Thanks for the A/B explanation mopius, makes more sense now! I wonder how much this joint venture based purely on a name is worth?

It is interesting to see Edge (The Magazine) has no mention of Langdell, EdgeGames.com etc
Also while edgegames puts an (R) on the logo, the mag does not.

I checked, Future own all the UK Edge trademarks jointly with Edge Games/Edge Interactive

I would love to know where you get your info, this is not mentioned on the UK or European trading websites.

I own jointly the trademarks to Windows with Bill, I just let him use it without making any reference to me or acknowledging me in any way ever.

Morelike.

[EDGE]

Seems like Future Publishing are re-filing for their own EDGE trademark. I hope they get it!

(They already own several Edge trademarks in the UK)

Part of the problem is the broad way one trademark can splurge out over others. I had trouble registering Curvy3D (Sculpting Software) because of a brand of paint called 'curvy' something or other. Ended up calling my next company something a made up word I couldn't find in google!

I like the _LEDGE idea best << N.B. the 'L'

We have moved the main demo link to FilePlanet, to fine tune our web traffic flow.

It always amazes me how sites manage to flourish simply by hosting and advertising - in any case it saves me the bandwidth and makes for a more interesting browsing experience.

Thanks BMcC, you should have a shiny review copy sitting in your inbox now!

[Light of Altair Full Game torrent]

For Reviews - Do you just send Full Game download and license to editors? I know it sounds obvious but isn't this a surefire way to end up with Light of Altair Full Game torrent before launch?

(  If you are reading this as an Editor - you welcome to a review copy! pm me )

I know how I would have liked to launch - loads of themed interviews and articles on sites/mags, a multipage preview months before the launch, reviews a month or so before etc. I suspect you need a full time PR team to make that work like a big Publisher. But in the end I spent the time making the game polished and fun instead. My choice

I am a couple of weeks from launch of a sizeable DirectX game, and I have a sinking feeling that I have not done enough marketing - with the added glumness that after the launch it could be too late.

I could do with a reality check... what are the raw stats I should use to judge my marketing? # Previews/Reviews, # Interviews, # Web visitors?

This is my first project as a studio, what constitutes 'Buzz' around a launch - and do you have to pay for it in advertising?

On the flip side - I am confident that my game is fun, and will have a long shelf life, and I've read that 'launch' is not such a big deal for indies and it is the long tail which will prove the game's worth.

On a similar note - what conversion rates are people seeing from demo plays to sales - I have read a generic figure of 1-5%, but is that for visit=>sale or demo=>sale for a game? Because at those rates I can judge what number of eyeballs I would have to turn to reach my targets.

[Warning Tech Talk!]

Alex -
Warning Tech Talk!
You must have a new smooth scrolling mouse perhaps. The old type always rolled in big chunks - say 100 units at a time, while the new ones scroll any smooth number of units - so at any time you could be 1 unit away from triggering the zoom.

I've not got one of these to test on - but zeroing the scroll counter after a delay might fix your problem (or add more issues!)... will have a think

Beer Talk
You know I'm up for that! Look forward to meeting you.

We have official mirrors at:

GamersHell
StrategyInformer
AtomicGamer
FileFront

and unofficial mirrors many other places too.

The download costs (especially at launch) would cost $1000's if we hosted this purely on our own site - our http host is not suitable (price-wise) for massive downloads. I've looked at the alternative systems for download (eg: Amazon Cloudfront) and FileFront seemed straight forward to use with a good speed.

If anyone has some hard numbers on hosted/external demo download-conversion rates... I am open to persuasion!

We've got an interview up on other-gaming.com, with lots more about where this game came from, the gameplay and our experiences with the launch so far:

http://reidos-blog.other-gaming.com/#post4

I have taken on board the comments and added a clear display on the front page of demo link, video, screens, pre-order link.

I think a separate index.html before you hit the php pages would be a good idea - as the rest of my original page still loads underneath... killing my bandwidth!

Sounds like fun Free demo with every beer

[Edit:]

Hi, for the past year I've been working on a sci-fi strategy game with my brother. It is finally ready to share with the world in the form of a lengthy playable demo:
Light of Altair PC Demo

You can play the first three missions of the game (several hours of gameplay!), and also part of a mission late in the game to get a real taste of combat and tactics.

There are two difficulty modes, so if you beat 'Normal' and feel unchallenged - try Hard mode and prepare for a beating in the late-game mission!



Ship combat is focused on equipping and designing your fleet, then watching the combat play out in orbit over your planets.
Your fleets gain experience and unlock new weapons technologies the more they fight.



