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nvining hasn't posted either, but that's understandable, as he's gone mad trying to make sense of the bigger picture.
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Jan 25, 2017 06:50
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This seems to be a recurring issue with early access 'colony' games unfortunately. I think Towns, DF9 and Gnomeria all had a similar sudden push to 1.0 and were abandoned in short order afterwards. Clockwork had a lot of promise but the sudden release notice with a number of features still missing seemed to indicate this was coming. I love the genre and I can't stop getting into these despite getting burned a few times. Im usually able to get enough enjoyment out of them before moving on but I wonder if the market for this kind of game is just too small to support the level of continued development and features that people expect. Dwarf Fortress set a weird bar. It's a shame. Any good ones in active development other than Rimworld? I've been waiting for the shoe to drop with Stonehearth since the company got bought out by Riot last year but they seem to still be adding stuff at a slow pace.
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Jan 25, 2017 10:21
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Koshne posted:It's a shame. Any good ones in active development other than Rimworld? I've been waiting for the shoe to drop with Stonehearth since the company got bought out by Riot last year but they seem to still be adding stuff at a slow pace. I've been having a lot of fun playing Kenshi, though it's in early access and thus a bit janky. That said, the devs are putting out regular updates that expand the game world and it doesn't appear to be on death's door. It's not quite in the same vein as Clockwork Empires and RimWorld, though. The colony building and crafting aspects are there, but neither is mandatory; you could easily remain a band of wandering nomads for the whole game, surviving off loot and purchased equipment.
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Jan 25, 2017 11:47
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The odd thing about Clockwork Empires is that development just seemed abysmally slow through the entire thing. I've been asking about pipes for years but they never made it into the release version, automation of any kind nor improvements to job speed that would allow colonists free time to do things the devs wanted the game to be about (cults, madness, etc.) Days are very quick so it never feels like you get much done and to compensate they just added massive population inflation so now you never feel like you know individual colonists either. For all of Tynan's (Rimworld dev) faults he made regular updates with lots of features (and relatively bug free), plus he recognizes that Rimworld is about a small group of colonists and they have easily interpreted personalities so you develop a bond with them. CE just doesn't have any character and it's a shame because it seemed very cool from the outset, but it just never became fun or enjoyable for me at any point in its dev cycle.
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Jan 25, 2017 12:27
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Sad to hear / see this, game looked very promising and I am still glad I got early access to support the devs who look like a very nice bunch but the situation is frankly disappointing. Nvining used to come out all the time with news and explanations, hopefully we'll get one?
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Jan 25, 2017 12:36
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Awww, is that it then? shame, our soldiers never even got fancy headwear. I'm hoping we'll get some sort of explanation of what is happening though.
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Jan 25, 2017 14:37
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My guess would be that the company ran out of money. They pushed for a (relatively) early release, probably because they hoped that 1.0 would bring in more money. Which it didn't. The game sold only around 20000 copies on Steam. That's not much, and a part of that were players who already paid for Early Access. So even if the devs loved the game and wanted to continue its development, I think they didn't have the money to do that, and maybe had to dissolve the company.
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Jan 25, 2017 15:40
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Spacebase DF9 had the same issue, they hoped the influx of money from full release would let them keep developing it, but it didn't. Both games are perfectly functional and moderately entertaining, just not everything that was promised. Early access is a delicate balancing act, and it's sad but not unexpected to see someone fall off the tightrope. Send in the clowns. ... I think I lost my metaphor somewhere in there.
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Jan 26, 2017 04:41
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It probably didn't help they kept having to rewrite lots of fundamental stuff. Stockpiles, workshops, memories, the job system... they kept changing pretty late on in development.
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Jan 26, 2017 04:47
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I just wanted pipes and clockwork stuff and steam things and cthulu stuff and none of that really materialized in game. Just a slow paced colony sim is what I got. The original pitch sounded so cool.
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Jan 26, 2017 05:51
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Obviously they're just trying to live up to the new thread title.
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Jan 26, 2017 08:27
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nvining's twitter profile says he "used to make games" now, so I guess this is probably pretty dead. It's a shame, but I guess these things happen.
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Jan 26, 2017 12:50
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Well poo poo. Maybe they'll open this one up to mods at least?
