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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsEIDOLON - Narrative Exploration in Western WA
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Ice Water Games
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« Reply #40 on: June 05, 2014, 11:35:58 AM »

We're releasing August 1st, 2014!

New lightly edited gameplay footage:



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Christian
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« Reply #41 on: June 05, 2014, 01:15:25 PM »

Was discussing the latest footage with some friends. Basically the reaction was that, well your plans are to have dangerous predators to avoid, different survival elements, etc., but the shown gameplay is exploration and logs.

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after we just watched 10 minutes of rather.. plain looking landscapes with the occasional letter as a promotional gameplay video :p
That technically sounds interesting, but I still dont quite see that coming together as a game here yet. Here is to hoping they manage to make this into an interesting game Smiley
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The concept sounds great when I remember hearing about it. But that recent trailer really didn't do anything for me except better convey the art-style they are going for (which I'm quite fond of). I love exploration games, but I gotta have a little more than just wandering around.

Any thoughts on that? Is the plan to still have various animals and survival mechanics?
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Ice Water Games
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« Reply #42 on: June 05, 2014, 02:01:25 PM »

I appreciate the feedback. The video is partially there to quell my concerns that people might be getting the wrong idea about the game. The intention with Eidolon has always been for it to be slow and focused on exploration and narrative, but I think because of the prevalence of survival games the mention of survival seems to have taken over the public conversation about the game. While there are bear and deer in the game now, and we're working on wild dogs and diversified fauna models, we don't want people to think this is a hunting game, nor primarily a survival game. Over time we've actually toned the survival difficulty down to allow the game to be less stressful and more about exploration.

So... yes we still plan on including those things, and in fact they're in there, but they aren't and won't be the focus. When you do run into fauna, it will be satisfying and interesting (because rare). For the most part, you'll be exploring.

I sort of knew that the gameplay video would make some people less excited about the game, and perhaps it's bad marketing, but that was intentional. I need to know that people pre-ordering aren't being sold a lie. I do think that some people will be / are interested in such an experience: slow, calm, curious, like reading a lore wiki out of a landscape. We don't plan for the game to be significantly more eventful than the gameplay in the trailer, though there's buckets full of content we haven't shown.
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Ice Water Games
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« Reply #43 on: June 05, 2014, 02:09:08 PM »

I'd like to add also that when we make our release trailer, we'll make sure it's much more inclusive of the breadth of the game. We've also discussed putting out a video focusing just on the fauna, since they're absent from this one.
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« Reply #44 on: June 05, 2014, 05:22:19 PM »

We've kept the pre-order price low in order to say thank you to early fans, and are planning on increasing it from $10 to $12.50 as we put this update out.

Do you mean devlog update or game update for pre-orders? The game is only available on August 1 for pre-orders and newcomers alike yes, no?
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Ice Water Games
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« Reply #45 on: June 05, 2014, 06:50:17 PM »

We've kept the pre-order price low in order to say thank you to early fans, and are planning on increasing it from $10 to $12.50 as we put this update out.

Do you mean devlog update or game update for pre-orders? The game is only available on August 1 for pre-orders and newcomers alike yes, no?

Not sure I understand. Pre-ordering is available in case people know for sure they'll buy it at release. We're offering the game at a reduced price through pre-orders so that early fans can get a better deal and so that we can get some financial support as we develop. It will become available to everyone at the same time (Aug 1) unless our plans change.

I meant publicity update I guess... as we put more content and information out, and as we approach release, it makes sense to gradually increase our pre-order price until it's at the full release-day price.
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Ice Water Games
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« Reply #46 on: June 19, 2014, 04:26:16 PM »

Deciding what predators (other than bear) and critters (other than deer) to put into the game. Any suggestions?
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« Reply #47 on: June 19, 2014, 07:16:54 PM »

Are you after species that already live in the area (or the US) or can we make any suggestion, like say koalas?
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Ice Water Games
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« Reply #48 on: June 28, 2014, 09:56:45 PM »

Oh man, sorry. I forgot I posted a question here. This forum doesn't usually get much traffic so I've gotten bad at checking it. I'm definitely looking for species that might conceivably be around. I think that can include animals that might have gotten out of a zoo and become invasive, but I don't think that includes koalas haha.

I spent this week putting in a few more animals, and now we have deer, fox, cougar, bear, and wild dogs (who we've just about finished writing pack behavior for!)

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Ice Water Games
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« Reply #49 on: June 28, 2014, 10:16:27 PM »

Here's some fox shots we took for screenshot saturday..


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« Reply #50 on: June 29, 2014, 04:53:27 AM »

New lightly edited gameplay footage:

Do you really get tall deciduous trees with no lower branches dotting your fields like that? Looks very...alien to my northeastern US eyes, like something that belongs in a dry savannah environment like Africa or Australia. In most environments that I know of, if you let things go wild, you don't get individual trees with grass like that, you get forest with lots of underbrush. And you don't get that abrupt change from coniferous hillsides to deciduous trees on grassy plains: there's always a mix, and brush at the edges of the forest...maybe Washington is different, but I doubt it's that different...there are almost always plants filling the various ecological niches.

