5 thumbs up for G&J. Awesome production, composition and unbelievably catchy style. They did a remix for a 25+ track game OST I worked on, and their track was, I think, the most popular by far. 

I used to play HoN quite a bit, stopped maybe 4-5 months ago because I was spending too much time on it. I didn't really play in tournaments but I played at a fairly high level (at least I thought I did.) I was 1750 PSR or so. Very stressful.

With the help of folks in #tigIRC (thanks Kjell!) I've implemented a line-of-sight system. This is used to help determine if monsters can see you or not (through obstacles) as well as calculating attack range for weapons like crossbows, spears, etc.

I've been working with my artist on revamping the UI as well. We're going to take away the right-side bar and simplify things:

* The player's vitals will be displayed in the bottom-left.
* Icons are to the right of that, things like Player Stats, Inventory/Equipment, Spells/Skills, etc.
* To the right of that, the combat log.
* Somewhere in there, or above, a 5-10 space bar which will allow players to hotkey spells, skills, items or actions (for example, interacting with an NPC.)

What would you say the differences are between the business model of Farmville and that of League of Legends? If you were explaining it to an investor, what would you say? Besides the platform being marginally different (can't play LoL on mobile devices, though both work on computers), what are the differentiating factors of the business models?

As for my post you quoted, I think you're misunderstanding me. I said that the community reaction to HoN and LoL has been about the same. I then said that the MEDIA reaction to LoL has been quite a bit bigger, and I proposed that it's because of the business model, since, all other things equal, both games are comparably successful (very recent $400million buyout of LoL notwithstanding). Even considering the buyout, it's difficult to say that is a measure of LoL being "more successful". The owner of S2Games is incredibly wealthy independently and funds the studio himself. So, he doesn't involve himself with investors, since the whole studio is his passion project to begin with.

Does that all make sense?

Anyway, the only reason I brought this up was to correct the misconception that LoL "smoked" HoN, since the latter has (AFAIK) a significantly larger playerbase, outstanding sales, a thriving competitive community, etc. The OP used the two games as an example of how F2P is far superior, but I think any indie dev that achieved the level of success of HoN (which itself has "smoked" the overwhelming majority of AAA titles in terms of sales, revenue, playerbase, etc.) would not be complaining. That's all.

I'm talking about business models. LoL has the same kind of model as Farmville. Free to play, microtransaction-driven, focused on bringing in casual players. HoN has the same kind of model as StarCraft. Single-purchase (with microtransaction options, all aesthetic), balanced for competitive play sometimes at the expense of the casual experience.

Been working on the active skill system now, which is quite complex. If you think of games like Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea, different skills/spells can have different targeting shapes, origin/center points, fixed vs. free movement, etc. The game has to track the size and orientation of the shape as well as which tiles have to be clear or otherwise. I finally got all of that working, though it only supports some basic shapes/attack types right now, like Linear. Still, pretty nifty; once you go to use a skill, you can use the mouse to move the targeting shape or pivot it around based on the character position.

I didn't say community/player reaction, I said media attention. My point is that the critical reaction is pretty similar. They have nearly the same score on MetaCritic and both have won some pretty prestigious awards. On top of that, HoN's status as a competitive game is much more established than LoL's. The hype of LoL is because of its business model.

Has LoL really "smoked" HoN, which has over 200,000 players a day and 12.3+ million players total? According to a Dec 2010 forum post on the LoL forums (by an admin), LoL has ~3-4 million players (total). Again, LoL gets all the media attention, but HoN is actually extraordinarily successful - moreso than LoL by some measures.

Actually...

(a) HoN was free to play for awhile, pre-official release. Many people I know played for a long time prior to the release of the game (myself included.)

(b) HoN also has a microtransaction model for cosmetic stuff, like LoL. It's doing well for them, despite the $30 'entry fee'. They also do free weekends like Valve does with TF2.

(c) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_of_Newerth#Reception HoN's score on Metacritic is about the same as LoL and it has been quite a commercial and critical success. 400k+ sales is nothing to scoff at, not to mention the avg. players per day is VERY high.

(d) Even though LoL might get somewhat more attention overall, HoN is in many ways a more competitive game - many people stopped playing DotA and switched to HoN, as it's "less casual". HoN has had a ton of tournaments since pre-official release, and continues to have a huge number of competitive events worldwide (with prize values dwarfing those offered by LoL, as far as I can tell.)

In other words, you're basically comparing Farmville to StarCraft. They're not the same game. HoN has done VERY well with its model, financially, critically, and in terms of community reaction. LoL gets more media attention due to its model, but that doesn't mean HoN was a failure. It's one of the most successful independent games of all time.

