Skyward Collapse Teaser 1

[x4000]

Josh will have his own thoughts, and I can't really address most of what you're saying in any real sense.  But I think your conception of what the game is and how it plays out is still a bit off.  Which is something that we've tried to address with further explanations, but clearly we need to do a better job.

In the end, if the game is compelling enough you'll be just fine with downloading it and buying it.  If not, you won't.  And that's the way it should be, really.  If you think some other flash games are just as compelling, then you'll play those, and rightly so.  But I do think we have a lot to offer here that those don't, and my hope is obviously that we'd win you over.

[chemical_art]

Josh will have his own thoughts, and I can't really address most of what you're saying in any real sense.  But I think your conception of what the game is and how it plays out is still a bit off.  Which is something that we've tried to address with further explanations, but clearly we need to do a better job.

Makes me happy.

 

I know I've said this a hundred times, but I'd rather some negativity seep through now so they can addressed, rather then wait until it is too late.

[x4000]

Absolutely -- in terms of explaining this game, we're just in the very early stages of being able to do that effectively.  It takes a while to come up with a succinct, compelling pitch.  I think I've explained everything that you were concerned about in ways that actually address them, but it wasn't succinct and (partly as a consequence) it was apparently not clear.  So that's something that needs to be refined, for sure, before we even hit beta.

Cheers!

[tigersfan]

Ok, so let me take a stab at explaining this a bit better...

First off, you aren't really re-doing missions, and least not in the sense of say a GalCiv 2 type campaign where it's "Take this planet before the bad guys do", type stuff. And, if you don't succeed, you need to re-do the mission exact same mission over and over until you get it. This game is, really, a computerized board game. So, you play the board game over and over and the missions are stuff like "Build 5 Town Centers for the red faction in one game" (that's an example, and may not actually be in the game). But each individual game can be very very different. Now, if you don't succeed in that, you'll have to try the next time you play, but you aren't held back in a campaign. The rewards for moving up in ranks are going to be access to buildings who's primary purpose is to boost your score (though they will probably have secondary functions as well).

But, one thing to keep in mind is that you will have access to all of the main game pieces right from the start. You'll get to access all the powerful weapons right from the first game. (Assuming you've gathered enough of the right resources, of course )

Actually, this has been changed a bit, we felt that there were a few too many units at the start, so, for the sake of new players, we do hold a few back until later. The hope is though, that we're still leaving interesting ones in there from the start. To allow for a number of strategies right out of the gate.

Also, I don't play as many flash games as I used to, but I honestly don't know of any that have strategy this deep and this varied.

[x4000]

One point of clarification: I think our terms are being a bit confusing, too.  We keep using the word "campaign" and probably should stop.  I think of a single game of AI War as a campaign, and same here with a single game of this.  But a single game here is a lot shorter than an AI War game (not sure exactly how long these will take; we're still tuning things that affect that).  Anyway, the point is that we're talking about games in all cases.  There's not a larger meta-narrative except your completion of the missions Josh describes, your increases in Rank and EXP, and... something else we've not revealed yet.

[Wingflier]

Oh, so the "campaigns" will be randomly generated scenarios?

If so, that's neat, it adds A LOT more replayability than I thought it would have.

Bonus question: Will the campaigns also be co-op enabled? If so, that's the coolest

[Echo35]

For some reason, the screenshot immediately reminds me of Populous and A Nation of Wind.

[x4000]

Oh, so the "campaigns" will be randomly generated scenarios?

If so, that's neat, it adds A LOT more replayability than I thought it would have.

Bonus question: Will the campaigns also be co-op enabled? If so, that's the coolest

There's no such thing as a campaign, we shouldn't have used that word!  In other words, you play a game on a starting map of your choosing (there are several map types).  The starting board is always the same and is small.  However, it quickly changes based on your early setup, and based on randomized land additions that are specific to the map type.  So as you play, you're expanding the board and the board is expanding without you.  The map is basically evolving as you play, so every one is way different by the time you're done.  Even after just a handful of turns, they tend to be pretty different for me.

