Finally a sequel to the award-winning, genre breaking, asymmetric strategy cult classic. The most sentient AI in gaming.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Alpha v0.114 "Major GUI And Icons Overhaul" FINALLY released!
about 7 years ago
– Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 11:26:51 PM
Chris here. This is the largest single release we've done since starting the alpha with folks, and by a fair margin. The release notes are nuts, but worth a read.
That said, right off the bat: "seriously Chris?? TWO WEEKS since the last build for the game?" Don't worry, that's not something we're going to turn into a habit. In addition to simply packing this one with stuff, we also had that recent hacking attempt against us which slowed us down a tad, and some personal life things outside of our control. But the biggest slowdown, by far, was the new icon system kicking my butt again and again.
Movie poster: "And then his butt... kicked back."
(Wait, that's not right.)
Icons!
At any rate, the icon system that is now in place is an in-progress version that has resulted from a lot of experimentation on my own part, along with experimentation by Blue, as well as lots and lots of discussion from players.
Note that I'm locking the original topic about icons, and I'd like to have a new discussion that starts from the common baseline of what is in 0.114. I'm reasonably pleased with what is here, although the flair in particularly could look a little more visually polished.
Overall there are some polish things that need to happen with several areas of the icons, but in a generalized sense I think the core goals of showing clarity and yet not being cluttered is working well? Before we get into polishing things like the flair too much, we want to make sure that we're on the right path here.
The good news is that if we want to shift around what pieces of icon are where, it's now something that I can do with some trivial code (or in some cases just xml).
The short explanation of these:
You can now see what a ship is via a combination of a central player-color icon and (sometimes) a non-player-color "flair" under it.
You can see the health for squads under them.
The mark level is still shown below them, but is done in a sprite fashion now. And the color of the mark level on the squad shows its action status (Free Roaming Defender, etc).
If it's under a forcefield or cloaked, then the mark level gets an additional glow around it to show that. It's subtle, but helpful.
If the squad is selected or mouseovered, then the main player-colored-icon part gets a border.
GUI!
Keith has been doing a ton of work on the GUI, adding in new menus and generally making things more-sane. It's still all temp graphics and so on, but the idea is to get the usability higher, which I think is very much happening there.
Another big thing that he has been working on with this is an Objectives window, which is inwork still (naturally), but is something I believe he wants to have a pretty major role in the game later on. A lack of direction was something that was the biggest stumper for new players in Classic, even those that got through the tutorials.
The idea is to help solve that via the Objectives window, as well as making that useful for veteran players to check some intel (via what objectives are available for them). At least, that's my understanding -- don't hold us to that. Keith can explain it better, as it's his brainchild and I'm probably misrepresenting that bit by accident. ;)
Other Stuff
Oh man, it's been so long I can't believe some of the stuff that is in this build. These were forever ago, but they're just coming out now. In no particular order:
Keith fixed a bunch of bugs, and I fixed a few.
We did a lot of internal work on our release process, to make releases easier and more reliable. AND to make it so that hopefully we can remove files from the steam builds, which is useful for the external modding project that comes with the game. (Keith, don't forget to check that worked for you).
Some more work has been done to improve functionality in the custom LODs that I created for the game. Although there's a central problem with it right now that is causing them to not calculate their distances properly. So it's putting a lot of extra load on the GPU now compared to what it will next build.
The wormhole graphics have gone through like four more iterations, heh. They're a lot less neon now, and more attractive and more efficient.
If you're playing on a non-US-English OS (linux or otherwise), the game should now work properly for you.
You can hold Z to see the range of ships, or shift to show the orders your ships have. I'm already aware of an error in the display of your ships' orders when they're headed for a wormhole.
The cursor on the gamefield plane is now a lot more attractive and clear.
It's been a really stressful couple of weeks for me, but I'm really happy with the end result. Expect much more rapid releases coming up next week -- although for now I'm off for the weekend, heh. Looking forward to relaxing a bit.
Just in case there's some major issue in this build that prevents you from playing, there's a new beta branch in Steam for the older 0.113 build of the game. You can revert to that if you want to play it for whatever reason, anyhow -- hopefully the new build is far preferable on all fronts, though. Knock on wood! :)
Cheers,
Chris
Recent Progress: Special Forces, Modding, And Explosives
about 7 years ago
– Fri, Mar 10, 2017 at 11:54:41 PM
Chris here! Check out the new explosion effects that I'm working on, in the animated gif above. Still a ways to go before that's fully out in public, but it's coming along really well.
