mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5056
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

(Posted on behalf of skell: )

After the successful deployment of TSS, mrimer decided to amend his neglecting of the real world and went and had a child or something (congrats!). So in the meantime I, skellacious D, have BEEN ELECTED BY A COUNCIL OF OWLS to take over the responsibility/honor, and with reluctant help of Pearls we're bringing you today's Illumination! A lot of delightful things have happened in the past few months, so put on your reading glasses, pour yourself a drink, and prepare yourself to descend into the beneath via a veritable Wall Of Text.

DROD:TSS greenlit!

We have just received news that DROD:TSS has been greenlit for Steam distribution! A huge thank you to everyone who has up-voted the game. Now we have two passes to share DROD with the masses. When the game is released on Steam, everyone who has a registered copy of the game can receive a free Steam key. We want to make DROD's first impression a good one. So...

DROD on Steam development

trick, whom the linux community knows well for bringing DROD to this operating system, has done a lot of work converting the DROD code base from SDL1 to SDL2 in order to support Steam features right inside the game. It’s a big first step in getting us released on the most popular gaming platform ever, but still a lot of work lies ahead of us. For instance, Schik is also making steady progress at CaravelNet support for Steam. Still, it will take more time for all this work to be finalized. Stay tuned for more news on this front throughout the year.

DROD 5 Development

For those of you with watches, and you’re not stuck in the Eye of the Storm, you may have noticed there has been a period of...decelerated...development on DROD since the TSS 5.0.1 release. Fortunately, work on TSS 5.0.2 has begun and you can find the initial scope here:

http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=39273

TSS 5.0.2 development is being performed in parallel to Steam development.

Don’t Ask Award

There is a person hero in our community who selflessly dedicated a tremendous amount of time and heart to demonstrate the potential of the new challenge feature that debuted in The Second Sky. Nuntar, because obviously he’s the man I am talking about, had the patience and good will to scrape the boards, choose the best challenges and implement them. Thanks Nuntar for generously giving us the beautifully remastered KDD 5.0 and JtRH 5.0. We can only hope you’ll grant us TCB 5.0 too. And why not Beethro’s Teacher 5.0!

Nuntar, please choose a prize from the Prize Pile for your awesome contributions as a token of Caravel and the entire fan base’s appreciation. [You can actually take two -- one for each hold! I mean, who successfully upgrades not one, but two official holds just like that?! -- mrimer]

And also an obligatory link to the official JtRH 5.0 thread:
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=39313

Caravel Games on social media
Caravel Games has a fancy new Facebook page. We can’t promise you full integration right in your game, so you could post that you've conquered yet another room, but you can be sure updates will be frequent and engaging, as long as Schik isn't writing them. We’re also back on Twitter, so if over-140-character messages are too distracting while you're slashing through hordes of roaches, stick to that platform.

https://www.facebook.com/caravelgames
https://twitter.com/caravelgames

Let's Plays 2.0

DezzTech has compiled the ultimate list of YouTube DROD Videos, which you can find linked below. Many and most of these are Let's Plays, but a couple of them stand out among others. I’d like to take this chance to publicly recommend you to watch two-player, three-player and even FOUR-player Let's Plays, initiated by Crimson Moon and Jeff_ray… with guests Nuntar and Pinnacle. Check out some of their videos, it’s really fun to watch them:

The Ultimate YouTube DROD Video Compilation

http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=38879

Penwielder’s Archipelago with Crimson Moon, Jeff_ray…, Nuntar and Pinnacle

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqTW2Y2Izaot0lnRW6_Ki4nWfCTHhKE-9

Jacob’s The Goblin with Crimson Moon, Jeff_ray..., and Nuntar

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqTW2Y2IzaosrMAj9MlTq_NvyXKg1_0P2

Not strictly DROD, but a DROD-like game nevertheless, Wonderquest played by Jeff_ray and Nuntar

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL17susFFSNadJA8ESYJp8SK9Zf_ivf0ho

As usual, Pearls is on some weird indefinite hiatus that he doesn't even feel bad about. What a jerk!

New holds

There has been a good number of holds released since TSS saw the light of the day. The ratings in the parenthesis are, respectively, difficulty and overall score out of 10 at the moment of writing:

Mirror Me This by Bomber50 (5.5 :: 8.6)
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=38686

Jim's hold 2 by xitvono (8.0 :: 7.5)
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=38709

TSS Elements Showcase by azb (2.5 :: 4.4)
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=38721

Granny's Secret by BlueFlower (4.0 :: 6.0)
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=38734

disoriented's hold by disoriented (6.5 :: 8.1)
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=38804

Curiosity by kieranmillar (6.0 :: 8.9)
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=38842

Foursquare by Bomber50 (4.5 :: 8.3)
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=38895

A Day at the Beach by blorx1 (7.5 :: 8.7)
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=38898

Darkness of the unknown by Red-XIII (8.0 :: 8.7)
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=38964

Trial By Fire by Bomber50 (7.0 :: 8.0)
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=38966

Lavender Levels by Dischorran (8.0 :: 9.0)
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=38998

3 in 1 by kieranmillar (6.5 :: 8.5)
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=39100

Homeward Adventure by Jeff_Ray… (6.5 :: 8.7)
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=39261

Deadly Music of Death 2.0… for reals!

