1stCortez
Level: Goblin

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Does anyone know when TSS is going to be released on steam?
It has already been greenlit, so there are some development problems?

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DROD RPG:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/351330/

Leaderboards + achievements:
http://steamcommunity.com/stats/351330/leaderboards/

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[Last edited by mrimer at 02-09-2016 03:59 PM]

Pinnacle
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The Steam release will be after the SDL2 upgrade (a major engine upgrade to support things like the Steam overlay, 16:9 resolutions, hardware acceleration for lighting effects, and other neat stuff), which is itself after 5.0.2.

____________________________
Once (adv.): Enough.
Twice (adv.): Once too often.
~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

1stCortez
Level: Goblin

Rank Points: 28
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Do you have any information when it be released?

Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
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Was I mistaken in thinking DROD had already made it onto Steam?

I remember it being green-lighted but haven't been around for a rather long time... Great presence on GOG in any case Got the whole collection - and then noticed it was discounted too in the summer sale.

Then realised I had all of them anyway... and glad I could find new ways of supporting DROD

Banjooie
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Basically there is a metric ton of work to turn it into a Steam release. You only really get to nail this sort of opportunity once, right?

Nillo
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Am I correct to assume that the first DROD title to be released on Steam will be The Second Sky? If so, how long do you think it will take for the earlier titles to receive the same treatment?

____________________________
“Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the 'Ellie May,' a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.”

Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
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Banjooie wrote:
Basically there is a metric ton of work to turn it into a Steam release. You only really get to nail this sort of opportunity once, right?

Nail steam?
Sounds like a Sierra approach

xpym
Level: Delver
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Nillo wrote:
Am I correct to assume that the first DROD title to be released on Steam will be The Second Sky?

As far as I know, the plan is to first release GatEB, then keep adding other holds as importable DLCs.

Tuttle
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You certainly wouldn't want to start with TSS. The first release will get the most attention, so it needs to be accessible to newcomers.

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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I'm back and actively working with the rest of the development team on DROD Steam support!

I now have something interesting to share. So far, I've enhanced DROD's data storage mechanism (management of .dat files) to support simple, efficient modular handling of Steam DLC. For example, if a player gets KDD as DLC, KDD won't show up for download in the game's Hold Management page. Steam will provide it as its own separate data file, downloaded through Steam's usual data download process. No in-game hold import process will be required to play the hold. Consequently, the player's .dat files can stay more lean and mean.

This change also likely makes Steam cloud sync of the player's local .dat files feasible, so I'll be looking into that at some point in the near future.

We anticipate the content of currently available holds and other game material will remain exactly the same as what's being published, maintained and upgraded here on the Caravel Forum. Also, the process of hold and player export and import will remain unchanged for now. The changes I describe above are simply for management of official game content and should be transparent to the player. As part of these content management changes, we are applying a fundamental change to how player .dat files are created on Steam DROD, so you won't be able to take your current .dat files and just plop them in for use with Steam DROD. That's mostly to prevent the game from getting confused if it happens to see multiple copies of official holds in the .dat files and such.

Next, I'll be delving into the Steam SDK. I've built DROD on Windows linking to the Steam API. I've started learning about app packaging/management and working on achievement submission code.

The rest of the team is making great strides in critical areas too. Of course, they're welcome to share whatever they're working on and progress being made in those areas at any time.

So, thanks to everyone who's been patiently waiting for Steam DROD. It's coming!

____________________________
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.

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[Last edited by mrimer at 10-01-2015 08:15 PM]

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Fantastic. This brings back memories of struggling to get DROD on various portals--some that turned up their nose at our weird little game. But with persistence and hard work you'll be getting DROD onto the biggest portal of them all. I remember us saying "someday we'd like to get onto Steam, but..."

Makes me happy, man. Keep going!

-Erik

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

DezzTech
Level: Smiter
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BTW, guys, I hope you do realise that at this point, getting DROD on Steam isn't gonna help its popularity or discoverability or... words. I need a thesaurus.

Relevant article.

You're gonna have to market the games yourselves if you want to get noticed. AKA, just send it to a bunch of popular people writing articles for gaming sites / reviewers / let's players / etc.

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Dischorran
Level: Smitemaster

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See, what I get from that article is that if you didn't quit your day job to make your game, everything's going to be fine. Yay Caravel!

____________________________

Banjooie
Level: Smitemaster

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DezzTech wrote:
BTW, guys, I hope you do realise that at this point, getting DROD on Steam isn't gonna help its popularity or discoverability or... words. I need a thesaurus.

Relevant article.

You're gonna have to market the games yourselves if you want to get noticed. AKA, just send it to a bunch of popular people writing articles for gaming sites / reviewers / let's players / etc.

Uh, yeah, but 95% of the problem I've had getting my friends to start DROD is this exchange:

"Is it on Steam?"
"No."
"...then why do I care?"

DezzTech
Level: Smiter
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Banjooie wrote: Uh, yeah, but 95% of the problem I've had getting my friends to start DROD is this exchange:

"Is it on Steam?"
"No."
"...then why do I care?"

Well, sure. I didn't say getting DROD on Steam wouldn't help, it probably will, for the very reason you mention. I just wanted to say it's not gonna suddenly explode in popularity just because it's on steam.

And I just realized that's a pretty obvious thing to say so my post was kinda useless, yay.

____________________________

uncopy2002
Level: Smiter
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Will all of us who bought DROD get a free Steam key? Because managing my DRODs on Steam is much easier and more convenient.

