Shattered Haven Playable Tomorrow at GameCity

[cupogoodness]

Originally posted: http://arcengames.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/shattered-haven-playable-tomorrow-at.html

So I'm in England, which is awesome. I landed a couple days ago, but am still a little weird with the sleep schedule. So here I am after a three hour nap from 2:30-5:30 AM local time writing up an announcement for Arcen's presence at a couple events over on this side of the pond.

GameCity and ExPlay
First, I'll be demoing Shattered Haven on Friday between 10 AM and 4 PM at GameCity7 in Nottingham. The event has taken over the city center for this past week and goes through the upcoming weekend, and from what I've seen so far there's nothing else like it. So definitely stop by if you're in town!

Following the exhibiting hours, I'll be participating in a talk called 'It's Complicated' with Mode 7's amazing Paul Taylor of Frozen Synapse fame. We'll be discussing the pursuit of simplicity while being complex and the complexity that can come about from simplicity in game design. We'll be playing examples of both as well. Should be an informative, but entirely casual affair.

Lastly, I'll be attending ExPlay next week to hand out awards with Paul for the winners of a JS Joust tourney. If you haven't seen or heard of it, just know Joust is the best.

AI War Franchise Sale Ends Friday, Beta Patch 6.001 Out Now
Just a reminder that the 10% off Ancient Shadows/75% off all other AI War products on Steam comes to an end this Friday, October 26th around Noon pacific time. If you haven't yet taken advantage of picking up the entirety of the AI War series for under $10, what exactly are you waiting for?

Also, AI War beta 6.001 is out now and fixes a few bugs that made it into the 6.0 official build.

Press, Press, and More Press
We've received a lot of good press for our games and I deserve a good poke in the eye for not posting many of these sooner:

RPS -- Incoming! AI War: 6.0 And Ancient Shadows

PCGamer -- AI War Ancient Shadows and patch 6.0 are almost here, have a trailer while you wait

IncGamers -- Fourth AI War expansion arrives 19 October

Mac Gamer -- AI War Goodness Coming Tomorrow

GameZone -- AI War gets Ancient Shadows expansion, all content on sale now

IndieGameMag -- ‘AI War: Fleet Command’ Expands For The 4th Time With ‘Ancient Shadows’

SpaceGameJunkie -- AI War 6.000 and Ancient Shadows Released Today!

WarGamer -- AI War 6.0 and its expansion Ancient Shadows have been released

Softpedia -- AI War: Ancient Shadows DLC Now Live on Steam for 10% Off

StrategyCore -- New Shades Of Old - AI War: Ancient Shadows

TruePCGaming -- Arcen Releases 4th AI War Expansion

RTSGuru -- AI War: Ancient Shadows Expansion Launches Along With Major Update

Co-Optimus -- New AI War Expansion Out Now, Expands Co-Op

Gamershell -- AI War: Ancient Shadows Released and Trailer

Mac Gamer -- AI War: Fleet Command Review

The Plagued Gamer -- Interview: Arcen Games talks A Valley Without Wind 2

Gamasutra  -- D3: Diablo's Digital Disruptment

Technology Tell -- PAX Prime 2012: Arcen Games’ OS X lineup

Co-Optimus -- Shattered Haven Coming this Fall from Arcen Games

IndieGameMag -- Arcen Games Announce ‘A Valley Without Wind 2? As A Free Reboot For Existing AVWW Players

DealSpwn -- A Valley Without Wind Sequel Announced - Will Be Free For Existing Players

Digitally Downloaded -- A Valley Without Wind purchasers get the sequel for free

VG247 -- A Valley Without Wind 2 is free to owners of the original

PCGamer -- A Valley Without Wind to get snazzy sequel, new features, new visuals, still no wind

GameSpy -- A Valley Without Wind 2 Announced, Will Be Free to All AVWW 1 Owners

Blue's News -- A Valley Without Wind 2 Announced; Free for Owners of Original

RPS -- A Valley With A New Look In A Valley Without Wind 2

Polygon -- A Valley Without Wind getting a sequel, free for owners of the original

IncGamers -- Arcen is working on A Valley Without Wind sequel

GameConnect -- A Valley Without Wind sequel announced

PCGamersN -- A Valley Without Wind 2 announced; free for owners of original A Valley Without Wind

Mac Gamer -- A Valley Without Wind 2 Will Be A Free Upgrade

Co-Optimus -- A Valley Without Wind Free Sequel Coming

IndieGames.com -- A Valley Without Wind 2 is Coming

Weeaboos With Controllers  -- A Valley Without Wind 2 announced, will be free to owners of the original

PixelJudge -- Another Valley Without Wind

Chill News -- A Valley Without Wind to obtain snazzy sequel, new features, new visuals, still no wind

[@B0FH]

If only I'd have paid more attention and known about Nottingham's event a day or so ago - it's only an hour's drive, and I really fancy an eyes-on with Shattered Haven :p

[mrhanman]

I'd love to check Shattered Haven out, too, but I'm a few thousand miles away. 

[Castruccio]

Maybe while you're hanging out with Mode 7's Paul you can teach him how to update a game properly--Arcen Style.  There is still no fix for people quitting Frozen Synapse games before they are over so that they don't get a loss. This is a big deal in a competitive game. In fact there has only been one or two patches in two years.  If Arcen would have made that game it would have been so much better!

[Aklyon]

Maybe while you're hanging out with Mode 7's Paul you can teach him how to update a game properly--Arcen Style.  There is still no fix for people quitting Frozen Synapse games before they are over so that they don't get a loss. This is a big deal in a competitive game. In fact there has only been one or two patches in two years.  If Arcen would have made that game it would have been so much better!

Also there would've been patch notes the size of a small book.

[keith.lamothe]

Some degree of handling for competitive-quitting could be done, but the overall underlying problem would be hard to really improve: You can't patch people

[Castruccio]

The solution they proposed but never implemented was that if one of the players in a game hadn't made a turn for two weeks (because he knew he was going to lose if he completed the turn), the game would "time out" and a victory would be awarded to a player with the most recent turn.  This is almost like patching people!

[vordrax]

How did it go? Any chance we'll get to see some gameplay footage from this playable build? I'm quite interested in this title.

[Echo35]

I'd love to check Shattered Haven out, too, but I'm a few thousand miles away. 

Yeah, I have that issue too.

[cupogoodness]

How did it go? Any chance we'll get to see some gameplay footage from this playable build? I'm quite interested in this title.

The game was lauded by both players and other indie devs. I was actually blown away by the response. I thought people would take to the gameplay (which they did), but I had no idea that the number one thing I was going to hear was "Man this game looks great."

As you can imagine that's a particularly nice thing to hear for us.

I talked to a few cameras for interviews, but none of them really focused on recording gameplay. It's up to Chris, but I'm sure we'll be able to put together a gameplay video at some point. Plus beta is ever approaching, so you'll be able to get your own mitts on it soon enough!

[x4000]

Yep, I keep meaning to put together a gameplay video, but I'm just swamped with actually working on this and Valley 2 these days!

[Teal_Blue]

  Great to hear that the players and devs liked it so much, and yes, saying they liked how it looked is a wonderful thing!

Hope you all can put a gameplay vid soon, take care.

-T