Spaniels and Meteorites
Good morning!
Cause for celebration! We got Greenlit! Maia is now going to be on the Valve Software's Steam. The biggest digital distribution platform in the world. I haven’t set a date for release or early access yet, but I am thinking of some time in September or early October.
The build for 0.32 went out at some ungodly hour of the morning. With only seven days work, we managed to get some pretty awesome changes in.
The lighting is rebalanced now so every room tile emits light and there is far less ambient illumination. This completely transforms the atmosphere of the environments, I'm really happy with how it's looking.
Secondly, to get this working I needed to do some optimisations and multithreading. While I was at it, I threaded a bunch of game code too. So anyone on a quad or hexicore system should get some rather large performance gains. Everyone else should notice far less stuttering and lock ups.
There are also a lot of bug fixes. I had a horrifying one this week where some lazily copy-pasted code gave all the chickens eyeless human heads. Cannot unsee.
Most importantly, spaniels are now in! Our first dog is one of our backer pets, Blacky the cocker spaniel!
Check out the alpha notes to see what else went in.
Downtime
I'm going to take a week off starting at the end of the month to help clear my head before the living nightmare of a public release on Steam.
There won't be a build that week, but otherwise development will be mostly uninterrupted. Support will be somewhat limited however, and I'll be away from the emails.
0.33
Is out this Friday. It will enable death!
Did anyone else watch the Perseids? I didn't managed to get any decent shots, but did end up with lot of nice pictures of the milky way instead. :)
-Si
Thomas Hoffmann on August 24, 2013
@Simon Ross
Awesome, thanks for clarifying the DRM issue.
S.D. on August 22, 2013
Beware the dread chickodaemon! You definitely should have taken screenshots of them, Simon :-)
For DRM-free distribution on Linux, I suggest publishing through Desura because they have an upload system to let devs post up a standalone installer for each supported OS (Win/Lin/Mac). Also because it's what I use :-P
colR on August 21, 2013
I missed the title and read the are start of para 6 as "Most importantly, spaniards are now in!" Was subsequently disappointed.
Mehmet Krljic on August 21, 2013
Great news. being on Steam means I have an easy way to gift this game to a bunch of people. Also, another vote for turning the human heads on chickens into a feature. Congratulations!
Yorik on August 21, 2013
Awesome about multithreading. I hope that this works under the Linux version as well. It is great to see coders thinking about multithreading. My 6 core (12 thread) linux box really needs to see more coders like you.. :)
Gorthar on August 20, 2013
You can't just post that about the chickens without a screenshot!
ThomasN on August 20, 2013
Spaniels in!
Maybe you can also put it here http://www.gog.com/indie ?
CSDare on August 20, 2013
Tell us you saved a screenshot of the chicken/human head hybrid. I'd love to see this nightmare.
ProteusBsu on August 20, 2013
Thank you!! :)
Simon Roth Creator on August 20, 2013
ProteusBsu I'll get you a key generate and out to you soon!
ProteusBsu on August 20, 2013
Congratulations on the Greenlight! Just a question as I log on to Kickstarter infrequently, my backer level includes Alpha access, have the keys been sent out?
gandalf.nho
Superbacker
on August 20, 2013
If you can reproduce the chicken-mutant bug, maybe you can turn into a feature and create a future "The Thing" scenery...
TanC on August 20, 2013
Thanks for clarifying DRM. It is always appreciated. Good idea and time to give GOG Indie a try as well. Looking forward to having it there! :)
gandalf.nho
Superbacker
on August 20, 2013
@Thomas, the backers certainly will able to choose between a Steam copy and a DRM-free one (hope GOG receives this game, will look great side by side with Dungeon Keeper and Theme Hospital)
Simon Roth Creator on August 20, 2013
Just to clarify: The Maia site will remain the core distributor of builds and nobody will need to get Steam if they don't want it.
Steam is a form of DRM only if you let it be. I won't be implementing any Steam features that lock the game in any way. Executables taken outside of the Steam environment will still run.
I am in talks with out distributors, but I'll give you news on that later!
Thomas Hoffmann on August 20, 2013
Hey, it's great that you got greenlit and all, but will this mean that we will be given steam keys instead of the promised No-DRM digital download key we were promised?
"The game will run on Windows, Mac and Linux and have absolutely no DRM."
I'm only saying this because i'm not sure you are aware, but Steam is a form of DRM in and of itself.
And should Steam go down one day, people who bought it or used it on steam will be screwed.
So only giving us steam keys would be a betrayal of our trust, which i -from previous conversations- do not believe you intend to do.
GOG is advisable for DRM-Free distribution if the website preorders don't get enough publicity.
PS. The Spaniels are looking great, tho perhaps a bit too big if my memory of Spaniels serves me right. :)
Simon Roth Creator on August 20, 2013
Sadly I didn't get a screen as I was in the zone coding and didn't want to break my flow. Looked like something out of John Carpenters The Thing. :p
Alvaro
Superbacker
on August 20, 2013
Wanna see that hybrid chicken too! It reminds me the freakish human-headed fly at the end of The Fly (the old movie)!
Grats on getting greenlit!
Matei-Eugen Vasile on August 20, 2013
THAT. IS. AWESOME!
Sleet
Superbacker
on August 20, 2013
Awesome news, congratulations on getting greenlit! Any chance you have a screenshot of those chicken-men?
gandalf.nho
Superbacker
on August 20, 2013
I prefer a late but well polished game to a early bugged messed one. Please take your time.
Edit: don't know if you already are speaking with GOG for the DRM-free version, but they opened today a portal with information to help indie devs put their games in their service: http://www.gog.com/news/say_hello_to_gogcomindie
Simon Roth Creator on August 20, 2013
Indeed. I won't be rushing out anything into the early access until the game feels good to go. We started preorders on the site last week, and that is bringing in enough money to tide us over for a few more months. So there's no looming deadlines to rush us.
Dawn_
Superbacker
on August 20, 2013
The priority before releasing a game is that you are satisfied over the results. Backers can wait, we're accustomed to it and we all rather have quality than quantity. We all wants game that will stuck us before our screens for 100 of hours.
Dawn_
Superbacker
on August 20, 2013
Take your time over delivery. There is no interest to release a game if it's not completed and need 7 patches to work correctly (Aka Legend of Dawn for those who backed it).