When we developed the original jam version, we were quite inspired by Papers, Please, yet we hadn't heard of Republica times =P (People soon pointed out the similarities between the games when we posted the game on the LD site).
We really like the concept of a censorship game, so we thought it'd be interesting to make a full release!
This is a really neat idea. Most games, as you said, incentivizes exploring by rewarding them with goodies, which sort of removes the "explore for fun" element.
I think that if you want to make a game like this, it'd be a good idea to make a story that's basically told only through the environment (basically no dialouge or in-game text). In order to find out what's going on, the player will have to explore different areas.
If you do it this way, I think you'll also have give a few pointers to make sure that the player doesn't get lost or looses motivation to go on. For an example, you could have a shipwreck that has an old flag on it. If you then look around you, you'll see a tower in the distance (like the one shown in one of the the pictures) that flies a similar flag. This will basically tell the player that the shipwreck and that tower is connected, and that he/she will find out more by going there.
It would be awesome if there were some purely mechanical elements that incentivized exploring, but I can't come up with anything that doesn't make the game more about exploring for reward rather than exploring for fun. If you can solve that nut, I think this game will be fantastic.
Thanks! It means a lot to us that people enjoy the art style, as we were quite concerned that people might find the all-around blue-ness of the game a bit overwhelming.
(We could also add a button that hides and unhides the menu even though you've got a unit selected, if that's needed.)
We plan on making it so it appears only when you have a unit selected. There's really no need for it otherwise.
The video in this post? It's just a showcase of how the current pathfinding works (the fact that the units snap to the grid and doesn't walk through any walls or other units), which is a bit more complicated than it looks. So it's not really an impressive video, rather just a small demonstration. This is just a weekly update, after all - If it was something big we'd make a separate post for it.
Yes! But more multiplayer and less campaign (at least for now).
We plan on making it paid. This is mostly in order to pay for server fees and such.
Well, there'll be one in the game, but for now all I can give you is an infinite jukebox version, wich is better than nothing, I presume: Labs.echonest.com
I've so far worked on the game full time for a little under two weeks (including weekends). There are a few minor bugs that I'd like to fix before releasing it here, but I should have something out pretty soon!
It depends on the game, really. Plattformers, for an example, are waaaay better if they are designed. Rougelikes, on the other hand, really needs procedurally generated levels if they are to be any interesting in the long run.
Yeah, we only used live recorded guitar. Basicly, we used live instruments as often as we could, as we knew that if we used too many samples, the music would sound plastic, and that would affect the whole feeling of the game.
One song that unfortuneately still uses samples is the City song for it's drums. We are going to record live drums sometime in the near future, but for know we'll have to go with what we've got.
We might just do that when the game is actually finished, but for now, we'll keep it here on indieDB.
We're working on getting a release version for you guys to try out, so hang in there!
Thank you for helping with that! Also, thanks for tracking =)
So, right now this game reminds me an awfull lot about Voxatron (https://www.indiedb.com/games/voxatron)...
I asume that you know of this already, and you're going to make some things that make Voxeliens different from Voxatron, and I'd like to know what :)
Looks very good though.
Oh great, now I need to change pants...
This is a good game. I'd go as far as calling this a great game. It deserves it win of best multiplayer this year!
SpellingPhailer
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Hi there folks! SpellingPhailer here. I'm a freelancing chiptuneartist and grafical designer from Sweden who is currently studying music of video games at college (Yeah, apparently you can do that now....). So what can I do for you? Well, I can offer you music. Yep, it's as simple as that, and off course I can do other things than simply chiptunes.