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[codrer]

December 14 update:
iubes is now open beta http://www.iubes.com





Hi everyone!
I'm a newcomer here, and for my very first contribution to this wonderful world, I'd like to present you my small game project: iubes.

It's an unpretentious spare-time project, very indie-style: time streching, spherical playground and other weirdnesses for a kind of light & unusual strategy game.



How to describe the game?
It's a cross-over between God games and RTS (Age of Empire like) but while traditional RTS have a lot of micro-management (seek for resources, cost of buildings, click and manage units) here you don't need to take care of this at all: iubes are intelligent and are going to manage "how to do your things" by themselves. You don't control iubes directly but only select what/where/when they have to do.

For example, you can ask them to set any construction at any time without carrying about resources. BUT, you can't know precisely when the constuction will be finished: it all depends on your iubes organization, availability, if they can find near resources, and so on. Thus you've got to closely look at the playground to analyse the situation.

The purpose of those mechanics is to let you focus on the time factor: everything is a question of time. Speed up the timeline if everything goes fine, then pause, think, make a few ajustements, restart... you spend your time asset at your wish and play from x0 to x100 time ratio.

But time streching has a side effect: every single dead iube will come back on night time (ghost are very weak soldier, but... numerous!) and you really have to keep this in mind. The more you enforce the opponent player, the more you're bound to face tons of lost souls! You'd better not start a war at dusk! Of course you can use this day/night sequencing at your advantage.

The aim of all of this is a very simple gameplay, with a real strategic gaming.

But the first video might help to explain the oddities ^^



VIDEO:




But as a matter of fact, I need your help, too!
1/ In the forthcoming weeks I'd like to enroll a decent amount of beta testers for online battles, thus if you're interested in RTS/God games, please register on the website (www.iubes.com)! Maybe we'll meet online in epic iubes battles...

2/ And of course, I'd really enjoy to have any opinion/ comment/ feeling... pro & cons... feel free!


That's all for today! Cheers!

[pluckyporcupine]

Looks pretty awesome. Registered for the upcoming beta. 

[HUDuser]

The art style looks really cool and so does the gameplay. Already applied for beta :D

[wonman321]

I love the art style

[codrer]

At last... after a huge delay, and lot of pain to bring iubes to life... beta is going to start next week!

There's already about 400 registered beta testers but you can still join if you want to give a try.

http://www.iubes.com

[Boxpipe]

First glance: oh just another god game.

Look into further detail
   - Sphere World
   - Time Stretching
   - Autonomous AI
   ...
   - MULTIPLAYER?!
 

You had me at the part where it started making my brain hurt just looking at it. Sir, I hope you keep up this awesome spare-time project and make a truly god-tier *snickers* god game.

On a side note from all the praising, what can we expect the size of multi-player to be like? Will you have small matches where it consists of 2-6 players? Or will you try to cram in dozens of players inside a giant sphere world? crosses fingers for latter. 

[Ancient Account]

I'm interested in this.

Edit: Registered.

[perky]

Also registered, with it entering beta does that mean it's now feature complete?

[codrer]

Thank's for registering. I hope everything is fine there!

Will you have small matches where it consists of 2-6 players? Or will you try to cram in dozens of players inside a giant sphere world? crosses fingers for latter

Because it's a spare time project... it'll start with small matches (way much simpler to implement) with a system of ranking to go up in the worldwide chart (and gain new buildings on special maps, but that's another thing). But as a MMO addict, it'd be my dream to make iubes evolve to something more... massive!

It all depends on iubes' reception. If I can sell the game and continue working on it, everything could be imaginable

with it entering beta does that mean it's now feature complete?

No! In fact iubes has been made in 90 days. I think it's enjoyable enough to start the beta but I plan on upgrading everything as much as possible. Again it depends on its reception. I hope it'll find its audience...

[Bret Hudson]

I signed up for the beta and am stoked to try the game out. We'll be writing a preview in Indie Power Magazine. For only having 90 days logged into it, it looks super polished.

[Digital Awakening]

I really really like the look of this game. From your description I think I will enjoy the gameplay very much as well. I'm not into micro management. Are you planning a single player campaign? That's what I would be the most interested in.

Good luck with the game :D

[Ancient Account]

Are you planning a single player campaign?

Same question.

[codrer]

Sorry, for now, single players will be restricted to matches against computer, nothing such a whole campain. Maybe latter when pvp will be complete?

[Digital Awakening]

Sorry, for now, single players will be restricted to matches against computer, nothing such a whole campain. Maybe latter when pvp will be complete?

Balancing a game in multiplayer is not a bad idéa. For example, that's how Bungie does it.

[Ancient Account]

Sorry, for now, single players will be restricted to matches against computer, nothing such a whole campain. Maybe latter when pvp will be complete?

Okay, I'll cope with that.

[codrer]

Hi guys!

Just to inform you that iubes is now in open beta. Online battles have started, looks like everythin runs fine here:) It's time to come if you wished to give a try! http://www.iubes.com

Regards!

[Ancient Account]

YAY! Finally!

[pluckyporcupine]

I submitted some feedback about a week ago through the contact form and never heard back so I'll try here. My main concerns were:

1. The dynamic between units isn't really extensive enough. It seems to mostly be about building the biggest group of military units as soon as possible, with the only possible offset being if only one of the players has an armory. Regardless of how many towers you have, without any option to repair buildings, they wear down eventually, leaving the largest army the one that wins no matter what.

