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Post by rubgish on Sept 3, 2014 13:27:00 GMT
Everyone loves a good example of how kickstarter should be run, none more so than the regulars on this forum. Now I know this isn't *directly* related to Godus, but the more I keep thinking about it, the more I wish Godus was like Stonehearth. Allow me to explain... Firstly, updates! Stonehearth has regular update posts explaining what they are up to and what they are trying to achieve. They are also approaching the deadline for when they said they would release the game, and while they haven't met it, you can see their response here: stonehearth.net/2014/09/02/stonehearth-kickstarter-and-upcoming-releases/. Also worth checking out the (primarily positive) comments, showing how the community understands the problems because of their high levels of transparency. Secondly, a roadmap! Thirdly, it's actually pleasant and zen-like to play (ignoring the fairly common bug occurrences, it is an alpha after all). Allow me to share a few screenshots of my most recent town. This is how your game starts, similar to godus, but you have 7 people instead of 2.  Below you can see a carpenter working on making some beds for my people to sleep on. Each follower is individually named and does jobs, the world feels nice and alive because your people are constantly moving around and doing things.  This picture shows an outline for a house I want built. You get to choose the size/shape of the house and all of the details in it. Your people will then gather the resources and build the house. You can also see the farms I created, or more specifically the zones I allocated for farming that my people then started working on (beets, cotton & wheat).  Your people have to build the houses themselves, and this is done properly, one block at a time. They even build scaffolding to give themselves access to higher bits of the wall. It's a wonderful thing to watch.  Here you can see a finished house and the second one started next to it. You can also see how my fields are growing, you'll be delighted to know that wheat takes a long time to grow in this game too! It took maybe 30 minutes (~4 in-game days) for the entire field to grow! Luckily it then provides enough food to feed my people for many days, and the gradual visual growth of the plants and the fact that it doesn't limit you or force you to do anything else means that it feels great. Plus the beets I have growing are far quicker, but provide less food per farmed square.  This shows you just how small my little settlement is compared to the wider world around me. (if anyone has played the latest version of this game, you might be wondering why the goblin attacks haven't been bothering me. The answer is that because goblins spawn outside of your explored vision area, and can't move up/down cliffs, I started my people off in a valley and immediately explored it to all the cliff edges, meaning it's not possible for the goblins to spawn on the same height as me. Obviously this is just a temporary fix until they balance the goblins, because otherwise they tend to ruin everything by day 7/8).  And finally here is the current state of my settlement. There were lots of bugs I had to work around to get to this point, but i'm happy with how it looks and am excited to see how the game progresses in future. Playing this game makes me feel much more Godly than Godus ever did, and it's not even intended to be a god game!  |
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Lord Ba'al
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Sept 3, 2014 18:15:31 GMT
This kinda sounds like a game I would want to make. It looks rather basic but graphics aren't the most important thing to me.
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Post by rubgish on Sept 3, 2014 19:05:58 GMT
It heavily draws inspiration from Dwarf fortress in terms of their aims. Graphically it's never going to look like a AAA game, but they intend for it to have a lot of depth of play rather than look fantastic, though I think the basic graphic style is really pretty good overall. Obviously the problem with that at current is that being in an alpha stage, lots of things aren't implemented yet.
Basically when I started the post I was just going to point out the difference between their kickstarter communication and Godus's, but then ended up thinking it'd be cool to make a bunch of screenshots too, and kinda got carried away ^^
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Post by hardly on Sept 3, 2014 19:30:32 GMT
Thanks for the info bro, I might check it out when it's further advanced.
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Post by Danjal on Sept 3, 2014 19:35:21 GMT
Agreed, I've been following this game for a long time. I've throw it up in front of Matthew and George various times to show "how crowdfunding/early access is done right!"
This game looks absolutely awesome. Been trying to get my hands on it for a while already, but lack of finances have put it on the backburner.
If anyone is interested to exchange it for the Tropico 4: Collector's Bundle which I managed to snag when it was on sale for cheap a while back I'd be up for a trade.
Though thats a bit off-topic here. =p
Stonehearth has been looking great since the early stages of its development and is increasing update after frequent update.
