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[indie_illustrator]

Trailer!:

Download!: http://nationofwind.tumblr.com/download

"A Nation of Wind" is set in a floating island filled atmosphere and features Arena Shooter combat with a naval twist, your ship has different guns attached to the sides of it, meaning that the position of the cursor in relation to the ship determines the type of projectile fired.





The RTS elements require the player to harvest resources by building units adjacent to resource tiles, like forests, mountains, or towns. The ultimate goal is to build expensive temples adjacent to Obelisks, this increases the power of magical spells, as well as allows the player to progress through the map.



And of course there's a ton of customization and upgrading!







Follow the devblog below for continued updates on ANoW!:
http://nationofwind.tumblr.com/

Let me know what you guys think!

[Udderdude]

I gave it a try.  It's a very complex game with a lot of potential, but unfortunately I think the weakest part so far is the tutorial only shows you some info on what things are.  It doesn't explain what you should do when you first get to a new island, or what to do with enemies and attacks.

I went through the whole tutorial, paying attention to each text that appeared, and when I got to an island to try and do stuff, it was immediately apparent I was still not prepared at all.

I thought I would have some time in the first island to float around a bit and try building some stuff just to see what happens.  No such luck, I was almost immediately beset by enemies that swarmed my poor ship and killed me very quickly.  There didn't seem to be any weaker enemies to just get some practice on.

Also, the resource info is inadequately described.  When trying to build something, I could see the text was red and that meant I didn't have enough resources, but I couldn't mouseover the resources to see what they were exactly, and the buildings didn't have any descriptions except in the tutorial.  There were a LOT of buildings, so expecting the player to remember all of them from just the tutorial text isn't realistic.

In addition, I didn't appear to have enough resources to build anything at all.  Even a dinky road was red to me.  Maybe this was because I died and lost whatever starter resources I was supposed to use, but it felt pretty mean to get to the first level and not be able to even build anything.  Also, there's no error message when you try to place something and have no resources, it just silently fails.

There was also a 3rd resource page that's never touched upon in the tutorial, or I missed it somehow.

A game as complex this NEEDS to give the player more time to figure out what they're doing.  If I were you, I'd go back and make another tutorial level where you are allowed some time to experiment, build stuff, fight off some weaker enemies and generally get a better handle on what you're doing.  Adding mouseover info to as much as you can in the interface would help out a lot also.

Also, not related to the gameplay, the music felt really boring and repetitive.  It was ~12 second loops over and over.  You should get something better.

[eobet]

Oh, man... the premise is absolutely golden, and the graphics are quite charming too.

However, I find the execution lacking. I shouldn't complain because it's free, but if I may suggest a few areas of improvement in a potential sequel, or perhaps paid update:

• Smoother animation! That goes for everything, from actual movement of projectiles and objects, their rotation and especially collisions. Everything right now feels very inaccurate and flaky. Lo-fi games don't have to feel like this, but this one does.
• Better highlights of costs and effects. What was deducted when you placed a building? Where did the income go when a day cycled? Animation of resources flying from the inventory to the map and vice versa would be very informative for the new player. Rates of consumption could also benefit from similar highlights, though I'm not sure it applies to this game (as you'll notice, I haven't quite figured out the economy aspect of it, which is an indication that the UI may not be entirely clear in this aspect).

Also, there is no way to quit the game apart from the in-game menu. If you are in the main menu and want to quit, you have to launch the task manager and kill the process.

[JobLeonard]

It looks very nice on the trailer and the premise is intriguing as well.

Sadly no access my windows PC for a while... Oh well, guess I'll catch the improved version by the time I do.

[indie_illustrator]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, I'm currently working on an update that should address a lot of the issues brought up!

[indie_illustrator]

Also, there is no way to quit the game apart from the in-game menu. If you are in the main menu and want to quit, you have to launch the task manager and kill the process.

Also wanted to point out this isn't the case, if you are at the Start Menu there is an option for quitting the game, and you can get to the Main Menu from the Map, or from the pause screen. If you're in the pause screen you can also quit the game from there.

