next »

[Greipur]

Much appreciated, Pitxardo!





Christoffer has been busy with making the 3d models for the city tiers. When a city gets more followers the city centre will evolve. For this abstracted way to evolve buildings we've taken inspiration from earlier games such as Pharaoh, Stronghold 1 and Warcraft 2.

The main building will also be used for more embedded feedback later on, but more on that later.

[JobLeonard]

Yes, there's been many odd ideas flung around "over the years", the one that has stuck is ancestor worship, which is our planned stretch goal module for December, 2015. So basically you would have ancestors acting as a go between the people and god. They would act as advisors and chroniclers. They would record major events and all of your commandments, which could help building up an abstract narrative (akin to Boatmurdered, but procedural) and help the player with understanding the causality long term.

That sounds just about perfect!

Also, the evolution of the city looks great! Will the statue change to reflect different perceptions of you as a god?

[Greipur]

That sounds just about perfect!

Yeah, it's a feature that feels distant right now however, it all depends on how well we sell during the autumn, but we and our PR agency are trying our hardest! And of course our community.

But I really hope it gets included, we all hope that. We think it will help with creating a sense of purpose without ever expressing an explicit goal (which goes against the core experience). It would be fascinating exploring ancestor worship, which is a fascinating concept in religions imo. I personally look forward at imagining an afterlife realm, and the ancestors inhabiting it. I'm thinking that it would be interesting to have them even more abstract than the followers. Cubism is what I'm thinking, which in a sense would complete a circle since the likes of Picasso was influenced by angular masks from certain African countries (which we've used as inspiration ourselves, which comes as no surprise!).








But, yeah, later.

Will the statue change to reflect different perceptions of you as a god?

That's the idea. In the planned "Faith in God" module we're planning to have something akin to ideologies or a doctrine, so a set of actions would condition the followers into a way of viewing life (and later on interpreting what you say from that).

[Greipur]

New Tutorial - A Nonlinear Deal




We've decided to make a new tutorial due to the realisation that having a linear tutorial in a procedural game where new mechanics and feedback are introduced continously is a bad match. Also because the original one is clunky. The intention for the tutorial is to be nonlinear and contextual, what I mean with that is simply that we won't give the player the whole tutorial at once. So when they start navigating and clicking around we intend to give them explanations when needed.

Do you have any suggestions for good inspiration? We've looked at Darkest Dungeon for example where it's contextual, but their solution is to introduce mechanics in a linear fashion, which isn't feasible for us.








In other news I'm hammering away on the hyena, here's its resting animation.

[Greipur]

I'm not usually one for posting press stuff in here, but I thought you would find it interesting to read about our audio designers setup in PC Gamer.

[Greipur]

Mockups for Tutorial

Here's a mockup for a new nonlinear tutorial where we try be less obtuse about the whole business. What do you think?

[gereon]

Really interesting concept!
I love strategy games and like the idea having this kind of indirect control

[nnyei]

I haven't commented here before because I always felt like I only had a very, very rough grasp of how this game actually plays, but I watched a let's play and now I feel like I have a much better understanding of everything. I'm still kind of on the fence about whether this is the kind of game I'd enjoy, but I'm certainly digging the aesthetic and the whole concept.

(about turorials) Do you have any suggestions for good inspiration?

I've been mulling over this for a while now, but I don't think I know any games that have a contextual tutorial. Even Cities: Skylines has a very linear tutorial that closes you off from most of its tools and only gives them to you peu à peu as it explains everything.

I think your mockup tutorial looks good, though a play tester can probably tell you a lot better whether it's actually helpful or not. At any rate, I'm very glad to see a skip button.

Ah, I saw a few pages back that you used Illustrator for some of your symbols and that you're going with a symmetric style. Did you know that there's a (very unintuitive) way to activate a mirror function in Illustrator so everything gets mirrored in real time as you draw? If you want (and didn't already know about it), I can give you some pointers.

[Greipur]

Really interesting concept!
I love strategy games and like the idea having this kind of indirect control

Thanks! We do too, our last game, Among Ripples was even more indirect than this one. Though, I'll let you in on a little secret; we're probably going to do something more hands-on and action packed next time.

I haven't commented here before because I always felt like I only had a very, very rough grasp of how this game actually plays, but I watched a let's play and now I feel like I have a much better understanding of everything. I'm still kind of on the fence about whether this is the kind of game I'd enjoy, but I'm certainly digging the aesthetic and the whole concept.