I'm happy to say that I'm now working with a talented artist who will be providing nice SNES-style pixel art for the game. We are going with a style akin to games like FF6 or Chrono Trigger, where characters and objects can take up multiple tiles. This allows for more detail. Here's a very rushed screenshot using upscaled 16x16 tiles:



We've also agreed that at some point (not now) we would like to implement animation. This might be getting farther away from traditional Roguelike graphics but I'm OK with that. Even though the game is turn-based, I think BG + character animation will give it some life.

But one step at a time. Still working on the skill system. I spent most of the last day or two revamping the way the UI is stored/drawn for efficiency.

Deep Lands
(placeholder name)

Overview
I've been an avid fan of all sorts of RPGs for as long as I can remember. Recently, I was reading an opinion piece that lamented how supposedly-deep modern RPGs, like Dragon Age, actually lack the incredible depth and variety of classic games like Fallout or The Elder Scrolls series. This inspired me to start brainstorming some ideas for a modern game that would incorporate such depth, procedural generation (a la Roguelikes) and genuinely interesting encounters with NPCs (where your actions have definite consequences beyond a "good/evil" meter). At the same time, while paying homage to those classic games, I also wanted to work in some new ideas for interaction, more non-combat options and deeper combat inspired by certain modern turn-based games like the Disgaea series.

So, I took these concepts and decided to go ahead and try to create a game myself. At the moment, I'm handling all the programming and using sprites from open-source tilesets/spritesheets, plus my own terrible MS Paint art. I'm that indie. Of course, at some point soon I'll be working with a pixel artist to get something actually visually appealing (in a sort of 16bit style, not 8bit or overly retro.)

Technical Info

I'm developing the game using Java with Slick2D. Slick handles the rendering engine and input; everything else I've designed from scratch. Because I'm using Java, the game can be run on PC, Mac or Linux equally well. It may be possible to make a web version too, but I haven't thought of that yet.

Gameplay

At this stage, I'm still working on the core engine of the game, so there isn't a great amount of gameplay yet (per se). Here's the outline, nonetheless.

* The game world is grid/tile-based from an overhead perspective. Currently I'm using 32x32 tiles, though the game engine supports other tile sizes.

* The player controls a single character throughout the game, specifying a number of traits during character creation. These traits, such as Gender, Build, Race and Background (eg. Scholar, Peasant, Soldier, Minstrel), range from purely aesthetic to lightly influencing your set of starting abilities, stats and items. However, the game is built on open character advancement and does not use a traditional level-based system. To become a master swordsman, you must fight with swords regularly. To become a thief, you should try to pick difficult locks. To become stronger, you should partake in activities that require brute strength, and so forth.

* The game is turn based. When the player selects an action (eg. moving a space, opening dialog with an NPC, or using an item), a priority queue system is used to determine the order in which all actions are executed. So, an entity attacking with a slow spear will generally execute their action after an entity attacking with a fast dagger, for example. There are of course many ways to modify the initiative of actions.

* Most 'things' on the map are interactable. Map objects can have a number of properties which determine what you can do with them. For example, doors can be locked, unlocked, opened, closed, attacked, etc. Destructable objects have material and hardness values which influence how they can be demolished or manipulated. A "wood" object can be burned, while a "stone" object can't, the former can be destroyed with weapons easily, the latter can't, etc.

* NPCs have attitudes and personalities. Their opinion of the player varies based on the player's reputation and the player's observable actions, as well as the NPC's own personality. For example, a "cautious, meek" NPC will avoid confrontation, and talking down to them will not result in any conflict. A "paranoid" NPC will attack you at the drop of a hat. A "jovial" NPC is inclined to think you're likable and hilarious, so things that might offend others might actually make him love you more.

* Rather than having tens of thousands of lines of useless dialog, many NPCs are interacted with through emotions. In these dialogues, you do not necessarily pick a stock phrase to say, but instead say something jokingly or say something aggressively, etc. In other words, tone is an important part of NPC dialogue. Combined with the fact that your actions have consequences (as NPCs observe and react to what you do), this allows for some interesting situations. This in particular was inspired by Oblivion's "Whodunnit?" quest.

Progress

Completed:

* Map rendering and scrolling (based on player position).
* Basic user interface, text log, icons, menus, etc.
* Resolution-independence. The game area enlarges at higher resolutions, tile size can be changed easily, and so on.
* Player movement.
* Basic player actions like "Look", "Talk" (though dialogue system isn't in yet), "Get".
* Basic interaction with map objects like doors.
* Priority queue system, attacking.
* Status effects, unconsciousness, death.
* Inventory and equipment system, currency system.
* Using items like potions that confer various effects, attribute bonuses from items.
* Basic skill system with experience curve (picking an easy lock at a low level = fast advancement, picking an easy lock at a high level = slow or no advancement.)
* Basic NPC movement (mindless, currently.)
* Dropped item system (eg. killing an entity causes them to drop all their equipment, which you can then loot.)
* NPC attitudes and basic observation of player actions.
* Character saving.
* Content stored in XML files. This allows me (and potentially others, eventually) to create and edit NPC 'blueprints', items, skills, spells and map objects without touching a line of code. The game serializes to and from XML well.