[poe]

Why does this need an installer if it's a game maker game? That's bugging the hell out of me :/

[indie_illustrator]

Why does this need an installer if it's a game maker game? That's bugging the hell out of me :/

It doesn't, but it does simplify things for folks that don't want to hassle through placing the file themselves and creating a shortcut for their desktop. It also allows me to attach other files as well, such as release notes, which I plan on doing quite a bit in the future.

While I'm aware that both alternatives are very simple, I decided to go with the one that I felt was easiest for the majority of users. I think that no matter which side of the debate youre on, the hassle involved is so minimal that it's hardly noteworthy, after all, Spelunky is a Gamemaker game as well, but it uses an installer too!

[poe]

Spelunky was a zip. What files have to be placed? Most game maker games I've seen run pretty good with just the exe

[indie_illustrator]

Spelunky was a zip. What files have to be placed? Most game maker games I've seen run pretty good with just the exe

Just the .exe and a .txt with some notes. Again, I'm aware that either system would work, but for folks that don't care to place the file themselves or want to see the icon on their desktop immediately, it works better. The argument against using an installer is that the game doesn't need one to be played, but the argument for it is simply that people that aren't computer savvy or just lazy can just click a few buttons.

[poe]

Well, mind including both options in the future?

[indie_illustrator]

Possibly, though I should hope no one is actually petty enough to not download a game because of its lack or use of an installer!

[eobet]

Also, there is no way to quit the game apart from the in-game menu. If you are in the main menu and want to quit, you have to launch the task manager and kill the process.

Also wanted to point out this isn't the case, if you are at the Start Menu there is an option for quitting the game, and you can get to the Main Menu from the Map, or from the pause screen. If you're in the pause screen you can also quit the game from there.

You forgot about the most important thing, though: Alt-F4 doesn't work.

[JobLeonard]

Possibly, though I should hope no one is actually petty enough to not download a game because of its lack or use of an installer!

Some people might not have administration rights

[indie_illustrator]

Also, there is no way to quit the game apart from the in-game menu. If you are in the main menu and want to quit, you have to launch the task manager and kill the process.

Also wanted to point out this isn't the case, if you are at the Start Menu there is an option for quitting the game, and you can get to the Main Menu from the Map, or from the pause screen. If you're in the pause screen you can also quit the game from there.

You forgot about the most important thing, though: Alt-F4 doesn't work.

This was actually unintentional, the reason behind it is kind of silly actually!

In GM 7.0 there is a global game setting to turn the "Escape key closes the game" functionality off. Escape in ANoW exits menus and (more importantly) opens up the pause menu, so obviously it can't close the game as well!

Unfortunately, turning this off also disables Alt+F4. Not really sure why the two are tied together like that, especially since GM 7.0 doesn't notify the user of this, but oh well.

In any case, it's a pretty easy fix. I'm trying to find the most spartan method of doing it, but if all else fails I'll just add a button pressing event for Alt that checks if F4 is being pressed as well, and have it exit the game if that's the case.

Possibly, though I should hope no one is actually petty enough to not download a game because of its lack or use of an installer!

Some people might not have administration rights

I'm doubtful many people are suffering from that...but it is worth noting I suppose!

[indie_illustrator]

Alright, so having taken into account much of the criticism that I received both through here and various other outlets, I've released the first of several updates to ANoW!

Download here: http://nationofwind.tumblr.com/download

This update mainly aims to address some of the concerns that the game was not very user friendly, I've added descriptive text to all of the Units and Magic, so you can quickly get an idea of what each one of them does without having to open the manual up or go through the tutorial!

Starting a new game is much easier in 1.2. While in the previous version the islands would get more difficult as you ventured outward from the capital simply in terms of enemies and their spawn frequency, the resource scarcity was entirely random. That is no longer the case! Now it is nearly impossible for one of the initial 6 islands to have anything less than a ranking of 3 for Mountains, Forests, Towns, and Water. This makes those initial stages much easier!

I've slightly decreased the number of enemies that spawn on lower difficulty areas too.

Probably most important of all though, I have sped the day cycle up! This has made the game much more fun in my opinion, as there is very little downtime where the player is forced to wait for long periods in order to obtain resources. The days are roughly 20% shorter, this gives you enough time to harvest, build, terraform, fight enemies, etc, but you will quickly find it increasingly difficult to efficiently manage a productive colony!