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Aron
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Post by Aron on Sept 3, 2014 20:32:18 GMT
Agreed, I've been following this game for a long time. I've throw it up in front of Matthew and George various times to show "how crowdfunding/early access is done right!" This game looks absolutely awesome. Been trying to get my hands on it for a while already, but lack of finances have put it on the backburner. If anyone is interested to exchange it for the Tropico 4: Collector's Bundle which I managed to snag when it was on sale for cheap a while back I'd be up for a trade. Though thats a bit off-topic here. =p Stonehearth has been looking great since the early stages of its development and is increasing update after frequent update. i love this game if you want still this game i would buy it cause this game gets mid September released on steam then it cost 25usd you can read it here: stonehearth.net/2014/09/02/stonehearth-kickstarter-and-upcoming-releases/i think 15 usd is not to much for this lovely game |
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Aron
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Post by Aron on Sept 3, 2014 20:42:04 GMT
It heavily draws inspiration from Dwarf fortress in terms of their aims. Graphically it's never going to look like a AAA game, but they intend for it to have a lot of depth of play rather than look fantastic, though I think the basic graphic style is really pretty good overall. Obviously the problem with that at current is that being in an alpha stage, lots of things aren't implemented yet. Basically when I started the post I was just going to point out the difference between their kickstarter communication and Godus's, but then ended up thinking it'd be cool to make a bunch of screenshots too, and kinda got carried away ^^ about the goblin spam i thought a patch got yesterday released where this Problem is solved? i dont know if this is true cause i didnt had time to Play it:) |
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Post by rubgish on Sept 3, 2014 21:09:32 GMT
It heavily draws inspiration from Dwarf fortress in terms of their aims. Graphically it's never going to look like a AAA game, but they intend for it to have a lot of depth of play rather than look fantastic, though I think the basic graphic style is really pretty good overall. Obviously the problem with that at current is that being in an alpha stage, lots of things aren't implemented yet. Basically when I started the post I was just going to point out the difference between their kickstarter communication and Godus's, but then ended up thinking it'd be cool to make a bunch of screenshots too, and kinda got carried away ^^ about the goblin spam i thought a patch got yesterday released where this Problem is solved? i dont know if this is true cause i didnt had time to Play it:) Yeah they have patched it already, but I took the screenshots a couple of hours before the patch came out. Unfortunately it's meant my save won't work anymore, but that just means I can start again with a new town  |
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Post by Gmr Leon on Sept 3, 2014 21:12:27 GMT
Another great game that was in a recent Humble Bundle is Hand of Fate. Its devs are on top of things from everything I've read in the forums. They try to stick to a weekly update schedule and when there are game breaking bugs, they bump that to high priority to fix ASAP, which happened last night with the most recent update accidentally breaking the game after you beat a boss. They're highly communicative as well, telling you whether an issue is a bug or not and their intents (e.g. pointed out some control issues, they told me yo takin' out the launcher no big deal anymore there, but controller/kb&m recognition is a bug, shouldn't be showing controller prompts). This update? Exactly like they said, launcher was out and it recognized my primary control device. |
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Matthew Allen
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Post by Matthew Allen on Sept 4, 2014 6:22:17 GMT
Always been a fan of their roadmap as well. Granted, it's a little more difficult to do it quite like they do since our design team embraces iterative design and all, but I like the general idea they're going for. |
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Post by Danjal on Sept 4, 2014 6:43:18 GMT
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can iterate and still work towards some predefined goals?
Iterative design doesn't mean you have to stumble around like a blind man adapting to the immediate needs without concious thought or planning for the future right?
Allowing you to adapt to the situation as new information (be it good or bad) becomes available while still allowing you to work towards some overarching goals. Rather than having to rearrange your entire carefully wrought plan because there's some unforseen obstacle.
As such, you could still pre-determine a goal (or goals) aswell as certain milestones you'll want to meet along the way and certain aspects you think you'll need to reach that goal, without filling in the blank spaces of how you necessarily intend to get there.
Without a pre-determined plan, I imagine it'd be like chasing butterflies. Whenever you see a new one that catches your fancy you follow it for a while untill it either gets away from you or another more interesting butterfly comes along. I'd be hard to ever get where you wanted to go like that.
