Makes me think I should go with the press story of being the first indie game developed from ship anchored outside of the North Pole, and having secured a contract to use the Clause digital distribution system for pre-orders.

Just subscribing

Yeah but it's hard to tell why from a youtube video, I will let you know when I've finished my frame-by-frame analysis.

It's likely because the super hacked in animation system at the moment only has one speed. That walk should probably be around a 0.08 delay per frame and instead its currently like 0.03 although I don't think it's to bad either. Kinda a mix between cartoon and semi realistic.

The mech feet look a bit slippery.

You mean during the walk cycle?

I suppose besides being f2p, with it being multiplayer only, I'd guess that would mean server side accounts. So piracy likely isn't an issue. Hacked servers on the other hand is a different story

Spent a a hour or two chopping out another building, and all of its layers. Then spent another hour or two trying to remember how the custom tools I wrote to scan tile strips and write out tile height map info worked..  

Woah, that's cool, I have to check out your game more throughly then, I'm a big fan of tabletop wargames and have a collection of Khador army from Warmachine & Hordes, what games mainly did you base yours on?

I kinda hate to define the game by other games, but it certainly is inspired a lot by say,Warhammer 40k, classic Battletech, Space Hulk, and computer games like X-Com to a lesser extent.

Anyways I do agree with Paul about the race description there feeling pretty generic in writing and undefined. Visibility systems are also almost always problematic, but we plan on playing with this problem quite a bit as well. Although we also have will have radar, and a minimap when working on that system. Which is a bit different than trying to handle it in a fantasy setting.

[MP focused [turn-based etc.] game]

I haven't played all the games from that list, but have done a fair number. Yet I don't think hardly any of those had MP support did they? I find that developing a "tactics based wargame with MP intent" vs "a story driven tactical rpg" is really quiet different.

it's a story-driven MP focused tactical rpg wargame :D but yeah, that was kinda my point that a MP focused [turn-based etc.] game is actually something new in itself

Yeah its an interesting space, this topic is extra interest to me, since it applies as well to our own project M.I.N.T although its much more table top skirmish/wargame inspired and has basically no RPG elements really.

I haven't played all the games from that list, but have done a fair number. Yet I don't think hardly any of those had MP support did they? I find that developing a "tactics based wargame with MP intent" vs "a story driven tactical rpg" is really quite different.

I wonder if that "Free to Play" tag is hurting things as well. There is a pretty huge stigma against that monetization method, especially with the more "core" gamers that are likely to be attracted to such a game. Multiplayer only might also be hurting things a fair bit, as it seems a ton of people are really about the SP side of things. (Telepath Tactics ran into this) Although I do find it a shame myself.

Your long description doesn't really tell you much about the game either though, at least in terms of unique mechanics, or aesthetic. To me the most interesting part of that blip is about letting the best players shape the world and game, yet it doesn't really explain it much.

Mechs and oh wait unit animation!

those cracked tiles repeat really obviously

Yeah. They're support to be road tiles, not base terrain really

And now for something totally else.

Twitter?

Hmm yeah that would be interesting. Oh well I don't think such things really exist, and I'm not about to make them when I have several years of MINT dev ahead of me.

That's what the "Notify" button is for.

Yeah, but your sinister designs forum topic doesn't show up to me on Tigsource when I hit "show new replies" which leaves my options usually at best being emailed. I want a notify option that pushes into a centralized system.

Because the game is now well-known enough that posting here isn't going to provide any huge visibility benefits, and I'm interested in cultivating the community on my own forums. Natch.

Someone should make forum software that pulls threads and topics from multiple forums, like RSS does. I'd love to read on TT updates, but I rarely ever think to go over there.

I suppose it probably varies greatly by type of music as well. I can certainly understand higher rates if significant amounts of time is needed, but I'm not sure this is true, or the common impression. (Clients that demand endless retakes, pitches, and tweaks aside)

That said though, the bulk  of my experience with contract music comes from contracting of custom chip tunes, ideally using original console restrictions/emulation/samples, which I suspect is quite a bit niche and may change things a fair bit as well.

Tool dev continues.

Well, I'm speaking more in regards to "companies" regardless of how small they are at times that have a pretty solid foundation with the projects they release.  $800/min is actually cheap compared to AAA work, but like I said... it's also giving them the music, 100% of the rights.  In the mobile markets royalties can have a big payout, and flat rates can help alleviate the need to continuously pay someone after their job is done.  I'm not suggesting someone MAKE their rates that high, just hinting at the high probability of landing a gig like that if you do a bit of digging for one.  I get that a lot of indie developers lack the funding to invest that kind of money up front, but there are more that have the money than the ones that don't from what I've experienced.  That's part of why there are so many composers that do have "insane" rates. 

Still, I suppose you are probably right in regards to me saying "easily"... because it's not like you can just blink and have someone paying you that much.  Especially with so many people willing to accept much much less...

Yeah it just seems a rather insane level of cost to me, when you have engineering rates often at around 50-100/hr and art rates lower than that, which include usually full rights to everything. I'm not saying it isn't possible to get it, as there are certainly programmers that can pull in 250+/hr for IOS development to the right companies, but its hardly the norm.

I could also be underestimating the hours involved in order to produce a decent quality piece of music, but from experience contracting out music, it rarely has seemed to take hours upon hours to produce a decent track. I mean a 4 minute track at 800/min works out to taking something like 32 hours to make if your billing essentially 100/hr.

As a dev something like 800+ a minute sounds insane unless its using a ton of live instruments/band or some sort of actual orchestra. That or you have a very established name and following which would help promote and market the game.