Colony building is at the core of the game, and while you start off with a single planet to develop, in the end you control many systems at once - but you never get bogged down with micromanagement - the colonies need you to develop, but will maintain themselves pretty well without you while you are expanding elsewhere or fighting a war against a rival faction.

More information, backstory and PR stuff can be found on our website http://www.saintxi.com

Edit: We've got a new interview up on other-gaming.com, with lots more about where this game came from, the gameplay and our experiences with the launch so far:
Reido Interviews SaintXi about Light of Altair on OtherGaming.com

There is no deadtime . Our game is all about immediate action and response with ever increasing challenges and new tech/challenges/enemies added throughout the game. We like to game In-the-Zone and completely immerse ourselves in playing - there's nothing to slow you down here.

We have several levels of time control - generally you will build and command at 1 Day/Second then go to 10x or 50x while your colonies mature, tech advances, and your fleets travel across the systems. All this happens at a realistic rate so some missions will take many decades to complete.

You can save/load at any time outside of an orbital battle (These run in realtime, 1 sec/sec!, with 3x and 10x speedup options - so they don't interfere with colony development). And we have regular autosaves so you don't have to remember to save.

I know other games with long demos, but instead of a great opening couple of levels and lots of padding to make up the numbers - Light of Altair carries on with mission after mission of varied, tough and exciting new content - That's why we've included a mission from later on in the game too - even though it will be quite confusing without playing the inbetweeners.

We are in this for the long view - and hope to be judged on the quality of the game, not the quantity of hype at launch, the Indie way

We are also DRM-Free, because we value our customers' time and sanity.

The grey box will turn into some direct info + various buy/download demo buttons I think.

The back of box is a good point. I will make a dedicated frontpage that does this with a simple mix of description and screenshots - all to get that elusive 10 second experience perfected

The next question of course is what to do with the demo, once those 10 seconds have passed. Currently our demo takes 2-4 hours to play. I don't think this is unreasonable for a strategy game with original gameplay to learn - we've included 3 tutorials levels and one late-game level to give a better feel for how the game turns out.

Thanks for that Lynx. I have updated with a black background, and added story page links.
http://www.saintxi.com

I will have a go working on the feature lists with screenshots, suiting different aspects of the game.

I've noticed some other sites use a dedicated frontpage for selling the game, and hide blog/CMS/forums away to later pages - leaving the front as a simple mix of video, screens and quotes with links to d-load and buy the game. I might try that too.

Colony building is very streamlined in this game, you can play as fast as you like, there is always something else to develop, or another colony to improve. At the start you are working on a handful of colonies on a single planet - by the end of the game you control loads of planets in different solar systems and yet you never get bogged down by the scaling up.

When combat erupts between the rival factions your time is spent more on fleet design and command, the colonies run themselves without much micromanagement.

I'll be back in a few weeks with a playable demo so you can see what I mean - we'll include a couple of tutorial levels but also one of the later levels so you can get a real sense of the scale of the game (Several hours of gameplay in the demo at least!). I wish I could show of the feel of the gameplay as easily as the graphics, it is quite unique.

lol - thanks for the tip, fixed the link.

We use quite a wide angle lens for the battles - it does make the planets go a bit egg shaped.

Mere weeks away from the launch of my game, I am rethinking my website design. Can you give me some pointers?

http://www.saintxi.com

I have not yet converted it into a 'selling' page but in the end we will have direct (BMTMicro) and other online distributor links on there somewhere. I'm thinking maybe replace with a static page for the frontpage, and then the php/news boards as a sub-page.

Game Info:
Light of Altair is a colonization game set in our own solar system and beyond. You must set up a strong economy to survive in the hostile void of space as you compete with other factions, the deadly environment and internal conflicts of interest. But most of all it is a strongly story driven game that will pull people in to this vision of the future.
Powered by a custom made DirectX 3D engine Light of Altair has a unique feel: from the procedurally rendered craters on the moons to the flared rocket trails there is a lot to enjoy while you are puzzling through the missions, zooming from galaxies all the way down to individual moons and asteroids covered in their colonies with glass domes, mines and launch pads.

(Couldn't attach images - so linking inline lores versions)

I'm an artist who writes engines as a necessity. My partner is a designer who codes gameplay as a necessity. I don't think either of us take anywhere near as much pride in programming as in art and design - but it has to get done.

I think a lot of the programmer/designer animosity comes from the fact that progs tend to come from academic hi-skilled backgrounds and have to code all day at the bottom of the hierarchy, while designers often graduate from unskilled testing labs and end up in control of the projects.