Caravel forumites have asked for some news on our upcoming title. Taking care of company operations -- and mostly being busy with life -- I haven't had time to do much development of my own this year. However, the rest of the dev team is making some notable progress on the game. Levels are mostly finished, a great new music score by Jon Sonnenberg has been mastered, there are three new room styles in the works, and we have a good amount of story work done. I haven't provided much visibility into the development process up to this point, but we are planning a neat forum contest centered around various story points in the upcoming game to provide some more visibility. We'll announce this contest when it's ready. Besides that, we have a metric six-pack of other goodies to share with you. Read on!
Caravel News
As many of have noticed, we now offer a
PayPal payment option for buying DROD games!
http://caravelgames.com/Articles/Games.html
We have been at work setting up distribution of DROD titles through other venues. For instance, Impulse has requested to carry our games, so you can find our titles there now. Sales volume there hasn't been super high, but still probably better than expected for just throwing the titles up there and not really advertising. We'll probably try to get them on Steam next.
CaravelNet Chat on the Forum
Schik has implemented a great new feature on our site -- using the
chat functionality for CaravelNet subscribers right on the forum! When logged in, CaravelNet users can find a new "
Chat"
link at the top of the page under the forum banner. (I hear it's rumored to be even better than Facebook chat.
) Thanks, Schik, for the dash of awesome sauce!
The Everyman Eighth Games Adventure Contest
Let the games begin! Forumite
noma is hosting a cool new official Forum contest. In this contest, you must create a room-sized version of a board game, card game, video game, sports and leisure activity, or any other everyday game. You have through the weekend to submit an entry, but even if you can't make something of your own in time, please stop in and vote for your favorite once submissions are completed:
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=31147
Winner receives a prize of their choice from the Prize Pile and a seat of honor at the games!
The Sixth Annual People's Choice Awards
CuriousShyRabbit is holding the 6th annual DROD community awards to recognize excellent holds published last year. There are dozens of creative holds nominated across several engaging categories, including a new category for DROD RPG. You can view this forum thread for a discussion of the awards and nominations.
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=31116
And click the link below to vote for the hold nominees you like best. There are some really great creations in there!
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=31170
Don't Ask Award
Forumite
Tuttle has been nominated for a
Don't Ask award. Tuttle has been extremely helpful in testing out various Forum changes and has been involved in patching up lots of old and new holes. Thanks, Tuttle! Please select a prize from the Prize Pile.
Nerdy Awesomeness of the Month
For anyone not living under a rock, you know
Starcraft II is finally released. For anyone vaguely interested in
Starcraft, you know this was a long time coming. For the five RTS fans out there who didn't get the game yet, I'd like to suggest a little RTS diversion called
CellCraft.
CellCraft is a Flash game that you can play online or download for free. It's a fun little game that deserves the monthly award for
Nerdy Awesomeness -- if there were one -- for being a game that teaches you some cellular biology as you play. You control a single-celled organism that works to survive against various hostile environments. As the player, you are introduced to various organelles and taught how they function...possibly at the level of your typical high school biology lecture. This is the nerdy part -- the awesome part comes into play when you control these parts of the cell as you would the structures of your base in a RTS game. Even my nine-year-old can play it, and is now quite interested in learning more about cellular biology. Just try it out -- I dare you to say it's not an impressive attempt to provide some real-world education while playing an engaging game for 2-3 hours. To me, this demonstrates that "
educational"
"
games"
can have the quotes removed from those two words when placed together by the right game designer.
For those who love Turing machines
If high-school biology weren't nerdy enough, there's a Flash game called
Manufactoria! On the forum, the level editing prowess of DROD has been compared to a universal Turing machine. If you have any idea what I'm talking about, this game is for YOU!
Board Gamers Corner
Last year, I said I'd share some cool board games with anyone interested in the hobby. Tired of waiting for me, some forumites have shared some great board and card games on their own. Here's a mention of one I have enjoyed, with some discussion of what part of my fancy it tickles:
*
Cosmic Encounter -- This game is set in a space setting, where each player controls a different alien race and is trying to become the dominant race in the galaxy by establishing colonies on the other players' home systems. This game is largely about breaking the rules. Each alien race has a special power that lets them manipulate the rules of the game to their advantage. It's just cool to have races like the
Humans, who are dubbed "
Mostly Harmless"
, but turn into super heroes and can win any battle when they're exposed to cosmic radiation, or the
Spiff, whose spacemen have the power to crash land with style. (If you don't get the reference, look it up!) Besides that, there's room for making and breaking alliances, trash-talking, wheeling and dealing, and intimidating or buddying up to your fellow players. If you like looking for sequence breaking in your adventure games like
Metroid, getting to use rule-breaking power ups like in
DROD RPG, or having some good laughs around the table with your friends, this is one title you definitely should try out. This game has actually been around forever in some form or another, validating how classic it is as a gaming experience. I'd recommend the 2008 publication of this one. There's even an expansion out with new alien races and other new features.
--------
Tim put together a list of some newer forum projects for me. (Thanks, Tim!) If I missed any, I'll try to post them next time.
These are most of the holds that have been released since the previous Illumination. It's quite a list, so here it goes:
DROD Holds:
Going in Circles
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30940
Beethro's Volcanic Voyage
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30934
Detention Complex
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30933
The Great Adventure 2
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30929
Rosebud Museum
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30901
war14
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30786
Cycles
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30663
Experimental Dungeon
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30650
NeverForth
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30592
Deconstructed Dungeon
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30584
Insane Puzzle
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30437
The Puzzle Catacombs
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30428
Way Forward
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30343
The Deep Archives
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30325
Penwielder's Palace
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30265
Holding Dungeon
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30257
Random Obsessive
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30237
DROD RPG Holds:
Unfriendly Islands
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30698
DROD Roguelike Project:
A "
roguelike"
project using AE graphics.
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=30945&page=0#305023
How to Create and Backup a Player file:
Lately there are a couple of forumites who are saying that they have somehow lost their save files.
Here's a small reminder on how to create a player file:
1. Select "
Change Player"
2. Select "
Export"
3. Save the file to your computer.
4. Make a backup of this file in case your hard drive dies.
5. Write down the list of holds you have. You'll need this later if you want to restore the list of holds.
Then, if you ever have to reinstall DROD for whatever reason, like on a new computer, you can reload the holds you've been playing and then "
Import"
your player file. You'll be right where you left off!
------
Till next time, keep up the gaming!
-Mike
____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.
[Last edited by mrimer at 10-22-2010 05:58 PM]