Yeah, it's not the easiest game to grasp your head around since the game is focused on slow progress over hundreds of years. The cause and effect is so gradual compared to more action intensive experiences, or even more slow paced such as puzzles. A gif for example can't make the gameplay justice. If there's something lacking in the devlog pitch on the first page you're welcome to tell me what I can do better.

And you're welcome to stick around even if it's not your cup of tea. Everyone can give good feedback.

(about turorials) Do you have any suggestions for good inspiration?

I've been mulling over this for a while now, but I don't think I know any games that have a contextual tutorial. Even Cities: Skylines has a very linear tutorial that closes you off from most of its tools and only gives them to you peu à peu as it explains everything.

Yeah, perhaps there are no famous examples. For us it's a necessity because we don't have the resources to make a custom tutorial scenario, and the game world is different each time.

Another complication is the way we introduce new mechanics and feedback, it keeps growing and adding on a linear tutorial continuously can only result in a mess imo. Since it's a system heavy game we're in a sort of perpetual alpha stage, where we try to bring the mechanics to a stable level before expanding further. What I mean with that is not that we're aiming to stay in Early Access forever (we can't afford it for starters), but a game as dynamic as Crest we more or less need to polish a mechanic before we connect new ones, we can't add everything at once and then move to beta, that would only create an unweildy mess.

I think your mockup tutorial looks good, though a play tester can probably tell you a lot better whether it's actually helpful or not. At any rate, I'm very glad to see a skip button.

Yes, you're right. There's only so much one can understand from an image. We think it's important to not be too obtuse, we've the option to turn itt off in the menu as well. So a first time player could just pop into the settings and turn it off right away.

Ah, I saw a few pages back that you used Illustrator for some of your symbols and that you're going with a symmetric style. Did you know that there's a (very unintuitive) way to activate a mirror function in Illustrator so everything gets mirrored in real time as you draw? If you want (and didn't already know about it), I can give you some pointers.

Ah, I didn't know that. Thanks for the offer, but our symbols are actually a little off purposefully, so as to get closer to what a flood culture could produce themselves. But it's good to know that there is such a feature.


Here's two examples for our inspiration, the first one is of Sumerian origin (Mesopotamia, Middle East) and the other one is Adinkra symbols from West Africa (mainly Ghana).

[JobLeonard]

Sorry for the lack of response when the topic shifts to what is supposed to be part of my area of expertise . Holidays.

Anyway, this sounds like a great initiative, but I also have trouble coming up with existing tutorials in this style. I think the idea of having a number of (non-linear) objectives that "trigger" a mini-tutorial when you actually click on the command tablet (for example) is great.

Another thing is that you should avoid texts with static examples at all costs. Oh, I guess I do have a basic example of that! Last year I had an intership at CrunchFish. They wanted me to improve their tutorial for their camera app - basically, it can be triggered and controlled by gestures.

What they had was a very brief, three slides explanation. However they knew for a fact that people would just swipe past those and try the app... and then don't know the right gestures to use it.

So instead I suggested they keep the text from the slides, but make it interactive. Basically, you couldn't leave the tutorial until you've successfully taken one picture. Which is what you want to do anyway, so it's win-win on all fronts.

Of course, that's a single-purpose app and this is a complex game system. But if you break down actions into their "atomic" parts as objective, like you already did, and then make mini-tutorials you might be able to do something similar.

You could even try to create a "random objective generator" for the people who can't deal with such an open-ended game and need a goal to work to .

[Greipur]

Sorry for the lack of response when the topic shifts to what is supposed to be part of my area of expertise . Holidays.

Oh, how I waited.  

Another thing is that you should avoid texts with static examples at all costs. [...]couldn't leave the tutorial

We actually did make the old tutorial interactive and forced in a way, but it didn't feel as responsive and easy to manage as we thought it would. I've watched a few LPs where the players have had a really hard time understanding what to do. But with having objectives we hope to bring forth that school teacher strictness, and still have it somewhat freeform.






Here's some more mockups from Christoffer.

[JobLeonard]

Oh, how I waited.  

Are you making fun of me? I'm just apologizing for not dutifully spending free time on giving feedback

But with having objectives we hope to bring forth that school teacher strictness, and still have it somewhat freeform.

