TIGSource Forums

Hi everybody,

I am new here, so I hope this doesn't come across as too spammy.  It is refreshing to see a community so full of life (as opposed to, say, indiegamer.com) and I don't want to interfere with that.  We're a new studio, and hope we can learn a lot from this forum.  Also, for what it's worth, the game is free.

We (Hubris Arts) have just completed our first game, and we want share it with the world.

Become the Playertoid, endlessly roaming the galaxy in search of additional matter to fuel further exploration. In the beginning, you are a mere chunk of rock, thrusting through the lonely vacuum of space. Whenever you collide and fully encompass debris, however, they become part of you. Thus, you can reach the size of an asteroid, a planet, or someday in the distant future, a star. Beware, though, as the stellar wastes can be dangerous! This is a game about understanding and manipulating gravity, and the mysterious infinity of the universe. Inspired by Katamari Damacy, the efforts of NASA, and dreams of floating endlessly through space, Hubris Arts presents: Gravmari.

We would love to hear what you think.  Even though the game is "finished", it is not too late to make it yet better.  We welcome any constructive criticism you have.

System requirements:  2Ghz, graphics card with shader model 1.1 support, Windows only (sorry -- it's XNA's fault :-p).

Download here: http://gravmari.com (http://gravmari.com)

(http://gravmari.com/Screenshot1.jpg)

(http://gravmari.com/Screenshot3.jpg)

(http://gravmari.com/Screenshot4.jpg)

So... I read through the entire rules thread.  I had seen the crossed out rules, so I assumed you had a policy change.  But really it was more of logistical issues, and posts like mine were precisely the ones you were trying to keep out (since I am not yet a contributing member of the community).  I understand if you delete my thread.  Sorry.

Luke

At the end, you discover that you were actually a seed all along and that everything was a metaphor for seeds.

somethingawful strikes again!

You had me at "Playertoid"  :)

One way to make it better is to get rid of that stupid default XNA deployment package.

A simple .zip of the game would suffice, I like control over my system and where to install things, etc. I/m a neat freak I guess.

But I did play it, and enjoyed it. But uninstalled it. Could not even locate the exe, only the shortcut-so it couldn't put it on my other hard drive and keep things neat/organized and to keep my uninstall list not filled with unnecessary things.

This game was fantastic. It is possible to beat it?

Haha, that somethingawful article is kind of embarrassing.

I'll look into better installers.  I'm not sure how all that stuff works -- i.e. if I get rid of that default package, will it still install the XNA redist automatically?  It's a hard thing to test, since we don't have any computers around without XNA dev studio installed.

Thanks, William!  Yep, the game is beatable.  I usually finish it in 15-20 minutes.  But the star level is always a challenge and I don't always make it through.

Luke

most people have the xna anyway, or you could include it in the zip file or link to it on your website or in a readme. you could create a script in nsis or inno as well.

I think it's always best to be on the safe side and use xna.

I only got around to trying this out today (but, maybe on an older build of the game; my connection was super-slow, so I tried out the one I had downloaded ages ago). 

1) The game-flow is a bit weak; a quick way to get back starting a new game after dying horribly would be nice (being able to skip past the 'hubris' screen would be good).
2) I really like the feeling of exploring emergent phenomena.
3) The planet-level scale seems to go on for quite a while; there's a certain feeling of sameness after some scale.  This is unfortunate.  Is there anything you could do to keep up the feeling of progression?
4) I ... haven't gotten big enough to comment much more