I've also optimized some things, specifically enemy AI, there should be fewer performance issues on low end PC's as a result.

Of course, all work and no play would make A Nation of Wind a dull game, so while a lot of the things that I worked on were technical, I did add at least one little bit of fun content too!

There are two new items in the SkyHarbor shop. One of them is fairly utilitarian, for 1000g, you can fully heal all of your units. Useful, but not particularly compelling. Also for 1000g, you can hire a Wind Sprite, pictured here in-game:

You can only hire one Wind Sprite at any given time. Her power is based off of the number of Wind Temples you control, and she's fairly self sufficient, regenerating HP at a rate also based on the number of Wind Temples the player controls!

That in and of itself is okay I guess, but if you have a gamepad recognized as Controller 1 by the PC, you can play ANoW in Co-op! The controllers left analog stick will move the Sprite, and the face buttons will have her fire in the four cardinal directions. She can also pick up loot dropped by enemies for the player!

There are some other small bugfixes and tweaks as well, but theyre mostly more technical issues that I addressed. I did however do two things that some of the users here asked me to do:

Alt+F4 now shuts down the game.

You can now choose to download ANoW as either a .zip file, or continue to use the installer!

Let me know what you guys think of Beta 1.2!

[Chris Koźmik]

There is a lot of tastiness in this game, good potencial. Reminds me a bit about old Genesia on Amiga, for some reason.

All below written based on tutorial (unfinished because it was too long) and 2 plays only! Feedback from a fresh player


Right now, it's too user unfriendly for me to play it through. Especially the difficulty level (there are monsters everywhere, even on the first map, they destroy your buildings and your weapons do nothing to them; especially flying mosters are not needed in the foirst level at all, the life is difficult enough to figure out how to get wood and what's the difference between townhall and church). It would be nice to have difficulty levels (and please, more than just 3 (easy, normal, hard is not enough for a pathetic player like me, I need settings like super easy :D)). The mini map should show isnalnds, otherwise it's useless, and generally the first map is way too big (it should have just 1 or 2 islands).


Random ideas:
- why the ship is blocked by islands? It's a flying ship, so it should fly over these... I see no gameplay or mood reason to block the ship movement.
- the ship definitely should be a zeppelin (should have the baloonish thing on top of it)
- it takes several key presses to turn around, that's annoying and serves no purpose (generally the ship feels very slow, sluggish and unmaneuverable)
- I'm not sure about your choice of arcade style of the game, it could be so nice simulation with those mini kingdoms on these islands... Your ship's offensive power should be based on what you have built on the ground, not how fast you click the mouse key.

[JobLeonard]

Ok, I'm going to do something stupid and try to run it under Wine Linux on a four year old netbook. Wish me luck!

[JobLeonard]

It runs! Without sound... also very slowly. Also scaled up - I prefer pixel perfection, can I change that setting?

[indie_illustrator]

Random ideas:
- why the ship is blocked by islands? It's a flying ship, so it should fly over these... I see no gameplay or mood reason to block the ship movement.
- the ship definitely should be a zeppelin (should have the baloonish thing on top of it)
- it takes several key presses to turn around, that's annoying and serves no purpose (generally the ship feels very slow, sluggish and unmaneuverable)
- I'm not sure about your choice of arcade style of the game, it could be so nice simulation with those mini kingdoms on these islands... Your ship's offensive power should be based on what you have built on the ground, not how fast you click the mouse key.

These all sound less like legitimate suggestions to make the game better, more like you appreciate one style of gameplay or art over another. That's fine, but that's also the reason why I won't be implementing any of them. Based on what you say about "several key presses" and "not how fast you click the mouse key." it seems as if you are tapping these instead of holding down on them? You can hold A and D to rotate the ship, and you can hold the left or right mouse button to fire all weapons apart from harpoons and mines.

It runs! Without sound... also very slowly. Also scaled up - I prefer pixel perfection, can I change that setting?

I myself have not played it using Wine, but I have heard the sound complaint from another person using it. I hope you can figure it out though!