Vince

It was sold in stores and overall was very well received by the hardcore crowd: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=95 Even GameSpot and IGN praised it and gave it 8/10, calling it a turn-based tactical treasure: https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/silent-storm-review/1900-6087043/ http://ca.ign.com/articles/2004/01/28/silent-storm-review-2

My point is that we can't hire him to work full time. All we can do is what other small studios are doing - hire him to write a couple of characters or quests, which is nothing but a marketing gimmick. Basically you pay him for the right to use his name and claim that Avellone worked on your game. We do discuss everything but via email, which, in my opinion, is a much better way (it's turn-based!) as it gives you time to think and consider your response. If I come up with a "bright idea", I don't call up a meeting to announce the change of direction. First I ask the person directly affected (like the animator, for example) whether or not it's doable. If it is, I submit my proposal to the rest of the team. If they like it, great. If they don't, we discuss their concerns, trying to address them. If we can't, then the idea is discarded. And attack types. For example, aimed attack: head will set the graze range to 5 (i.e. very low) but increase the critical range by 10. If you have a scoped rifle, it will give you a bonus to your "aimed THC" (but not any other THC) and a further bonus to your critical range. Alternatively, a "one-handed" SMG will have a very high graze range, which will go even higher if you switch to Long Burst, making it nearly impossible to miss at close range.

Our design goals: http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,7120.0.html From another update: As I’ve mentioned earlier, the CSG is a party-based game and the party dynamics will be one of the areas we’ll focus on. There will be 12 potential companions (max party size is 4) filling different roles: psychotic paranoia, racial superiority, religious intolerance (works best when mixed with homicidal tendencies), political idealism, and other delightful personality quirks. In other words, the party members won’t be loyal and obedient slaves but will have their own beliefs, agendas, and personality traits (or in some cases, programming). To give you an idea, here is a quick overview of the top four gunmen who might be persuaded to join you (keep in mind that men of violence are rarely well adjusted individuals): The Gunfighter – an unstable and somewhat paranoid (which is why he’s still alive) gun for hire. He doesn’t care which side he’s fighting for as long as he gets paid. He doesn’t have much patience for diplomacy or long winded conversations, and if he gets a bad feeling he goes for his guns. Being paranoid, he gets bad feelings a lot, so unless you like shooting your way in and out, consider getting someone else. Holding out on him might give him the wrong ideas about the partnership. Other than that he’s a great guy to be around. The Preacher – a man of God dedicated to saving sinners’ immortal souls but showing a callous disregard for their mortal bodies. He’ll join you if you join the Church of the Elect to make sure you deliver what you promised and keep you from having second thoughts. He won’t act against the Church’s interests and won’t tolerate your lack of faith, should you ever display it (he would find it very disturbing). Once he’s in your party, you either do what he says or you kill him, which will displease the Church greatly. You might think it’s a bit harsh but religious fanatics rarely make great traveling companions and joining the Church is more than a cosmetic choice. The Colonel – a former officer of the Protectors of the Mission, makes the best damn fried chicken on the ship. He failed the Mission one time too many and had to switch sides in order to avoid honorable death by firing squad of his peers. The Protectors want him dead more than ever and tried to kill him several times, so he’s well motivated to help you, should you side with the Brotherhood. Then again, he’s equally well motivated to fuck you over if it ends the “misunderstanding” with the Protectors and restores him to his rank and privileges afforded by it. The Wastelander – a rather antisocial mutant who makes a living exploring the damaged areas of the ship and stripping them of anything valuable. Sort of the ‘mountain man’ of the ship. He had a falling out with the Covenant, so now he bears a special hatred for all religious folks, including the Church. Religion is the only topic that can get him all worked up, so don’t take him places where someone might ask if you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Savior. He will leave you if you join a faction, but if you’re a “burn it to the ground” kinda guy, the Wastelander is your man.

More screens (wip): http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,7255.0.html

Most likely. I'm happy with it but we have 4-6 weeks until release and the build is updated on a daily basis with new tweaks and improvements. If Oscar and Mazin decide to tweak the interface again, I won't stop them.

We toned it down

The game is almost done. It's fully playable from start to finish and all the content is in. It will be released in Oct or Nov at the latest. Edit: on the subject of development and different aspects. First, you need an engine, but that's not even half the battle. It seems like something until you have it and realize that it's nothing. You need the systems (character, combat, inventory, crafting, alchemy, dialogue, journal, pathfinding, AI, etc) - that's years of work, and the main assets (animations, items, icons). You have the systems and the assets - you can put together a combat game with light storytelling, which is what we did. To make a game like AoD you need tons of quests with multiple solutions, parallel, interwoven questlines, plus hundreds of thousands words, enough for 3 books, to go with it. It took us a year and a half to put together a town (quests, scripting, and testing taking at least 70%). In comparison, making a combat game is a relatively easy affair. It took us 5 months to put together the arena demo. It took us 10 months to put together this dungeon crawler.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I hope that AoD shows that we don't have a habit of promising more than we can deliver. In general though, I think it's fairly easy to script the above mentioned interactions as it's not a new feature, but a feature that's always been done half way. The way I see it, all attempts to breathe some life into party members always fell short because the party is one of the main RPG conventions, a toy that must never ever be taken away from the player. The party members can say what they want when you talk to then, they can even participate in conversations with other NPCs, but when you're "questing", you lead and they follow without question, ready to back you up no matter what. You make all decisions, they stay silent and indifferent. Even if they say something like "did we really have to burn down that orphanage?", you say something and they happily move on. On rare occasions a party member can leave the party, but it never really affects you as you just tell another tool to take his place. That's what we want to change. I'm talking about combining what we did in AoD (tons of choices at every step) with the party members having opinions and agendas that interfere with your ability to do as you please. In other words, the consequences will be instant and reloading to avoid the negative outcome will force you to make a different non-cosmetic choice (that might have lasting consequences).

