Author Topic: Skyward Collapse 1.5 Beta, Plus First Beta/Preorders for Nihon no Mura Expansion  (Read 5804 times)

Offline x4000

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Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/08/skyward-collapse-15-beta-plus-first.html

If you've not yet read about the general changes in the 1.4 beta line, now is a good time to do so. It's expected that we'll stay in beta for the new features until we release the 2.0 version of the game in late August, alongside the new Nihon no Mura expansion.  A lot is different in the base game since 1.4, so we want to make sure and give this time to mature before we put this out to everyone.

This one is the first release that includes the new Nihon no Mura functionality -- well, support for it, anyhow.  There are some bugfixes and a few balance changes for the base game (and there will be more of those coming up very soon as well), but the rest of this release is devoted to the expansion, which can now be preordered if you want to check it out early.

The 2.0 version of the base game pretty much has all of its features in beta already, and has since early July -- all those masses of new bandits, the new font things, the new balance and monster cave mechanics and so forth.  That's been the free DLC content to coincide with the new expansion, although that content largely got finished first just because it took us a while to get the art and design and so forth ready for the expansion.

At this point the expansion is humming along, although it's still not nearly feature-complete.  The list of things that are "not yet implemented" is actually kind of misleading, because a lot of the code and data for those things is already there, but they aren't finished enough to actually play with.  All of the units are actually in the game already, but only the ones marked as complete have all their special abilities intact so far.



Anyway, I'm really excited about how the expansion pushes the boundaries of the game in a whole new direction, and I hope you will be too!  And even if the expansion isn't your thing or you're new to the game, I think that the recent changes to the base game itself have been super exciting, too.

Schedule-wise, I'm expecting that the expansion will be feature-complete within a week, and then we'll be doing the full release of it (alongside 2.0 of the base game) in 3 to 4 weeks.

More to come soon.  Enjoy!

This is a standard update that you can download through the  in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the game.  When you  launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.
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Offline LordGek

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Color me confused.  I'd love to pre-order the expansion but will that work with my Steam version of the game?

Offline nas1m

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Color me confused.  I'd love to pre-order the expansion but will that work with my Steam version of the game?
The installer asks you for your Skyward Collapse install directory.
Select the Steam one and you are fine (e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyward Collapse).

Works like a charm. I just did it ;D.
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Offline x4000

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Sorry about the confusion there!  But yes, nas1m is exactly right.  And I will also add that we'll provide Steam keys later for anyone who preorders, if they want one (same deal as usual with just emailing us if you want one, after it's out on Steam).
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Offline LordGek

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Sorry about the confusion there!  But yes, nas1m is exactly right.  And I will also add that we'll provide Steam keys later for anyone who preorders, if they want one (same deal as usual with just emailing us if you want one, after it's out on Steam).

Thanks Nas1m and x4000, it was that simple.  I may barely have the basics of the primary game down, but I still want MOAR now! ;-)

Offline x4000

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Offline mrhanman

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Sweet! I'll be pre-ordering later tonight. :D

Offline Misery

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Aha, I was quite looking forward to this.  I'll give it a go in a bit here.    The patch notes all sound pretty great.   I particularly like the idea of the bamboo tile.

Expect a horrible barrage of Mantis reports from me as this goes on :D


Also, kinda nice to see that ranches make a bit more sense now, as opposed to before where they would somehow produce exactly half of one horse by default.... always sounded really messy to me.


Hm, some really interesting creatures here too.  Shogoro sounds like a useful one.

Ahhh, much experimenting to do here!

Offline Misery

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Ok!  Some feedback.


First of all, a bug:  http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=12031

No particularly nasty bugs yet. 


I didn't have as much time with this newest version of the game as intended, as I had wanted to finish my previous game first.    I will say, the game's difficulty kept up to the very end.  Bizarre ending to that one;  no living units except for gods and EVERY town had become a 3x3 seperate floating island. 

But I had time to at least get started with the new version.  I like the new art for everything... the tiles look nice, particularly the land tiles meld in with the other ones quite well, and the new buildings and such look good also.  As do the new units/tokens.   Some of those Japanese units and things are pretty interesting.... like that myth unit that costs currency and just runs over and explodes on an enemy.  I like that one.

Now, a little bit of specific feedback for some of the new stuff:


First of all, Bushi and Sohei from the Japanese barracks:  These guys need differentiating as they're almost exactly the same unit.   Also, these guys are both using Ale in their cost.   I wasnt sure if that was intended or not, but it does mean the player will have a harder time getting the specific one they want.

Wako & Kyudoka:  Similar to Bushi and Sohei, but not as bad.  A bit of tweaking maybe to differentiate them just a bit more would be good here.  Also, Wako:  A mounted unit that doesnt have horses in it's cost.   

Torii:  Needs it's cost increased, badly.  This one is pretty powerful actually; while it doesnt outright remove the current bandit threat from the map, it surpresses them quite nicely for a whole five turns;  this effect is useful at all stages of the game.  Yet it costs next to nothing....  the iron cost should be steel instead, and the incense cost should be quite a bit higher.  Hard to say just how high... er... 50 maybe?

Mythological lion thing that doesnt move:  Ok, I forget the name of this one.  This guy though, this is the one unit out of all of them that honestly just doesnt seem very good.  He's pretty expensive in that he takes a whole 36 diamonds, but he's basically a Cerberus that cannot counterattack and randomly implodes after a few turns.   So basically, it takes an already very situational unit, and makes it much more expensive, totally passive, and suicidal.     


Troll:  Yeah, I know, old Norse unit, but it occurred to me that this guy could really do with a stat buff, or perhaps an added special effect.  Currently he's kinda like a rather pathetic version of the Greek minotaur, and his stats just dont compare to other myth units very well.  Currently, pretty useless.  The splash damage effect on him doesnt really help anything.


Ok, so there's some starting feedback.

Havent gotten to the crazy new gods yet.... I expect those are going to be interesting fast!  The idea of special units in place of god tokens (still taking sun/moonstone as cost, I hope) is intriguing.

More feedback later tonight.   Going well so far though! 
« Last Edit: August 02, 2013, 08:48:57 am by Misery »

Offline x4000

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Awesome, thanks for all the feedback!  Will look at all those things for the next version, well before your next session tonight. :)
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Offline Misery

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One more quick thing I just thought of:


That lion guy:  Suggestion, have him explode or something!  Like, when his health runs out.... either due to his anti-heal, or due to something crazy killing him, have him burst, giving everything within 2 tiles range of him a heavy blow.  Possibly both ally and enemy.  This would make him much more unique, and have alot of potential use (if it hits hard enough).  It'd be balanced out by the fact that he's purely a non-dangerous wall up until that point.


Ok, that's it from me for now.

Offline x4000

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Could be -- I think that the main thing about the lion guy is his cost, though, honestly.  Having a mega-cerberus for guarding against enemy mythologicals is pretty super useful.  But it's one of those things that when the cost isn't right, it's just way out of kilter.  I can see your point on the exploding, though; that would justify a higher cost without making this too cheeseable.
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Offline Mick

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Damn you Arcen for making me wish I had way more free time to play computer games!

Offline x4000

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We try!  ;D
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Offline x4000

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