I've been working on this for about three weeks now, and though I'm fairly inexperienced, I'm proud of the progress made so far. Currently, I'm working on:

* 'Active' skill system. Unlike most Roguelikes, there is an emphasis on various techniques with a spatial component. Think games like Disgaea or other tactical RPGs for an example of what I mean. For example, a "Line Slash" skill might send the player through three spaces in any direction, causing physical weapon damage to all targets in between and displacing the player.

* Basic NPC AI. While NPCs can 'see' the player and observe basic things, they don't yet do anything with this information. First, I am going to implement basic reactionary attacking and pathfinding, followed by a fight-or-flight option.

Screenshots

The graphics are atrocious. They are placeholders and will be better. You have been warned. (Also, these are scaled down from 1024x768)

http://zirconstudios.com/BigRPG/ss1.png
http://zirconstudios.com/BigRPG/ss2.png

Feedback

I welcome any and all constructive feedback. The folks of #tigIRC have already helped me with various design and technical questions, as have the LWJGL/Slick experts on #lwjgl on Freenode. I realize this is really early on but I'd like to share my experiences publicly, since I'm enjoying working on this game.

Thanks in advance! I look forward to posting a decent playable build soon :-)

Definitely better to get outside talent, particularly people with good VO setups (eg. iso booth/closet space for a highly isolated sound, good low-noise mic). Also remember if you're pitch shifting to use something that can adjust pitch independently of time, and possibly even formant. For example, REAPER (www.reaper.fm) can do this very well.

We've had the opposite problem (kinda). Decent conversion rate of about 10-11% but barely even 100 sales, despite some very favorable reviews. It's pretty depressing after about a year of work. We chalk it up to graphical style and game genre primarily, since it seems like the problem is getting people to even bother to try (no hook?) but once they do, they enjoy it.

Either way, we won't be doing XBIG again.

RAR made it through review late Dec, glad about that :-)

And Torturas, glad to see your game is doing well, and that I could help get it through.

Some really nice designs here... I don't usually print on the back of mine and just go with glossy front/matte back. That way, people can write down additional info on the back. I know I do that with other people sometimes (eg. jotting down projects they've worked on.)

This game, the first release of Space Whale Studios (one of the few Philadelphia game devs), represents over 12 months of work from a team of about 10 people. It's collectively our first commercial title, outside of student projects and contract work, and we're very very proud of it!





Return All Robots! started out as an entry in the 2009 Philly Gamejam and from there evolved to be a full game with hours of action/puzzle gameplay and way more features than we had initially planned. It has a sort of Flash/retro style inspired by classics like Chip's Challenge, Lemmings, the Brainies (SNES) and Bomberman combined with an 80s art and music aesthetic.

Launch Trailer:



Read more about the game here: http://www.ReturnAllRobots.com/

Torrent the 70+ minute original soundtrack w/ remixes here: http://www.OCReMix.org/

The game is available for PC via the Cipher Prime store ($3) as well as Xbox Indie Games for 240msp:

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Return-All-Robots/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8025855073c

https://store.cipherprime.com/games/returnallrobots

Comments, feedback and suggestions welcome! Happy holidays!

After over a year of work, a game I've been heavily involved in is up in peer review for the second time (after we added extensive protections for USB memory devices.) We're trying to get it out before Christmas; any peer reviews would be very much appreciated.

http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/69340.aspx

I didn't see any active links to other games in peer review here, or I would have hit those up first. So, if anyone else needs a review, let me know and I'll gladly do it (though I leave on vacation tomorrow, so hopefully I can get links within the next 24 hours.)

Definitely looking forward to this - a Smash-type game with a solid, defined scope. Fewer moves isn't a bad thing at all, either. Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting was one of the most solid, well-rounded fighting games and it had a relatively small moveset.

I'm on level 6 now as a Thug (Normal difficulty) and having a blast. Major props for making a fun, addictive little game If I had to make any suggestions, it would be to perhaps include more music, as the single dungeon track does get a little old after 10 repeats.

Edit: When I died, I didn't quite understand the point screen, which seemed to imply I had used millions of wands? I got 8 points, I believe, but it wasn't clear how I arrived at that point total.

KVRAudio.com is a really wonderful community, pretty friendly overall, with something of an emphasis on gear + technology.

I've updated the main post with a new screenshot and video links, as well as much more information about the game itself. Since we're now no more than 2 weeks from shipping this one off to the XBIG review process I'm exciting to hear what people think :-)