I'm sure most people here don't follow our dev blog (hey, you have busy lives), but whenever you want to do a deep dive and see all the nitty gritty of what we're working on, that's there. There's also the copious release notes, which detail all of the changes as they happen.
We're currently in progress on version 0.110, which probably won't be out today. I had thought it would, but I'd rather not do a big dump of new stuff right before the weekend in case it causes problems for anyone.
The XML modding capabilities of the game are becoming a lot more flexible as of that upcoming version, which is a really welcome surprise that I'm excited to see Keith has put in. The xml files are what drive and organize all of the other non-code types of modding content, which I made a video about yesterday to go along with the new 0.109 build that put in those capabilities.
Also in that last version, Keith put in a ton of new stuff for the Special Forces, which you may remember from The AI From Within: Part 4.
Earlier in the week there was a whole lot of miscellaneous central stuff by Keith that benefit the game as a whole, and a variety of graphical overhaul work by me.
In general we've been doing a lot to work on performance, compatibility, game logic, bugs, the AI... and so on.
Anyway -- the forums are also a place for you to get up-to-the-moment information anytime you should so desire. In an effort to keep this update brief, I feel like I'm really skimming over most of what has happened, but suffice it to say I'm pleased with our progress.
Happy weekend!
Chris
Developer feedback requested: Ship Icons.
about 7 years ago
– Thu, Mar 02, 2017 at 08:46:01 PM
Chris here!
We'd like your feedback, whether you're in the alpha or not, on ship icons, if you want to provide it. This is one of those cases where early folks get to help shape the game, and we're trying to meet a complex set of criteria that a lot of people have strong feelings about.
The lazy approach for us would just be to do it the same as the first game. It was ugly, but it worked. I think we can do better, though -- and since this is a usability issue at core, we need your help to really make sure we're on the right track with that!
Thanks!
Alpha Begins!
about 7 years ago
– Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 07:02:38 PM
Keith here.
Alpha!
We're pleased to inform you that the latest in Nightmare Death Machinery is now ready for alpha testing! If you're an alpha backer, you should have received your key by email now (or it may only be visible in backerkit). Please give it a whirl and send us a postcard (or comment) about your particular mass extinction event.
If you're not an alpha backer, and want to be (see the "PLEASE NOTE" part below, to make sure), you can accomplish that by emailing BackerKit at [email protected] if you ARE already a backer, or simply make a preorder here if you are not already a backer.
PLEASE NOTE: the game is in an extremely early state. Earlier than early, as Chris said. The upside for you is that most stuff is still up for discussion and feedback. The downside for you is that the interface is abominable, the balance hardly existent, and everything terribly incomplete.
Getting Started
1) Check your email for your key. If you cannot find that email, even searching the usual places your email system hides important things (spam, etc), please check on backerkit directly. If you cannot find the key on your backerkit page, please contact [email protected].
2) As mentioned during the campaign, the game is steam-only through the early access period (and we're not even in early-access yet, actually). There will be a drm-free version at release, but maintaining separate distributions throughout the whole testing period would take a lot of effort and bandwidth costs, and really slow us down. So if you don't already have steam, download it.
3) In steam, on the library tab, in the lower-left corner, click "Add A Game" and then "Activate A Product On Steam". Then follow the instructions and provide the key when asked.
4) When the game is added to your library, select it and click the Install button.
5) When it's installed, run it, and the mass extinction event will begin shortly :)
How To Play
Normally, we wouldn't have to tell you. The game would tell you, and the interface would be all nice and intuitive.
But it ain't nowhere near there yet ;)
So while you're welcome to just go in blind, and you'll probably get successfully annihilated in due time, you may get a better picture of what's there if we just tell you.
Since this is documentation, we're putting it up on our wiki:
Those pages are still under construction, so if it still says "(work in progress)" that's because you got there too fast ;)
How To Help
Right now, don't worry too much about intensive bug finding and whatnot. Just see if the game runs on your particular platform, and try to have fun. You probably won't have a lot of fun because the game is in such a placeholderish and incomplete state, but you probably will lose! If any of you fail to lose, please submit a bug report right away.