There really need to be support units. Whether that's healers, repair units, what-have-you, there just needs to be something. I know that it isn't finished and that you plan for more units so I'm just throwing in the opinion that that needs to be a priority.

2. I get that the idea is to build and build and build and eventually take over as much as you can but there are two major issues I have with that setup:

a. Farms can be depleted rather than just destroyed. With every other building, defending the building well enough ensures that you'll have that space used well indefinitely. Considering farms are one of the most used structures and that you need dozens of them by the end of the match, seeing them get depleted, inevitably taking up that much space, is just frustrating. I haven't even really seen what causes it or if it can easily be avoided.

b. The AI have this really annoying habit of taking your buildings that you've carefully placed and dropping them anywhere from 5 to 10 tiles away from where you wanted it, killing the setup you were going for. Several times, they've dropped them upwards of 20 tiles away, obstructing space I wanted to use for something else as well as screwing up my supply line. They're not even really appearing to find a best fit for where to build it as I often have all sorts of buildings requiring stone dropped all the way across the base from my only mine at that point!

3. Some of the levels I've been dropped into are really poorly put together, sometimes with only slivers of available real-estate in the area I'm started in. It can be really frustrating, especially with issues 2a and 2b in play.

4. You can't choose to weight a certain amount of your population towards being a specific role. Sometimes I desperately need more farmers. Sometimes I desperately need more soldiers. I get that this is probably intentional, and that I have to learn how to control them better, but it gets incredibly frustrating when I only have half my possible population because the iubes won't take roles as farmers in the other half of the farms I have so there's not enough food to maintain a higher population.

5. This is the really important one. I don't get how multiplayer works at all. I spend an average of 20-30 minutes in a match that last an average of 5-6 simulated hours. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. I don't fully understand the AI yet and I generally spend my time jumping from paused to 10-15x, sometimes dropping it to 5x when I feel I need to pay attention.

Here's my question. What if my opponent is consistently playing at 1-3x? Does the game simulate what they MIGHT do an hour later since I'm running at 10x? Do they suffer for running the game at a slower rate because the game only handles what they've input so far? I just don't get how it works and I've never gotten a notification telling me that my opponent wants to change the rate of play or seen a timer saying how far into the match they are. I'm just confused. When I win am I really winning?

...and that's about it so far. I'm really enjoying the game and am looking forward to seeing where it goes from here. These are just the things that really jumped out at me. Ultimately, one of the most striking problems is that the game's systems aren't explained very well and can be hard to discern since there isn't a lot of interaction where you can see what you did wrong easily but I'm sure that'll be improved as the tutorial is worked on or some sort of manual is put together.

[soryy708]

Downloaded. I <3 strategy and godgames.

Will update this as I continue playing with my thoughts and feedback.

So far:
- The title screen music reminds me of


- Unfortunately, there's no background music for the tutorial
- After playing the tutorial, I have the impression that the game is all about building a bunch of buildings quickly and just massing iubes.
- Oh, I can't cancel a marker that I placed?
- I just got into a solo match. The background music is awesome!
- Sadly, silence falls when it's done.
- The easy AI builds way too fast for me!
- What, is the population capped at 200?
- Why don't my iubes repair damaged buildings?

[codrer]

Thank to both of you for the feedbacks. This confirm my current thoughts: I have to really better explain the game to help people understand what they are playing to Some stuffs aren't enough intuitive... Fortunately I cross a bunch of very good players who have undestood deep mechanisms (so that's possible) but the other part of people give up with doubts

A bunch of answers...

1/ yes, audio is not finished. I have to make some background tracks and sound fxs. Effects will need some special treatment to sound good (and tolerable!) whatever the game speed is.

2/ Clearly, the AI is too hard at the beginning even in easy mode. I'm going to change this for the next update. I'll also add some popup "tips" about buildings & gameplay.

4/ The population is capped at 200 (250 exactly, as you can have +50 ghosts, even if not displayed in the counter) in order to force players to balance their tasks. Otherwise the battles would be an infinite question of building as much as buildings as possible!

5/ Depleted farms: this occurs only after 2+ hours (simulated). Most of battles are finished at this point. The goal is to avoid a pure defender strategy: if you lock yourself in your city, you'll have to move away because of your wasted land. But I'm currently watching a lot on online battles to see if this work as wished. There is certainly something to improve.

6/ Buildings placement: iubes complete your orders at the closest possible location of your request. Anyway that's true, I've been told a lot of time from new players that they didn't understood exactly where they can put buildings. I have to make this more intuitive.


>> Some of the levels I've been dropped into are really poorly put together
Simply always take some time to select the best location to start! You don't need to build near the starting point.

>> When I win am I really winning?
Of course you win for real:) But I'm gonna make some real & complete explanations on the website, as online battles aren't an usual system (because of the possibility to change timeflow). In fact you don't have to think about your opponent, timelines are resynchronized.

>> Sometimes I desperately need more soldiers. I get that this is probably intentional, and that I have to learn how to control them better.
That's exactly the concept here. To learn to masterize the iubes so they do efficient work the way you want. You don't really lead the battle, but rather the growth and efficiency of your city.

>> With the only possible offset being if only one of the players has an armory
For example, I've never had to use the armony in online battle. But my account is still 100% epic. The offset rely at 90% on when / where your start buildings, because it influences a lot all of your population balance & interactions (you'd have noticed there is no fixed duration for the construction of a new building -- everything works this way).

Anyway... I'll be back with a real (complete?) and official explanation of the game. Everything should become easier!

Thank again guys!