That's what I liked about it as well. Apparently, the Myamoto's idea behind Zelda's open world is that if you get stuck with one part of the game, you can play another one for a while to get "better" at it, think about the puzzle in the back of your head, etc. This seems like a similar approach to teaching the different mechanics.

Another thing to think about is how all the systems in the game are structured. It's not one big linear A to B line. It's a little mechanic overhere, a litle mechanic over there, all interlocking somehow. Think of Civilization. Sid Meier has said that it's really just a simple game (x food -> new citizen, x research -> new technology), but it just has a lot of simple mechanics working together to create a sprawling game, which can get very complex as a whole. But the individual mechanics are simple to explain. In that sense Crest has some similarities. If you make small tutorials explaining the mechanics individually it should be much easier to grasp and get into it.

EDIT: What also could work is tying in the tutorial to a story. So say you're following one follower from birth to death and get tasks surrounding its needs, wishes, troubles faced. That would fit the theme of the game nicely too, as it's about weaving a narrative, no?

EDIT: Most other games of this genre have advisors in some form. From

to Black and White's good and bad conscious. You seem to have steered clear of this, and I doubt this hasn't been brought up internally. What was the reason for it?

[Greipur]

Oh, how I waited.  

Are you making fun of me? I'm just apologizing for not dutifully spending free time on giving feedback

You were missed, I appreciate the effort. There's been some great suggestions from you "over the years". It was actually a joke more aimed at myself, I like poking fun at myself, but I guess it didn't translate well through the binary jungle. Sorry.

By the by, do you still work in Sweden? CrunchFish is only based in Malmö, right?

But with having objectives we hope to bring forth that school teacher strictness, and still have it somewhat freeform.

That's what I liked about it as well. Apparently, the Myamoto's idea behind Zelda's open world is that if you get stuck with one part of the game, you can play another one for a while to get "better" at it, think about the puzzle in the back of your head, etc. This seems like a similar approach to teaching the different mechanics.

Huh, that's an excellent idea, I think he executed well on that structure.

EDIT: What also could work is tying in the tutorial to a story. So say you're following one follower from birth to death and get tasks surrounding its needs, wishes, troubles faced. That would fit the theme of the game nicely too, as it's about weaving a narrative, no?

That's an interesting idea, when I told Christoffer (who is responsible for the UX) about it he liked it as well but expressed the worry that it might take too much time to make (as in custom code). We could make the objectives in some sort of a story fashion, sort of like old RTS campaign maps (the early ones masked as tutorials), like Warcraft 2 or Starcraft.

EDIT: Most other games of this genre have advisors in some form. From

to Black and White's good and bad conscious. You seem to have steered clear of this, and I doubt this hasn't been brought up internally. What was the reason for it?

They were indeed glorious. And our ancestor spirits is our version of advisors, but we will add them in December. They will be closer to CIV and not as obtuse as B&W.

[oldblood]

Read an article on RPS about Crest, great to see it getting some coverage from multiple/big sites!

[JobLeonard]

It was actually a joke more aimed at myself, I like poking fun at myself, but I guess it didn't translate well through the binary jungle. Sorry.

Internet sucks at communicating intent, right?

By the by, do you still work in Sweden? CrunchFish is only based in Malmö, right?

Nah, inbetween jobs at the moment. Looking for work in the Brussel area.

They were indeed glorious. And our ancestor spirits is our version of advisors, but we will add them in December. They will be closer to CIV and not as obtuse as B&W.

So maybe you could "hide" the objectives behind stories made by advisors.

I mean, outside of tutorials, objectives kind of go against the whole idea of Crest, right?

[Greipur]

Read an article on RPS about Crest, great to see it getting some coverage from multiple/big sites!

Yes, I thought it it was a great preview even though Marsh didn't paint it in the most prettiest of colours, but it was fair and entertaining. I sent him an email just the other week and just wrote three sentences and asked him to cover the game in his "series". This is really outside of my current job description since we have BeefJack who cover press, but I just saw that he wrote Premature Evaluation for RPS, got one of those spurr of the moments and just took a shot. Goes to show how perseverence and randomness are powerful factors!


For anyone else wondering, here's the article.

By the by, do you still work in Sweden? CrunchFish is only based in Malmö, right?

Nah, inbetween jobs at the moment. Looking for work in the Brussel area.