Jon Sonnenberg, who’s the ear behind majority of DROD music, has surprised us with a long-awaited set of compilations - TCB, GatEB and TSS soundtracks are now available for listening and purchase on Bandcamp. Our perceptive forumites have already identified some tracks which, apparently, were never used! More information and links to the albums can be found in this forum thread:

http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=39281

And now for something personal

Writing an illumination is a fun yet time-consuming activity. A few weeks ago I realized the same can be said about making games. With this thought in my mind I've abandoned the game I was working on alone, and decided to finally jump onto the DROD bandwagon more as a full-hobby-time developer. So good news is that I'll be like that fifth wheel which doesn't exactly make sense in a car and is not a very good metaphor simile. Regardless of all that, unlike Erik, I won't do any bicycle tricks on rails with a server on my back.

Happy DRODing, everyone!
-Maurycy

____________________________
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.

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Nice Illumination. Lots of happy news.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

RabidChild
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 720
Registered: 01-15-2006
IP: Logged

What is this strange light? Can it be? Yes, it's The Illumination!

First of all, congratulations to Mike! No wonder you haven't been around much lately.

Congratulations also to Nuntar! I can't think of a more deserving guy. If anyone hasn't checked out the updates to KDD and JtRH, I highly recommend them.

Also, kudos to skell for taking on a more active role in development and, er, Illuminating the masses. He didn't mention it, but he's already been working on improving the chat interface and other stuff around the forum and I expect more great things from him in the future.

Insoluble
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1638
Registered: 09-04-2014
IP: Logged

Let me pile on board to say thanks Skell for putting this together! I was really hoping a new Illumination would come out. It's a great reassurance that the community is still going strong and great new stuff is happening.

Oh, and congrats to Nuntar for the well deserved award!

____________________________
Links to neat forum tools that I always have trouble finding:

DezzTech
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 327
Registered: 03-31-2009
IP: Logged

Guys.

Guys, please.

Please, please, please, please, don't forget about your greenlight pages. I said it once and I'll say it again, and will repeat it as many times as needed.

Look at me. I'm some random guy from steam, browsing greenlight. "Oh cool, this game looks interesting! Oh, it's greenlit already? But... but where are any announcements? Any word from the developer? Last announcement was in April of the last year! Did the developer forget about their game? Did they abandon it? What's going on? Ok, whatever, next game!"

Okay, yes, I'm overdramatising the situation, but seriously. Your greenlight page looks kinda dead. No news, no progress reports, no anything. If I didn't know about this forum I'd think you forgot about your game. Yes, your community on the greenlight that doesn't know about this forum is probably small, but when your game is so unpopular, everything matters. Try to keep in touch with the community as much as possible. Even if you, say, didn't actually do any work on the game for like a month, tell people that. Everyone can have something important in real life that can distract from working. That's okay. That way people at least know what's going on and they won't think you've abandoned the game.

I see you've got a facebook page, and that's great! As in, no sarcasm great! I say that even as someone who dislikes facebook. Also I see you've posted on facebook that TSS got greenlit, but why not on greenlight page?

Also, since there's actual progress happening right now, why not post an update (everywhere this time) that you're working on the game right now? And maybe even with a link to the topic where people can check the progress.

Sorry to bring a bit of negativity into this thread. I'm just sad that my most favourite game of all time is barely known outside of this forum and I can't really make much of a difference.

____________________________

---

[Last edited by DezzTech at 02-04-2015 03:34 PM]

Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1218
Registered: 05-12-2005
IP: Logged

Great advice DezzTech!

I would certainly be one of those who would fail to make the most of any sort of social media (including Steam in that) if I were to have a published game. But you make the excellent point that these days, all "media" channels matter. Time DROD fully embraced the media generation

In any case, just wanted to post to say it's great to see all the passion in this Illumination. Illuminating indeed

adam.cooke
Level: Roachling
Rank Points: 10
Registered: 01-12-2015
IP: Logged

Great Illumination. Lots of positive news.

____________________________
Adam Cooke

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5056
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Thanks for the advice, DezzTech. I completely agree...just haven't been following that plan myself. So, I'm going to stop miming and go post an updated announcement for each game *right now*.

____________________________
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.