[Wingflier]

Oh I'm sorry, I guess I misunderstood you Chris.  I figured the "Board" portion of the game would be similar to the "Sidescrolling Platformer" aspect of AVWW2, as in its the "action" part of the game, while the "campaign" is something you manage between missions or whatnot.

I didn't realize that every new board was going to be independent of the last.

So I guess the player will have a lot of options then on how to customize his "board" before it is generated?

[Teal_Blue]

Did i tell you that i think the art is really fantastic!! 

-Teal

Really looking forward to this one!!

[x4000]

Think of this more like AI War.  You start a game, and then you play the game.  There are some meta aspects between games in this one, unlike in AI War (achievements aside in AI War), which include things like the missions and the ranks for your profile.  But the missions are like Tiny Wings or 10000000 or JetPack Joyride, not like Galactic Civilizations.  The model here is actually like Civilization IV or Age of Empires III or similar if you're not playing their campaigns (which I never do).  Basically like choosing to play a skirmish in an RTS.

In terms of customizing the board before you start, there are very few options, by design.  However, when you first start playing there is a 5-turn "round 0."  During this round, resource costs for all buildings and units are completely waived, and no units you place do anything.  Time just stands still, and the board does not grow at all without your direct intervention, either (no random lands appearing at the end of each turn, unlike normal). 

This round 0 phase is pretty important as it lets you basically configure things to your liking for the start, and skips a boring slow start.  But since you have very limited numbers of things you can do there, what choices you make in round 0 will affect the rest of the game.  After 5 turns, then it's time for round 1 and everything comes to life and you're off to the races.

In terms of choosing what kind of map you start with, it's just a matter of selecting them from a dropdown.  The map types are not randomized at all when you first start them; aka it's always the exact same setup.  However, that's just the germ of the map.  The real map is created as you play, by both you and the RNG.  And so every map is really different not because of options you chose BEFORE you started, but because of what you chose during gameplay (and what the RNG tossed at you).

You can also select what factions you want red and blue to be, how many turns there are per round, and what the sky backdrop will be.  Right now those are all the things you can (or really need) to select before starting.  However, when the edicts get added, you'll also be choosing two of those like the AI Types in AI War.  There will also be a couple of brief multiplayer options.  All in all, there's no need for a crazy setup screen like in AI War, because all of the configuration gets expressed through the start of the game as you start playing.  Which is something I really love, personally.

There are also no difficulty levels: they simply are not needed.  You're your own worst enemy, really.  As you strive for missions and top scores, you're pushing yourself closer to the brink of failure.  It's kind of a "bring me the whipping switch, boy" sort of system, heh.  The edicts will be grouped into difficulty categories, though, so those definitely would qualify as difficulty settings once they are in.

[Wingflier]

All of that sounds really awesome. Thanks for taking the time to explain.

One thing I'm still a bit confused about though is how the multiplayer co-op scoring system will work.  If you're all using the same board, do you all get your own set of civilizations?  How does each individual player get their own unique score, or are you all working together for a combined total score?

[chemical_art]

Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa whoa. Whoa.

Sounds much better. I'm glad you dropped the dreaded C word.

[tigersfan]

All of that sounds really awesome. Thanks for taking the time to explain.

One thing I'm still a bit confused about though is how the multiplayer co-op scoring system will work.  If you're all using the same board, do you all get your own set of civilizations?  How does each individual player get their own unique score, or are you all working together for a combined total score?

It's a combined score.

[x4000]

Glad the clearer explanation sounds way better, chemical_art.

To expand on the co-op comment, co-op is exactly like solo play with the following exceptions:
- On every turn, each player gets to place a tile and entity for both red and blue.
- The score for all actions is divided by the maximum number of players in the game, to compensate for the larger maps.

The score division thing we might change if we had different leaderboards for different numbers of players. Which might be interesting, actually. Right now we're still deciding how to divide out the leaderboards in a way that we don't have dozens of combinations of them. So a fair bit of normalizing is already planned based on map size, for instance -- larger maps score lower per event, since you get more events.