Absorbing the alien essence changes you and gives you a different 'perspective'. Regardless of what you once were, you are no longer human, which is a very significant change. Keep in mind that while the ritual is described from your perspective, the ending text is "written" by your priests two hundred years later, who aren't very reliable narrators as they weren't there to witness what actually happened. You don't know how everyone reacted to you when you returned to the cities, looking like a freak. Etc.

In a shocking twist of events we moved from "it's just, like, my opinion, man" to "my opinion is an objective fact and as such is beyond contestation". Well played.

Thank you for your support.

Because such games don't sell and when it comes to action RPGs it's not the most interesting setting. Small indie studios can get away with it because we need to sell less than 1% of what AAAs do to stay in business.

Just to be clear, we aren't aiming to make a full-scale crawler a-la Wiz 8 which was a massive game. We're aiming to make an $8 game (I assume $2 in Russia) that we can put together in 8-10 months. Fight your way out of a prison mine, probably 40 fights in total.

Pretty much. I'm excited to try it myself. We have the overall design done for both games. The dungeon crawler was always our plan B - what happens if AoD doesn't sell enough to pay for the generation ship game's development: do we give up, take our ball and go home or try something else? Trying something else (a quick and inexpensive game that's all about combat) seems like a better idea. While our goal is to put together the dungeon crawler in 8-10 months (otherwise it doesn't make sense), we'll do our best to offer new features to make the game more interesting for people who are well familiar with AoD. The setting does call for a reworked armor system (individual pieces you can scavenge and swap around), but we'll see. As for the generation ship RPG, we want it to have a very different character system and style (focus on ranged weapons, Earth-made single-shot laser weapons vs crude ship-made firearms favoring rapid fire and burst, character levels and feats, environmental interaction, etc). So far the setting is shaping up well. We'll start sharing details a few months after AoD is out. We're in your debt for all your help, so you get a lifetime subscription to all our future games. Whenever you want a key, just PM me.

Thank you for your support, guys. PS. AoD has a very limited appeal, so it will never sell even a third of what D:OS sold, no matter the coverage, but as long as it sells enough to keep us in 'business' and pay for the next game's development, I won't complain.

Putting something playable together is relatively easy. Shaping it into a quality game takes time (clearly, a lot more time than we've anticipated). When we put the first iteration of the game together, I naively assumed that the we're almost done. Turned out it was only the beginning.

Not important and wouldn't affect gameplay (i.e. whether the ship is still in transit or arrived a long time ago would have no effect on your actions, survival, or exploration). Even if NPCs tell you from the start that the engines stopped working many moons ago (implying that the ship has arrived to its destination), what does it change? You're still stuck on the ship and have no access, means, or knowledge to do anything about it. Similarly, we didn't try to convince that the AoD world was invaded by demons only to reveal that it wasn't. Antidas tells you that the Qantari were demons and Feng tells you right away that they were humans. Same reasin - not important. The true ending for the colony ship game isn't realizing that the ship had arrived a long time ago but in making a decision, which in turn would rely on your experience, interaction, and place in the 'world'. For example, what would it take to make you decide that you (and everyone else) are better off on the ship because here you're a somebody, a man of importance and influence? When the ship lands, you're a nobody and would have to work your ass off just like everyone else (think Goodfellas' ending). Etc.

Well, we don't really want to rush things, so... Not true. ^ a smart soldier ^ a tough trader Obviously, it's more challenging to play a 'multi-classed' character but that's how it should be. Too much if you ask me, but kindness to the unwashed masses who would kill innocent people (and did) for a few extra skill points is my soft spot.

A new annotated combat guide by Brandon:

It's a bug, will be fixed soon (hopefuly today). My apologies for the inconvenience.

You can buy it at the pass (guards only at the moment, but will be extended to Aurelian agents as well).

We're now on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/230070/

Then you're missing out on a top 10 RPG - Star Trail. Check it out. http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2365.0.html

We put together the final build at 1am last night and released it to those who have pre-ordered because they come first. Now we'll submit to Valve and see what they say.

Took 6 min for me and I have a crappy connection. So, Albatross, if you're still having problems, let me know.