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[Eigen]

So after 8 months of non-stop not working and an occasional tinkering I can finally say that the new build is available! The main drive came from IGF submission deadline which forced me to really shift thing along (starting a week before deadline, obviously).

What is new?

• The world is now one huge and continious area, no more maps per se. You can explore anywhere at any time. That was the feature I spent a lot of the summer on. Simple in concept, quite difficult to implement in practice.
• Then I got started on the story ... okay maybe not story as that is still to come ... but something that wraps your initial actions to a narrative. Couple of simplest initial quests to get started.
• Then I pretty much rewrote the town areas. They function similar to the old builds but look completely different and house a lot more actions. You can now also converse with characters in towns. More still to come.
• Added simple character levelling and unlocking new skills.
• Added temples with temporary looting system. Eventually this will be replaced with the ability to actually enter temples and wander around solving little puzzles to get to the treasure.
• I also spent quite some time on the UI, cleaning up the overall style and fixing certain interfaces.
• Externalized all text resources and wrote a little tool to help with translating the game.
• Lots of new music
• Numerous other things, fixes, changes and improvements I can't even remember.

Download for Windows
Download for OS X

[Quarry]

The map is just mindblowing

[Joshua]

Deadlines are helpful. 

[Eigen]

Sorry, that build was broken (the dialogs didn't work) but all is well now. If you downloaded it earlier, please do it again. Thanks!

[eigenbom]

I had a quick play -- it's looking excellent and has got a nice consistent feel. I love the rain and ambience of the town scenes, and the UI is refreshing. The hints and quest completion pop-ups are great too.

Personally, I would get the player into the action quicker - maybe you could have the first intro scene involve the player shipwrecking and then walking through a small island, before becoming overwhelmed by a creature and passing out. Or maybe a mini mission at the start, where you have to find the first captain's lost hat before he sets out to the second town.

The text also has a few spelling and grammatical errors. Would definitely be worth getting an editor to pass over all the text before the final release. I think I saw 'posession' when it's spelled 'possession', for example. More importantly is the grammar though, especially because the letter/journal is meant to be written by an educated Englishman (I'm assuming).

[Kurt]

It looks great and plays great, however my issue is how long it takes in the beginning like eigenbom said - maybe make an option to speed up the text or to skip the individual characters show up one at a time? And again, like eigenbom said, there were a few spelling mistakes and such.

[kleiba]

It looks great and plays great, however my issue is how long it takes in the beginning like eigenbom said - maybe make an option to speed up the text or to skip the individual characters show up one at a time? And again, like eigenbom said, there were a few spelling mistakes and such.

Just to exemplify this further, there are some typos already visible in the trailer video, e.g.:

- 1:40 "disovered" (should be "discovered")
- 2:19 "resuce" (should be "rescue")
- 2:49 "constrction" (should be "construction")

[makerimages]

It looks great and plays great, however my issue is how long it takes in the beginning like eigenbom said - maybe make an option to speed up the text or to skip the individual characters show up one at a time? And again, like eigenbom said, there were a few spelling mistakes and such.

press Esc during the cutscene

[Eigen]

It looks great and plays great, however my issue is how long it takes in the beginning like eigenbom said - maybe make an option to speed up the text or to skip the individual characters show up one at a time? And again, like eigenbom said, there were a few spelling mistakes and such.

Just to exemplify this further, there are some typos already visible in the trailer video, e.g.:

- 1:40 "disovered" (should be "discovered")
- 2:19 "resuce" (should be "rescue")
- 2:49 "constrction" (should be "construction")

Yeah, this isn't too great. I fixed them in the game but I can't change the trailer. Oh well. It's not the end of the world. Will do better next time

About the pacing of the intro. I hear you but all I can say is that it's pretty much intented. This game does and will involve reading in the form of these cutscenes. I guess I can play around with the text animation and try appearing word at a time but I fear it might be too unsmooth and jumpy.

[vlaube]

I'm working on a German translation, anyone interested?

[Eigen]

Great!

Be sure to let me know if you need anything from my part. I might have forgotten to put some texts into the localization file or whatever. Plus the little translation tool I wrote only works for game texts and not quests and other stuff. There are also some sprites that are localized (data/localization/en/sprites).

[vlaube]

Thanks for the offer, I will let you know when I need any help.

[kleiba]

Are you a translator by training? I'm just wondering because e.g. while "Erschaffen von" is indeed a very literal translation of "Created by", it does sound a bit awkward in German. At least to my ears.

Good translations can be quite difficult because often times nuances to not translate well from one language to the next. There's always the question of how much liberty you should be allowed...

[Christian]

Just saw this. Wow, sounds awesome. Oregon Trail on a much bigger scale and with a much bigger scope. Anticipating

[orseoste7o]

I really, really like the art style in this game! 

[vlaube]

Are you a translator by training? I'm just wondering because e.g. while "Erschaffen von" is indeed a very literal translation of "Created by", it does sound a bit awkward in German. At least to my ears.

Good translations can be quite difficult because often times nuances to not translate well from one language to the next. There's always the question of how much liberty you should be allowed...

You are right, it is a bit awkward, but I'm open to suggestions if you have any. As you guessed I'm not a professional translator, I'm just doing this for fun.

Right now I'm basically doing a first draft to get a feel for the project and will do several passes of refinement later. When the translation reaches a state that I'm happy with, I will try to get some testers to even out any rough spots. Maybe you want to be the first one to try it?

[kleiba]

Right now I'm basically doing a first draft to get a feel for the project and will do several passes of refinement later. When the translation reaches a state that I'm happy with, I will try to get some testers to even out any rough spots. Maybe you want to be the first one to try it?

Yeah, that's a really good idea I think! And I'd be happy to help by looking at the results of your different passes. 

[makerimages]

  Needs optimization. I got a 2008 laptop with a Dual core 1,6 GHz CPU a few days ago, to tinker with and code my stuff on. This wont run on it.. It starts but then everything within the game starts to lag awfully... the laptop is a Compaq 6720s if that helps.

[Eigen]

It's probably the lack of dedicated graphics card and the Intel chip just isn't enough. Should I ever get my hands on a low-end laptop I'll see what I can do.

[makerimages]

Should I ever get my hands on a low-end laptop I'll see what I can do.

You definately do that.