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Matthew Allen
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Post by Matthew Allen on Sept 4, 2014 6:59:30 GMT
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can iterate and still work towards some predefined goals? (snip) Most definitely. We have predefined goals for sure, but regarding Stonehearth's roadmap I was mainly referring to how providing percentages for every area of development would be very difficult to do accurately. It's a bit of a stretch even trying to do it for the one percentage we give on the loading screen. Was mainly just mentioning that I enjoy what they've done with their roadmap. For a roadmap we do I imagine we need not get too concerned about granular measurements like that which would be pretty uninformative at best. I'd be more interested in providing meaningful information by providing detailed (as much as can be 'detailed) information regarding some of those predefined goals you mentioned. Granted, this is still something I don't have anything set in stone on at the moment as I'd rather wait for the community team to get back to 100% before breaking ground on something as important as a new roadmap. |
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Post by hardly on Sept 4, 2014 7:29:57 GMT
Always been a fan of their roadmap as well. Granted, it's a little more difficult to do it quite like they do since our design team embraces iterative design and all, but I like the general idea they're going for. Don't take it this the wrong way but the iterative design approach as used by 22cans has been an epic clusterfuck. Iterative with a plan is a good idea, iterative with no idea where you are going surprising doesn't lead you where you need to be. I'm not trying to be rude but it's important to recognise where things go wrong and I'm very confident the refusal to plan and share those plans had been a big problem. As well as developing a mobile game that masquerades as a PC game. |
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Post by hardly on Sept 4, 2014 7:30:49 GMT
When you think about it we paid $20 for the pot of doom.
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Post by Danjal on Sept 4, 2014 7:32:02 GMT
Well yea, the percentage thing is iffy at best. Especially when certain mechanics by themselves might not be a very big part of the game in the grand scheme of things, but when put together they end up forming some of what makes a game great (or terrible).
Take the friendship thing in GTA IV, its really a small part of the game. But I'm fairly sure that most players do NOT want to go bowling with cousin Roman ever again.
Personally I'm not so much worried about the specifics along the road, fill that in as you will. But I'd love to see what the road will be passing in general terms. What kind of things we can be expecting later on and in what approximate order.
Just as a simple example, I'd imagine that Peter has a general idea to what extend he'd like to expand on the Astari or the settlements in terms of adding some functionality, even if he hasn't necessarily determined the exact specifics.
Same goes for Hubworlds or a variety of other core functionalities within the game.
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Matthew Allen
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Post by Matthew Allen on Sept 4, 2014 7:39:25 GMT
Always been a fan of their roadmap as well. Granted, it's a little more difficult to do it quite like they do since our design team embraces iterative design and all, but I like the general idea they're going for. Don't take it this the wrong way but the iterative design approach as used by 22cans has been an epic clusterfuck. Iterative with a plan is a good idea, iterative with no idea where you are going surprising doesn't lead you where you need to be. I'm not trying to be rude but it's important to recognise where things go wrong and I'm very confident the refusal to plan and share those plans had been a big problem. As well as developing a mobile game that masquerades as a PC game. No worries hardly, no offense taken. Having a plan and direction to follow and doing iterative design certainly aren't mutually exclusive though. Well yea, the percentage thing is iffy at best. Especially when certain mechanics by themselves might not be a very big part of the game in the grand scheme of things, but when put together they end up forming some of what makes a game great (or terrible). Take the friendship thing in GTA IV, its really a small part of the game. But I'm fairly sure that most players do NOT want to go bowling with cousin Roman ever again. But that's what made the game for me! (And yeah, get what you're saying regarding the roadmap. Wouldn't mind seeing something like that organized as well.) |
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Post by hardly on Sept 4, 2014 7:48:19 GMT
Absolutely, but unless you CMs are lying and/or holding back there is no plan. I'm hoping someone spent the last three weeks coming up with one.
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Casinha
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Post by Casinha on Sept 4, 2014 8:45:35 GMT
Hmmmm, looks like a 3d version of Towns. |
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Aron
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Post by Aron on Sept 4, 2014 11:02:13 GMT
Hmmmm, looks like a 3d version of Towns. but this game will have co-op> |
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Post by banned on Sept 8, 2014 21:54:01 GMT
Absolutely, but unless you CMs are lying and/or holding back there is no plan. I'm hoping someone spent the last three weeks coming up with one. |
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