Too bad, the Malmö falafel is worth staying for. Best of luck for finding a new job!

They were indeed glorious. And our ancestor spirits is our version of advisors, but we will add them in December. They will be closer to CIV and not as obtuse as B&W.

So maybe you could "hide" the objectives behind stories made by advisors.

I mean, outside of tutorials, objectives kind of go against the whole idea of Crest, right?

That's a great point, we want to avoid conditioning the player into wanting to follow objectives. Sadly the ancestors will take a lot of time code and art wise, our plan is to devote a whole month to flesh them out. Our idea is that they will feel as polished as an encounter with an AI in CIV 5 with those fancy talking heads (or bodies, rather).

Perhaps your proposal can become a reality in December, it would be more immersive and visceral than text boxes.

[JobLeonard]

... but any narrative of corrupted intentions is somewhat lost amid the general ambiguity of how those intentions are expressed in the first place. (...) Crest offers too opaque a process to really see your agency at work, or even detect when it has been perverted.

I have to second this as The Most Important Issue with the game for me, but I think I already explicitly (and implicitly through feedback on other aspects) mentioned that before.

I think this "Every Frame A Painting" video I posted earlier had an interesting point about storytelling in film which kind of applies here to in a different form. Basically: avoid "and then", instead set up the story such that you get "therefore". Also, if a story thread loses steam, have a "meanwhile, back at the ranch" option.

Currently, the way the game is set up is that you can see what you tell your followers to do, and what your followers do, but the "therefore" isn't clear.

If there was a way for your followers to (iconically) express something like "I'm stuffed, BUT my religion says I should keep eating" then you can start to see connections between edicts and consequences.

BTW, it probably would help a lot if you could share some insights into how game entities make decisions on a technical level. Because the choice in how to implement it shapes the resulting system that emerges, and hence the gameplay.

I should probably point Jimym to this thread, and the guy from Ultima Ratio Regum. This is totally their kind of thing.

[Greipur]

"therefore" isn't clear.

Yes, without a doubt our feedback can get better and that's been the number one thing we've been iterating since the EA launch. I'm not a hundred percent sure that I follow you, so let me explain the "thought process" and feedback structure that currently exist, and we can then perhaps point to a missing therefore in that chain.








A follower is controlled by their needs: fed, offspring, moving to a new city etc. Their needs creates a priority list, so they work towards fulfilling them.If you don't order them to do anything they will follow their own needs. When they do their own thing a speech bubble with a face is shown which we simply call "free will".














When the player gives commandments they affect the priority list, "Prioritise" shuffles their internal priority list around to focus on what you yourself think is most important. "Perform" completely ignores the priorty list and basically tell them "do this now, and all the time", and move is more conditional. When they follow something they have a speech bubble that shows you what commandment they follow, and on the way to the task the recite it. They can also tell you that when they're out working they won't do a thing (shown with another kind of speech bubble).













When followers are out doing work they will associate something when they work, illustrating with a thought bubble the word from your commandment, and the new association. Enough followers needs to make the same association for it to change. When that happens a certain follower will stop in its tracks and make a gesture that looks like they made an epiphany, they also have a different speech bubble only used for rewriting commandments.








There are also indications in the GUI when something is overwritten, which is a bit underdeveloped now but yeah, it's there.





I think my own conclusion by talking this through is that we could bring the needs to the forefront more. What do you think?

I should probably point Jimym to this thread, and the guy from Ultima Ratio Regum. This is totally their kind of thing.

Please do. Come one, come all!

[Greipur]

Speaking of feedback and UX, Christoffer wanted a new way that we interact with the embedded symbols in the city. Johannes has done a few versions. What do you people think?

Click on Each







Hover on All







Hover - Outer/Inner

[Greipur]

Concept Art Trailer



Christoffer and I are currently working on a new trailer for the end of August. We decided that we will give BeefJack the ammunition to promote Crest's future. This is a trailer for the fans and for people wondering what'll happen next to the game. Since we don't have concept art or assets for the upcoming 5 months I had to create new art, which I'm currently working on. Christoffer is focused on the animation, and I do the art. The animation below is just an art test.

During the next week I'll focus on rendering them and Christoffer will animate what he gets. We've the paintings to be much bigger than 1080 so there will be some camera tracking involved as well. I'll make a more detailed post later, feel free to ask anything.