There have been endless articles on how Windows 8 sacrificed desktop usability for being a better tablet OS. The problem is, it’s not a very good tablet OS either. The problem has nothing to do with Metro per se. The problem is that Windows still, at its heart, behaves like a 1990s OS. Let me walk you through some things that I think, regardless of whether you’re a Windows, Android, iOS fan you can agree that these are inexplicably bad things. For full disclosure, I have bo...
All games, even the games that looked amazing when they come out eventually start to look “dated” visually. The challenge isn’t determining whether a game’s graphics have started to get dated looking but what specifically makes a game start to look dated. Let’s use Legendary Heroes as an example: What parts of the game look dated today? What parts do you think will look dated in the near future?
I love the site Steamcharts.com. It’s a great place to see what people are actually playing. It uses the Steam stats as its basis so it’s a reasonably fair comparison for most new games. Here are some fantasy strategy games: Age of Wonders 3: King of the world! FE:LH Hanging in there after all these years Warlock II Endless Legend Civilization V: KING OF THE WORLD!
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Greetings! v1.6 of Legendary Heroes seems to have gone well and we’re now moving on to v1.7. I’m not sure what the rest of the team has in store for that (it’s Kael’s team, I’m just a floater). But I’ve got 16 engineer hours of my own time for v1.7 and want to make sure every hour is spent well. I don’t know how many of you are interested in the sausage factory side of game development but if you are, this is a good chance to see it ...
I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that GalCiv III is moving along on schedule. The bad news is that we’ve decided to change the feature requirements necessary for GalCiv III to be considered a “beta”. Originally, we were going to release the beta in May/June and have it not include combat/diplomacy/etc. However, we’ve determined that we’re better off continuing with the Alpha series until some of those features enter into the game which isn’t sc...
I’ve seen a lot of talk about early access and the pros and cons of it. I wanted to share some experiences on this. The very first commercial retail PC game that allowed people to pre-order the game and get access to the beta was called Galactic Civilizations for OS/2 and the year was 1993. Every single Stardock game has had early access for over 20 years so this is a good opportunity to share some experiences about it. #1 You can’t fund your ...
We’ve been blessed with a lot of fantasy 4X games in the past few years. Besides the Elemental games we’ve gotten Warlock, Age of Wonders 3, Eador, and soon Endless Legends. If you like fantasy games, I highly recommend checking them all out (except War of Magic which is inferior to all of them). Unfortunately, as game designers, we have an unusual challenge: Magic. Magic isn’t fair It is really really hard to write good AI in a game that literally allows players to conjure...
We had a great discussion about what features of LH players liked the most. Now, let’s turn it on its head. What parts of Legendary Heroes do you like the least? This doesn’t have to be a feature list either, it could be elements of the game (or parts of the game) that you just find boring or frustrating or poorly thought out. Let us know!
Bottom line: DirectX 12 looks to double perf over DirectX 11 on the same hardware. The game changing effect of this cannot be understated.
Build is Microsoft’s annual developer’s conference. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to one of these. This year, for the first time in some years, I feel like Microsoft is back to their old selves. It’s like they were in an incompetent funk for a very long time. Consider the idiocy that has flowed from Redmond in recent years: Creation of Silverlight and subsequent abandonment (Silverlight was awesome) Windows Presentation Foundation and its ab...
Galactic Civilizations III Galactic Civilizations II Galactic Civilizations I Spent my evening today trying out the various Galactic Civilizations versions over the years. Each has their own particular strengths. If you don’t have the original Galactic Civilizations for Windows, I highly recommend picking it up. It has a real “indie” charm to it. Now, the GalCiv III screenshot here is of the alpha . The ...
Greetings! I was thinking the other day on how Galactic Civilizations has evolved over the years. Let’s take a look: Feature GalCiv OS/2 GalCiv I GalCiv II GalCiv III Core 4X mechanics x x x x United Planets x x x x Moral Dilema Events x x x x ...
Every so many months I’ll load up Starcraft to play a few games. It is still an amazingly designed game. It is my go-to game when it comes to seeing a well designed-RTS. That said, Starcraft is not designed for casual multiplayer enjoyment. If you’re not “really” into it you will likely find your mood soured after a few experiences online. This is regrettable because it is intentionally designed to be this way. Years ago, I worked on the Starcraft expans...
Greetings! The ALPHA of Galactic Civilizations III is due in 17 days (March 27). I want to use this post as a way to set people’s expectations and, if anything, use this as a public service announcement that you should NOT join the Founder’s program if your goal is to play a video game for fun early. That is not the purpose of the Founder’s program. The stages of development Software goes through 5 distinct phases with varying definitions but below is my own personal versio...
Greeeeeeeeeeeeetings my friends! This post is more for indie developers who want to know how much money things make. First some basics on game budgeting: Every person on your game you should budget at $10,000 per month. It’s a good rule of thumb. You should target a 25% “profit” on your game to cover the unexpected as well as for future growth Steady State income represents the gross income of your game without sales, promotions, new releases, etc. ...