechanic as complex and exciting as time travel that really works in-game, you want to make the rest of your game as streamlined as possible so as not to detract from your star mechanic. This, they don't seem to have done.

The real killer for me is the double punch of having no demo, and of charging 30 dollars for it. 30 dollars is about what I expect to pay for a second tier game studio's game on release day. Not a AAA title, sure (although a AAA title after a couple of months when it goes on sale, yes) but something from the tier right below there, yes. For a game that gives a terrible first impression graphically and has no demo to draw people in, simply the promise of a new unfamiliar mechanic is not enough to make it worth that price. They have hinted on their forums that there is some sort of contractual or legal reason that they have to charge that price. Odd. No further explanation seems to be forthcoming on that front. Regardless, if they would have released a demo and put this in 'new indie game impulse buy range' (at least 20 bucks, probably even better at 15 with an intro price at 10) I guarantee they would have been in the top seller list on Steam for a month. As is, they dropped off the radar after their first day. Sad, really.

[Echo35]

The real killer for me is the double punch of having no demo, and of charging 30 dollars for it. 30 dollars is about what I expect to pay for a second tier game studio's game on release day. Not a AAA title, sure (although a AAA title after a couple of months when it goes on sale, yes) but something from the tier right below there, yes. For a game that gives a terrible first impression graphically and has no demo to draw people in, simply the promise of a new unfamiliar mechanic is not enough to make it worth that price. They have hinted on their forums that there is some sort of contractual or legal reason that they have to charge that price. Odd. No further explanation seems to be forthcoming on that front. Regardless, if they would have released a demo and put this in 'new indie game impulse buy range' (at least 20 bucks, probably even better at 15 with an intro price at 10) I guarantee they would have been in the top seller list on Steam for a month. As is, they dropped off the radar after their first day. Sad, really.

They've actually solved that issue. There is a demo out shortly and they did the Frozen Synapse "2 Keys for 1" thing as well, they just haven't publicly announced that yet.

[BobTheJanitor]

That's good to hear. I don't really like the 2 for 1 key thing that much... (I still have a copy of FS floating around that I've been looking to barter for something on Steam for a while) But I do like it a lot better than pricing that makes me boggle and actually hurts the developer. They're definitely not making remotely close to the cash they would make by selling this at half price. Valve usually seems to be pretty good about helping these indie devs price things at the sweet spot, so I can only assume in this case that they just said 'no, we are using this price and that's the end of the discussion.'

[eRe4s3r]

What I gather is that the developers had to use art students and promise them profits from future sales and map textures and buildings were all made by the developer, a clear sign of "coder, never do art in your own game" Particularly when its 3d models and textures, which is the top tier of abilities. And hiring art students is a really good way to get art, if you enjoy it being unfinished. Developing dozens of units in 1 particular style also requires concept artist with some passing level of skill, something Achron devs apparently did not even know they need.

But all that is no excuse why the game looks UGLY. The Engine feels like something straight out of the last century, and the story is hurtingly bad.

For the record, i am no foreigner to profit sharing but i would have refused working on the game until they had brought the engine to a decent development level, and i am assuming this is where their lack of artists really came from. Lots of people and freelancer are around, but not many would develop art for an engine that looks worse then the 3d-environments they model in. After all, its your name stuck on those things forever and the main reason why games look ugly is not low poly models, even low poly can look acceptable, if even basic modern graphic features are used to render them....

I am also no fan of the entire gameplay of Achron... as you write Bob it boggles the mind why they overcomplicated the races and units when time travel itself is something most people would find vastly complex to handle in a real time game.

The real problem here is that there simply was no one who slapped the developers mid-development with good advice and input, particularly one how to do certain graphics effects and streamline some of the needlessly complicated things.

[BobTheJanitor]

The aggravating thing is that I really wanted to like this game. The central mechanic sounds brilliant. It's just delivered in what seems to be the worst way possible. I'm left hoping that they somehow sell enough copies to fund a sequel that fixes all the problems, or to convince someone competent and clever to license their time-travel engine and make a good game out of it. (Hey Chris, Keith, what are you guys doing after AVWW? Want to license an engine?)

[x4000]

(Want to license an engine?)

Not really.