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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uncopy2002 wrote:
Will all of us who bought DROD get a free Steam key? Because managing my DRODs on Steam is much easier and more convenient.

That is the plan.

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Happy to be making Steam keys available when the games are released.

Now I'm spending some time figuring out app packaging and scripts to generate and upload game content to Steam in a semi-automated fashion.

Then it will probably be back to playing around more with the API.

____________________________
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.

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5056
Registered: 02-04-2003
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More Steam news!

I've figured out the Steam build, packaging and installer process and have a test demo version up for the dev team to play around with.

I also have Steam cloud auto-sync configured. It performs the basic function of keeping your player .dat files auto-synchronized across your Steam client DROD installations.

Now to review the great work Trick has done upgrading DROD's graphical engine to use SDL 2, which lets the game support the Steam overlay.

After that, I'll be working on achievements. For initial release, my plan is to have these correspond exactly with the scripted hold challenges.

____________________________
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 10-22-2015 12:39 AM]

Tuttle
Level: Smitemaster

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mrimer wrote:
After that, I'll be working on achievements. For initial release, my plan is to have these correspond exactly with the scripted hold challenges.

That's going to be quite a lot of achievements once all the official holds are eventually released. It might be worth considering milestone achievements (complete 10 GatEB challenges, complete 20 GatEB challenges etc.) instead to prevent achievement overload.

I'd also suggest including a couple of achievements just for completion and mastery of each official hold.

Some games include even more checkpoint achievements at major points in the story (e.g. becoming 1st Slayer in TCB), but I'm indifferent to those.

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Tuttle wrote:
That's going to be quite a lot of achievements once all the official holds are eventually released. It might be worth considering milestone achievements (complete 10 GatEB challenges, complete 20 GatEB challenges etc.) instead to prevent achievement overload.

Ah...I dunno...not giving specific achievements sounds kinda lame.

I'd also suggest including a couple of achievements just for completion and mastery of each official hold.

I like this idea. Should be easy to implement.

____________________________
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 10-27-2015 04:28 AM]

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Update: I now have DROD built with SDL 2! Steam overlay is a-go. Big thanks for Trick for getting this so far along.

Working on adding DLC. Set up DMOD so far. I have DLC file content built for the other games and SmS expansions. Now figuring out how to configure all of these build sets to work just as we'd like with Steam's package configuration options.

Achievements for challenges are code complete. Jacob has done a lot of great work upgrading the Gunthro hold based on general player feedback and to add challenges.

I also took a moment to set up the basics for the DROD RPG store page.

____________________________
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 10-27-2015 04:29 AM]

melvin
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 34
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mrimer wrote: Update: I now have DROD built with SDL 2! Steam overlay is a-go. Big thanks for Trick for getting this so far along.

Will borderless fullscreen and scalable windowed mode be possible with the updated engine? The actual resolution switch that is used by SDL 1 breaks virtual desktops on GNU/Linux which is a bummer at times.

It looks like all that is required is changing some flags with SDL 2.
https://wiki.libsdl.org/SDL_SetWindowFullscreen

I'm really looking forward to the updated engine and DROD's debut on steam, great work so far!

____________________________
Feedback appriciated: High Path Journey (V8R6: Coöperative hold)
*Having a DROD brake ATM, sorry* Jul-2013: I'm back (and DO want to finish that hold)!

Danny564
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 16
Registered: 11-05-2015
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Hello!

Thumbs up for your great work! I keep coming back to this post to check if there's been a new update. I see there's a lot you have to fix, and kudos for the amazing work so far!

But I'm wondering if you got any idea of when the game might be pushed to steam. Do you think you will make it before 2016, or will it be the spring, summer, fall, winter of 2016?

Looking forward to getting it on steam!

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[Last edited by Danny564 at 11-05-2015 08:29 PM]

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5056
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Thanks for the SDL2 suggestion here. I can't say when we'll release, but I can say we're actively working on it practically every day. I feel fairly confident saying Gunthro will be released "in a few months". I'd love to hit the holiday season, but I don't expect we'll be ready in time.

____________________________
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 11-09-2015 03:17 PM]

Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
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mrimer wrote:
I feel fairly confident saying Gunthro will be released "in a few months". I'd love to hit the holiday season, but I don't expect we'll be ready in time.

It's okay, there's always April 1st to look forward to

____________________________
Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):

Nillo
Level: Smitemaster

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Hey guys, I saw the update in my Steam activity feed and I wanted to stop by and say you're doing excellent work! I'm really looking forward to this!

One thing I really like about Steam is it makes it so easy to spread the love by sending people games that I enjoy. Especially when a game is discounted, I like to just buy a bunch of extra copies and hand them out like candy. I'll probably do that with DROD too if there's a sale. I think a gift and a few words from a close friend is the best promotion a game can receive.

____________________________
“Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the 'Ellie May,' a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.”

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Thanks for the kind words, Nillo! I completely agree with you that promoting games to friends is an awesome approach. We definitely will have sales after the games have been out on Steam for a while.

____________________________
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.

trick
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
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melvin wrote:
Will borderless fullscreen and scalable windowed mode be possible with the updated engine? The actual resolution switch that is used by SDL 1 breaks virtual desktops on GNU/Linux which is a bummer at times.

Yes, borderless fullscreen is in. In fact it's the only fullscreen mode right now

We don't have scalable windowed mode right now, but it's definitely possible. Thanks for the suggestion

Dohi64
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 21
Registered: 01-01-2014
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I tried to email you guys about linking my drod games to my account because I couldn't found any info on how to do it myself, but the email sent to info@... bounced back. is there another, working address I can use? thanks!