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Jan 26, 2017 15:45
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Yeah Gaslamp sort of put everything they had into this, hoping it would sell. And then it didn't.
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Jan 26, 2017 16:19
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I like the Gaslamp guys and the game they were trying to make, but it never really 'got there' in terms of being an engaging colony simulator and you were too detached from the characters to connect with all the emergent story elements they were trying to implement. I'm sure plenty of great indie games end up withering on the vine, but I'd imagine the first reason this one didn't sell was because it wasn't very good. There was a lot of potential here and they made a real effort into making it happen, so I'm not angry; just a bit disappointed, because the game they wanted to make looked cool. I wish them all luck wherever they end up moving forwards. Voyager I fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Jan 26, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 18:52
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I cant really think of a definite reason why I couldnt connect with the villagers or anything compared to say Rimworld. Rimworld has some great stories that crop up from your villagers interacting but here it was just like.. meh.
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Jan 26, 2017 18:55
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The game suffered a lot from poor technology choices. They built an in-house game engine that ended up rife with problems. * Custom, multi-threaded engine core that didn't achieve good performance in practice (for example, maximum number of simulated colonists) * Bizarre procedural roof system that had bugs despite many blog posts about debugging it, when roofs are often toggled off anyway * Deterministic lockstep networking model requiring extensive debugging of desync problems (leading to eventual drop of planned multiplayer feature) * Game data stored as XML gives you slow loading and impedance mismatch with game engine data structures * Overly-complex non-typesafe Lua scripting system leading to numerous gameplay bugs and regressions Imagine if they'd started off with Unity and not burned enormous programmer hours building a custom engine or fiddling with AZDO renderers. If gameplay logic had been built out in C#, which is type safe and provides language facilities to avoid the kinds of bugs that cropped up repeatedly in the Lua code. Cities Skylines shows that a well-designed Unity game can perform acceptably, even with a very large simulation space. I'd lay the sad outcome of this game at the feet of overly-optimistic technical decisions by the programming team.
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Jan 26, 2017 19:20
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Dredmor was pretty awful, too.
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Jan 26, 2017 20:25
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Rapacity posted:Dredmor was pretty awful, too. Eh, I wouldn't go that far. It has some great humor, and it's a decently fun game. The biggest problem with it in my mind is the incredibly fiddly crafting system and the resulting inventory bloat.
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Jan 26, 2017 20:33
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I feel kinda stupid for buying this game now. I had read the negative reviews, then went to this thread to see what people thought. Ended up buying it because the devs seemed like cool guys with a cool concept and I thought it'd see extended continued development. Now I'm really glad I told all my friends "wait until the devs work on it a bit more" though. It's a shame, because the concept was really cool and I did really like the overseer-laborer system.
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Jan 26, 2017 20:53
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Idles posted:The game suffered a lot from poor technology choices. They built an in-house game engine that ended up rife with problems. You know I was writing a paper a couple of years ago about the rise of independent game developers and I asked Nicholas why Gaslamp decided to create their inhouse engine. His reply was "Hubris!" Then he gave a real answer, but I think the first one applies as well.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:16
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I'm bummed. I really wanted to buy and like this game but I'm glad I didn't end up spending the money. When they first announced it I was sceptical. the colony sim market seemed saturated with half baked attempts and the steam punk thing was already feeling played out. But as I followed their development blog I ended up really enjoying their humor and presentation of their successes, theories, and failures. They seem like a sharp team with a great dry sense of humor. I also liked Dredmore and wanted to see what else they could do. I guess these things happen. Thanks Obama!
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Jan 26, 2017 23:52
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This is sad. I really love these little swarming-agents-perform-tasks games, and they seem popular enough! But they never seem to sell many copies...
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Jan 27, 2017 00:04
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What a bummer. I was so excited when I first saw this thread and have been following it through the development cycle, I was looking forward to hopping on once things stabilized. Dredmor had some issues, but I thought as a whole it was a well executed concept.
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Jan 27, 2017 01:08
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I'd thought it had been a bit, but oof if so---it would be nice if things somehow circled back around against all odds. I blame Mathematics in general----trying to wrestle and contort already trap laden 4X sensibilities into a vehicle that, IMO, seems far more primed for fantastical narrative leanings that takes pages upon pages from King of Dragon Pass to run screaming into the night was a road too winding and narrow even for folks of their considerable talents.