When it comes to me, the feedback I'm most interested in right now is: What bothers you most? Not the little stuff, but the biggest things. Obviously, a lot of that is due to the game being in such an early state, but I always want to know where the major pain points are during any given part of the testing. I may or may not be able to address them soon, but often I can, so it's good to know.
When it comes to Chris, the type of feedback he’s mostly looking for right now are performance-related or outright crashes. You can see the list of things he already has in progress on his todo list. A lot of the visual or gameplay-feel things you’d be most likely to mention are already on there; but if something isn’t please feel free to bring it up!
Onward!
Chris and I need to get back to work, as there's a ton of stuff we'd like to have gotten in for the first alpha and are still working on, but we'll be listening to feedback. Thanks so much for your support, it's very exciting to have reached this point :)
Alpha starts Monday!
about 7 years ago
– Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 10:35:02 PM
If you haven't yet submitted your backerkit survey and you're an alpha backer, please do so! The automated systems only will send you your key if you've sent in the survey.
If you're late, no worries: it will send you your key within one day of whenever you do submit the survey.
I started a Dev Blog!
This is my new dev blog. It just didn't feel right to mix that in with the main company blog that has lots of actual announcements, and putting it only on the forums would also lead to it getting all mixed up in order as well as information being easy to overlook.
For anyone wanting to follow a lot of my stream-of-what's-up information flood, this is the new way to do it. It won't all be about AI War 2. Once we hit alpha, then we'll also have release notes on our wiki, which are even MORE detailed (but often without surrounding context), and which will be Keith's main way of communicating what's happening on the small level.
Obviously we'll still be doing updates here, videos here and on youtube, posts on the forums, little pings on twitter, etc. But there was a class of "Chris muses about something or other" type of post that I didn't have anywhere to post... and now I do.
Forum Badges
The forum badges have been applied throughout the forum, for the most part at least. We had about 880ish people who submitted forum names we were able to match. For the rest, I'm going to need to post a list for you to help us correct the entries. This is out of about 900-something people who gave a forum name at all, so it's only a little more than 10% of the imports that failed due to presumably typos. Not too shabby!
Thanks to Quinn for doing that import. :)
What Is That Alpha Going To Be Like?
Read the dev blog to get some taste, if you like. Things move fast, and I wrote all those this morning alone.
Overall, the early alpha is going to be a mess in oh-so-many ways. Why are we bringing people in this early? Because we had folks who were wanting us to let them in "earlier than early," to quote I believe Cyborg.
Being in this early, when a lot of things are still half-implemented at best, gives you a chance to help with your feedback from an incredibly early stage. It gives you a way to have your voice heard before that traditional "well it's too late now, the game's already done!" point that so many game developers hit.
That said, you're going to be in the hotdog factory and you're going to get some... icky bits on you. We'll get you a smock and a towel. Pop in and out of the factory as often as you like.
As time passes and we get closer to Early Access (late May), this is going to be a lot less hotdog-factory-y. It's going to be a month or two before you're really wanting to sit down with the game and play it as your main game, I imagine. Still during alpha, but not on day one of the alpha.
The reason I have this huge long caveat is that I have no idea what your individual expectations are for Monday.
a) Some of you expect the hotdog factory, you know what you're getting, and you're excited to be in from so very very early that you can help prod the to-be-finished product in directions you like. You have the right idea!
b) Others of you may be thinking "hey, I get to play the game early, before it has the final coat of wax!" Nononononono! That's not really the spirit here for another month or two. ;) If you come in thinking that, you're going to be royally disappointed.
Basic things like a settings screen don't exist yet, so you have to edit the file by hand. Attack-move isn't implemented yet, but FRD mode is. You can forget about tutorials anytime soon. 80% of the ships aren't in there yet (and really shouldn't be in there yet, because other things need to be refined first).
Hopefully you see and read this, and nobody gets to thinking we're pulling a fast one on them. "How can they even call this an alpha fit for people to play!?" etc. We don't. :) It can certainly be played, but this release marks the absolute earliest build that we felt we could hand the most diehard of diehard fans and have it be useful at all to them or us. Earlier than early in terms of access to poke and prod and discuss.
Things will continue to move fast after day one, and you'll see voluminous release notes. We're really looking forward to you getting to see this early build, and we're both really proud of the foundation that has already been laid here. This thing is solid. We've spent all our time thus far building a great foundation, and we're just getting to the actual house bits.
