Steam Summer Sale: Skyward Collapse, AI War and More

[LaughingThesaurus]

Now keith, that is actually really cool. I've heard it mentioned a few times, but the sheer freedom of use we get with Arcen's games is awesome.

[doctorfrog]

It seems to be like all of Arcen's other titles in that one can run it inside or outside of Steam.

Yea, iirc we've never opted to incorporate steam's drm with any of our games, so you can just run the .exe in their app folder.  To get a non-steam-dependent backup you can just copy the folder to a jumpdrive or whatever.  The game will probably run fine directly on said jumpdrive, actually, with no installation on whatever machine you plug it into.  Given that the steam version includes both the mac and the windows builds you could plug the jumpdrive in a windows machine, play a bit, then plug it in a mac and play with the same saves and settings.dat, etc...  But that's just the unity engine showing off

Ah, splendid. Given your track record, I figured as much, but just wanted to make sure. Because I actually do have AI War and Valley 1 on a flash drive already

[Toranth]

Given the theme of this year's Summer Sale, I have to ask:  Is Arcen going to get into the Trading Cards thing with Steam?

[keith.lamothe]

Given the theme of this year's Summer Sale, I have to ask:  Is Arcen going to get into the Trading Cards thing with Steam?

We've already submitted cards for Skyward.

[Shrugging Khan]

Someone explain these cards, please, in words a simple mind like mine can understand 

[keith.lamothe]

Someone explain these cards, please, in words a simple mind like mine can understand 

For a truly simple mind, I would suggest: Don't Bother

For the more general purpose:

1) You get cards by playing games marked as having cards; the cards are given to you simply based on time playing the game, not related at all to achievements or whatever.  You can only get a certain number of cards from a particular game before they stop dropping.

2) If you get a set of cards you can craft them into badges, which iirc also lets you get new profile backgrounds, emoticons, etc.

3) If you don't care about collecting the cards (I'm guessing you personally would not) you can trade them to other people for whatever or put them up on the steam marketplace (if it sells you get credited in steam-wallet money).

[Coppermantis]

So you get cards by playing/buying games, which you sell for money to...buy more games. Repeat?

Sounds good to me.

[keith.lamothe]

So you get cards by playing/buying games, which you sell for money to...buy more games. Repeat?

Sounds good to me.

Pretty much.

I certainly didn't mind the effective "extra 5% discount" on the $10 I spent by the 0.50 I got for selling the card.  And I probably could have squeezed more out of it, particularly if I'd actually had time to play the games and get some of their cards

[Coppermantis]

Cool. I've made $1.26 so far, since the cards seem to be rapidly depreciating. Shame that my most valuable ones (Bastion and Skyrim) are also the coolest and I want to hang on to them. Nice to hear Skyward's getting cards. Any reason it's just skyward though, not AI War?

On a somewhat unrelated note, I've got an extra copy of Civ IV since Valve gave them out as an apology for accidentally marking Brave New World down after it was just released. Anyone want to trade something for it? I'll take just about anything of even minor value.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Side note: You don't need to actually play the game to get the cards. You just need to have it launched. You can alt-tab out and do anything you want.

[Coppermantis]

Side note: You don't need to actually play the game to get the cards. You just need to have it launched. You can alt-tab out and do anything you want.

Yep. I got a Skyrim card just for having the launcher open.

[Toranth]

Given the theme of this year's Summer Sale, I have to ask:  Is Arcen going to get into the Trading Cards thing with Steam?

We've already submitted cards for Skyward.

Hurray!  I'll be getting those easily   This seems to imply no plans for AI War cards, which is a little sad.  Looking forward to 'em.

Cool. I've made $1.26 so far, since the cards seem to be rapidly depreciating. Shame that my most valuable ones (Bastion and Skyrim) are also the coolest and I want to hang on to them.

Yeah, some of the Skyrim full images are great.  I've also been admiring the Crusader Kings II and Civilization V cards - those are some pretty images, especially the full 1920x1080 version.
Actually, browsing the Market, there are several cards or backgrounds from games I don't care in the least about that I now want to buy, just for the pictures.

[Shrugging Khan]

Bought myself AVWW. I never liked it before, but seeing as it's supposedly much changed...and hell, if I still don't like it - made a little donation to Arcen. Never hurts 

PS: Given that I now have both AVWW 1 and AVWW 2, do I have any reason to install the first part or can I just start with the second without missing out too much?

[Castruccio]

PS: Given that I now have both AVWW 1 and AVWW 2, do I have any reason to install the first part or can I just start with the second without missing out too much?

Well if you tried the first one in the past and didn't like it, then I'd start with the second.  The changes made to the first after release weren't so drastic as to radically alter the game.  They only spiced it up and deepened it a bit.  The difference between the second and the first, however, is massive---so if you didn't like the first at all there is still a chance you will like the second.  It's a huge revision.

[Shrugging Khan]

Sounds quite reasonable. Will do so. Thanks!