And your "blackberries"...even when you do get clumps like that (which are usually artificial) it's not a pyramidal frustum with leaves on the outside, it's brambles growing up and arching over and down to create a mound, and even with the low-poly modelling, I wish your models reflected that. Naturally (at least here) they grow mostly in hedgerows and on the edge of areas with brush and bigger trees, but having that big wrong shape underneath is the thing that's really jarring. Even if that's the overall shape, the underlying structure is more like this:





Anyway. I know you're close to release, and hardly anyone will notice, and...artistic license. But for me those things really broke the illusion and made it difficult to think of it as a landscape which might actually exist somewhere... I guess I should spend less time outside and more time playing video games. Tongue
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Ice Water Games
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« Reply #51 on: June 29, 2014, 11:31:41 AM »

Do you really get tall deciduous trees with no lower branches dotting your fields like that?

Sometimes there are lone trees, yes, but you're right that they're not usually so big and branchless. We've been reusing the models made for deep/heavy deciduous forests until recently (last week) when I went through and diversified some tree models.

And you don't get that abrupt change from coniferous hillsides to deciduous trees on grassy plains: there's always a mix, and brush at the edges of the forest.

This is partially a problem of our skimpy number of models (we didn't have much coniferous edge brush until last week) and partially intentional level design. I've found that gradual changes make for less satisfying/interesting/memorable landscapes than distinct, sectioned changes. I think this actually holds true for a lot of game design—discrete feels better than continuous—and I think it's why we see successful RPGs using discrete levelling systems rather than continuous experience models, why successful MMOs have neatly bound regions with distinct aesthetics, etc.

And your "blackberries"... having that big wrong shape underneath is ... really jarring.

I actually went through several more closely representative blackberry model shapes before arriving where we are. The result was always more confusing, awkward, and unreadable. Ultimately, even though this is not what blackberry bushes really look like, it's I think closer to how we remember them as a class of object: kind of a spiky impassable mound with berries on the outside. It also just reads a lot better and fits with the rest of the incredibly oversimplified models (coniferous trees also obviously do not look like that). In general with our aesthetic, it's always worked better to go with the more cartoony/simplified image of what a plant might look like.

Also, Eidolon is not the outside world. Our map is fudged, our scale, biomes, heightmaps, colors all exaggerated and distorted. It's trying to be true to our feelings about this place, but it's not trying to be 1:1 "realistic."
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Ice Water Games
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« Reply #52 on: July 28, 2014, 04:26:47 PM »

Hi guys! I've been really bad about keeping this updated, but honestly it's just been too much while staying active on social media.

Anyway, we're 4 days from release, which is crazy and makes me want to barf! We have a metacritic page and everything. Totally horrifying!

There's a new release trailer out:



We have a Steam Store page: http://store.steampowered.com//app/286140

I've been sending out a million press builds, hopefully some of which will turn into day 1 reviews. (By the way if you're press shoot me an email at [email protected])

Ummm yeah! We had some performance issues when we first sent to press, which is concerning, but it happens, and it's been largely resolved now I hope. I'm polishing and putting on finishing touches now. Hopefully controller support, since there was demand for that in the Steam forums. Some last minute content to put in. More optimizations.

Mostly I'm preparing for birthing pains, and for how hard it's going to be to read or watch reviews.
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Ice Water Games
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« Reply #53 on: July 30, 2014, 03:22:29 PM »

Soundtrack now up at http://icewatergames.bandcamp.com/
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Ice Water Games
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« Reply #54 on: August 01, 2014, 07:55:13 AM »

We're launching in 3 hours...

The reviews are coming in and they're largely positive! A small site called Coffee Break Gaming gave us a 10 and said it was their favorite game this year Smiley
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« Reply #55 on: August 02, 2014, 08:29:25 PM »

Great to hear about the positive reviews. Holding off until someone confirms they have it running with WINE (have posted a query in the Steam community hub discussion as it probably has the widest audience). One of the few games I've been looking forward to this year. Can't wait to play. Listening to the soundtrack now and loving it.
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Ice Water Games
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« Reply #56 on: August 03, 2014, 08:03:53 PM »

Thank you! It's been amazing to see people appreciating something we've worked on for so long. I'll poke around on our social media sites and see if anyone has had any luck with WINE.
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Ice Water Games
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« Reply #57 on: August 09, 2014, 11:09:06 AM »

Looks like no luck with WINE, at least on a 64 bit system. Someone tried it out and wrote about it in the comments thread here: http://www.icewatergames.com/post/93745350954/eidolon-in-wine
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« Reply #58 on: September 17, 2014, 01:06:40 PM »

mannn why didnt i see this? whatever, congrats on completing eidolon!
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Firearrow games
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https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=52009.msg1280646#msg1280646

too bad eggybooms ents are actually men in paper mache suits and they NEED to be agile
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« Reply #59 on: September 21, 2014, 12:50:38 AM »

Congrats on the release, looks like a really cool exploration game.
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