There's no time for preambles (pre-ambulating?). I've got so much important DROD stuff to talk about this month, it would be a crime to waste one millisecond of your precious attention span on pseudo-relevancies.
Journey's End Released
We took forever to get this latest Smitemaster's Selection out the door, but now it is posted on CaravelNet for all members to download.
Journey's End includes two outstanding holds with great puzzles, story, and voice acting. Larry Murk brings us
Master Locks, which is set just before Beethro reaches the infamous Rooted Hold. As Beethro solves the three locks, he will discover evidence of the Empire's beginnings.
Smitemastery 101 is Jacob Grinfeld's much-anticipated introductory hold for children, newbies, and the less-determined. Towards the end of this hold, you will hear a song that gives important advice about choosing a name for your sword.
There's three ways to get
Journey's End:
included with a CaravelNet membership
with a Smitemaster's Selection download credit
on a Smitemaster's Selection CD with other nifty bonus material
CaravelNet is Changing
Yes, we are going to change it. That weirdly complex thing we call "
CaravelNet"
is morphing once again. Why does it have to change all the time? CaravelNet is highly experimental. There is no equivalent in the world of online gaming services, and we are figuring out many things for the first time. We are encouraging you to participate in this experiment with us, but it's our duty to give you an easy way out if things aren't going how you want. So keep in mind, as I discuss the dramatic changes that are coming, that
a no-questions-asked refund is available for the following people:
* CaravelNet members may receive a full refund for any membership purchased before 3/31/2007 which has not come to an end.
* Smitemaster's Selection CD subscribers may receive a refund for any Selection CD purchased before 3/31/2007 which has not yet been shipped.
* Smitemaster's Selection download credit owners may receive a refund for any download credit purchased before 3/31/2007 which has not been redeemed for a Selection.
Although the refund only applies to purchases made before 3/31/2007, there is no deadline for when you can claim this refund. E-mail
erikh@caravelgames.com if you would like a refund or have any questions about how it works.
Is your attention span still intact? Let's talk about what is changing.
CaravelNet Will Not Include Smitemaster's Selections
Smitemaster's Selections will be sold separately as individual products, and will no longer be automatically given to CaravelNet members. That's going to sound immediately tragic to almost everyone who has a CaravelNet membership now, but relax! All current CaravelNet members will be given Smitemaster's Selection download credits that provide the equivalent of four Smitemaster's Selections per membership. So you will get the same number of Selections either way. Also, you won't need to worry about getting less Selections due to Caravel releasing them late.
Unlinking Smitemaster's Selections from CaravelNet allows us to be more flexible with release schedules. We might put out two Selections in one quarter, and wait a half year before releasing the next. Selections won't get rushed out before they are ready. We won't be forced to drop other important projects to get a Selection released.
Smitemaster's Selections Will Get Better
The DROD 3.0 engine has been vastly improved to support all the storytelling we've packed into our upcoming
DROD: The City Beneath game. What will this mean for Smitemaster's Selections? Many of the limitations we worked with before will be gone. It will be possible, for example, to embed artwork for a special character into a hold. Branching plotlines, cut scenes, player accomplishment tracking, and many more features have been added to the engine. We can even have a Smitemaster's Selection where the main character is someone besides Beethro. Using the editor that comes with the DROD 3.0 engine, you can create holds that are a hybrid between puzzle-solving and adventure RPGs.
Now, the other thing that will make Smitemaster's Selections
very interesting is our plans to release some of them simultaneously with one or two new elements added to the game engine. You will no longer need to patiently wait two years for a release of the next full-length DROD game to play with new monsters, traps, obstacles, and other gameplay devices. We'll start to see some Selections released that showcase new game elements added to the engine.
So there will be a lot of toys for you to play with this year. Speaking of which...
CaravelNet Will Get Better
Here is a list of confirmed new CaravelNet features that are already coded and working in the DROD 3.0 engine:
* Room styles can be embedded in holds and downloaded from CaravelNet. When a CaravelNet hold utilizing new room styles is downloaded in-game, DROD automatically downloads these published room styles through CaravelNet.
* A chat room screen, with in-game global and private chatting. Will forum posts go down as a result, I wonder?
* You can rate CaravelNet holds in-game.
* Inside the game, you can sort CaravelNet holds by rating, difficulty and number of votes received.
Schik has also been hard at work on an online multiplayer version of DROD in the style of our famous Smite to the Death contest. CaravelNet members will be able to control a swordsman in an arena full of other players via a web interface. The arenas will open this year, and then you can say goodbye to all your free time, because this thing is going to be very addictive.
Design a New DROD Interface
My sincere apologies to NiroZ for doing almost nothing to help bring people to his contest. Thankfully, he did not need my help, and his interesting contest is alive with participation. As I write this incredibly late newsletter, you actually still have five days to create an entry and submit it to the contest. Yeah, it's not too late! Go check it out.
Contest info
Half-Illuminated
I'm going to leave February half-illuminated. March will have a proper, fully-fledged Illumination with a "
Don't Ask"
award, Contest Announcement, Topic Picks, and maybe even a Preamble. Heh. Or a Pre-ramble, in my case.
-Erik
____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals |
twitch stream |
youtube archive (NSFW)
[Last edited by mrimer at 02-20-2007 05:38 AM]
I take it that by branching plotlines you mean something similar to my 'Flags' feature request? 
/dy