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Jan 27, 2017 15:44
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RIP game with good ideas, hope the devs find more work.
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Jan 27, 2017 17:36
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dogstile posted:RIP game with good ideas, hope the devs find more work. This. I've followed this game since alpha 13 or so, there were so many great ideas, sad to see that they didn't come to fruition in this particular game.
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Jan 30, 2017 04:54
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Well that was a waste of money. Still not as bad as the time I got that Polaris game to wait out Stellaris being released...and was unable to return it because I left the manual open and didn't release the menu stayed open...and logged in 23 hours of game time.
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Jan 30, 2017 05:10
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hey man there have to be some costs involved if you're gonna game your steam rating like that
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Jan 30, 2017 09:11
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So any clue still on what exactly happened and if there will be at least one more update?
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Feb 11, 2017 22:07
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It just generally looks like the company ran out of cash, and went to 1.0 in a desperate move to earn money, but it failed and the studio shuttered. Former company member Nicholas (nvining? not sure) now has "I used to make games, it was awful" on his Twitter profile (though maybe that's a joke). Looks like it's over.
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Feb 11, 2017 23:53
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At no point did this game seem good or fun or even well thought out. The devs seemed cool and funny and their blog posts were probably responsible for a huge chunk of support, but this always seemed like a disaster waiting to happen.
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Feb 12, 2017 00:09
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i had some fun with the 1.0 release but it definitely needed further support and polish and playing it further is not nearly so attractive without the prospect of those lmao
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Feb 12, 2017 01:02
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I'm having decent fun with Stonehearth, but it's a very simple beast. Gnomoria is cool and good though, and probably the most polished of these little bagatelles of games.
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Feb 12, 2017 03:08
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Thirsty Dog posted:At no point did this game seem ... well thought out. I think this is a fair criticism. The devs had a compelling big-picture idea of what kind of game they wanted to make, but they didn't really seem to have a plan as for how to actually design game mechanics that made it happen. Even near the end of development they were still trying to pin down fundamentals of the colony-builder how to balance food production or make stockpiles functional, and all that was only supposed to be the backdrop for the emergent gameplay.
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Feb 12, 2017 03:21
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A shame, I liked the setting and art style. We never even got interesting hats for our settlers. Fingers crossed it opens to modding at least.
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Feb 12, 2017 04:13
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Voyager I posted:I think this is a fair criticism. The devs had a compelling big-picture idea of what kind of game they wanted to make, but they didn't really seem to have a plan as for how to actually design game mechanics that made it happen. Even near the end of development they were still trying to pin down fundamentals of the colony-builder how to balance food production or make stockpiles functional, and all that was only supposed to be the backdrop for the emergent gameplay. I'm disappointed this game didn't make it but yeah I've been keeping an eye on it since announcement and it felt like they never even got past the initial stage of setting up the basics. I was interested in the mid/late steampunk/pipe aspect of the game (mechsuits!) but that didn't even come close to panning out whatsoever. I played it a month or so ago and it basically felt the same as in the initial releases (little more polished and bugs fixed ofc).
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Feb 13, 2017 20:00
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Lesson learned: don't roll your own game engine if you can't finish it in like a month. I liked the game idea though 
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Feb 13, 2017 20:31
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Beefeater1980 posted:I'm having decent fun with Stonehearth, but it's a very simple beast. Gnomoria had such rad potential, and I'm really sad it's dead.
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Feb 16, 2017 21:27
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I'm really bummed over this. I love good colony management games and the big ideas directing this one seemed ripe for hilarity. I first played it very soon after it went on sale and thought "Oh this seems uninspired, confusing, clunky, and lacking identity" but it was early alpha and I figured there was plenty more to come. Except it didn't. There's something fundamentally wrong with the game, the way it communicates every characters personality, and gives feedback on what is happening, and creates emotional attachment to the colony's story. I just never felt invested in what was happening. I still thought that was due to early development until it went to beta and felt the same as before. Then I knew it was in trouble. The devs seemed like cool guys and I wish it'd worked out better for them. I think they didn't listen enough to the fundamental criticisms of the gameflow and then ran out of money long before they could perfect their ultimate vision for it. RIP Gaslamp Games, you may have been too clever for your own good.
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Feb 17, 2017 11:11
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