Author Topic: Roguelike Bundle preparations  (Read 43639 times)

mariodonick

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Re: Roguelike Bundle preparations
« Reply #15 on: August 30, 2012, 08:06:24 AM »
1. Yes.

2. No necessarily -- LR has already an icon.

3. Would be happy to hear a LR episode on RL radio. Regarding date/time I don't know yet.
https://mariodonick.itch.io/lambdarogue-the-book-of-stars
-- LR: The Book of Stars graphical roguelike RPG

Darren Grey

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Re: Roguelike Bundle preparations
« Reply #16 on: August 30, 2012, 08:41:51 AM »
The icon is for the web-site so we have a unified graphical style on the site.  If you can give me a decent res version of the icon you have then that could be used as a base.

Also, at some point we'll need about 2 paragraphs of text for each game, stating what it's about and what separates it from other games.  I'm happy to write this up myself and check it with people.

mariodonick

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Re: Roguelike Bundle preparations
« Reply #17 on: August 30, 2012, 09:01:26 AM »
I see. Will send thisto you via email.
https://mariodonick.itch.io/lambdarogue-the-book-of-stars
-- LR: The Book of Stars graphical roguelike RPG

Ancient

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Re: Roguelike Bundle preparations
« Reply #18 on: September 01, 2012, 12:14:36 PM »
We are having second thoughts. The release planned for ARRP is sure thing but participation of Prime in the Roguelike Bundle may be undesirable.

The 15th/16th Sep release will have missing lore, tiles, and profession introductions. The game simply feels very much in development. It could reinforce the stereotype that roguelikes save for few big games are largely unpolished products ridden with bugs. Since this will be first graphical release for a game that lived a decade as pure ASCII creation a bugfix version released soon after is highly probable event. Of course the impression of buggy game will be made already. In a way the Roguelike Bundle will represent the whole genre. To be honest I have doubts whether Prime should really be included.
Michał Bieliński, reviewer for Temple of the Roguelike

getter77

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Re: Roguelike Bundle preparations
« Reply #19 on: September 01, 2012, 12:37:06 PM »
Depending on how long you estimate a fix/completion....it might be well served to make it a shadowy outlined "mystery" release to "unlock" later for bundle purchasers.  Indie Royale and whatnot often have special unlocks and such that show up later in a given release campaign.
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kraflab

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Re: Roguelike Bundle preparations
« Reply #20 on: September 01, 2012, 12:42:01 PM »
I think anyone who is downloading a roguelike bundle would be fine with this as long as you indeed patch it quickly.  Of course, I cannot offer perspective from the outside.

Z

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Re: Roguelike Bundle preparations
« Reply #21 on: September 01, 2012, 02:46:32 PM »
The Bundle is too small to lose PRIME...

To me, it seems that we have been too enthusiastic about this bundle.

The Incubator project was surely a great idea. Hydra Slayer got huge improvements as a result, and I had great fun playing the other games.

But to release the Bundle... Every game would have to be accepted by every member. PRIME is great, but I would have to test the graphical version, and think whether I really can call it "100% accessible". I am not sure whether Darren will be able to polish Rogue Rage in time (and I doubt that its ASCII is that accessible), and I have not played LambdaRogue at all.

Maybe we should just admit that ARRP was not realistic, and release it when it will be done.

Ancient

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Re: Roguelike Bundle preparations
« Reply #22 on: September 02, 2012, 10:51:20 AM »
Vacations ended and both my and Psiweapon's time is more limited now. Quick patches can be done easily, but longer operations like finding and crafting lore for almost one hundred items (PRIME has 286 distinct item types at the moment but lore only for 194 of them) does take time. Graphical port also takes more work than pure ASCII.

I managed to compile windows build. On Tuesday there will be incubator-only release of what we managed to assemble up to this point.
Michał Bieliński, reviewer for Temple of the Roguelike

Psiweapon

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Re: Roguelike Bundle preparations
« Reply #23 on: September 02, 2012, 02:32:22 PM »
I didn't really have vacations, I merely switched activities.

These days I'm trying hard to add as many tiles as possible to PRIME... but really, how much time I have available and for what activities is something that fluctuates wildly.
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Darren Grey

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Re: Roguelike Bundle preparations
« Reply #24 on: September 05, 2012, 06:06:04 PM »
Hmm, well I'd really prefer to stick to the ARRP deadline, but I do agree that it's important we have a polished release.  Since I've not publicised the Bundle widely we can easily push it back to a later date.  When do folks think would be appropriate?

kraflab

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Re: Roguelike Bundle preparations
« Reply #25 on: September 05, 2012, 07:03:19 PM »
I feel like Halloween is suiting for a roguelike bundle...does Europe do Halloween?

Psiweapon

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Re: Roguelike Bundle preparations
« Reply #26 on: September 05, 2012, 09:03:06 PM »
Widely recognized even if only as a costumed binge drinking night.
The invisible hand is a lie, the fiendish dogma of the market cultists. Lest the apostasy grows strong, their blood god will devour each and everyone, pious and infidel alike.

AgingMinotaur

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Re: Roguelike Bundle preparations
« Reply #27 on: September 06, 2012, 08:13:55 AM »
I think the wider audience that the bundle is supposed to cater for, at this point probably has little consciousness of ARRP and the bundle itself. So if I were you, I'd set up a later deadline for the release, focusing on a polished product rather than a prompt release. Then again, I'm a proponent of the SAD (slow application development) method, where a main principle is to "release late, release infrequently".

A boon that would come out of sticking to the September deadline, would be to create more awareness of ARRP, but that can probably be considered a secondary goal (at best) for the bundle. Maybe ARRP 2013 will see another Incubator bundle.

Sticking my nozzle where it doesn't belong; as always,
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mariodonick

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Re: Roguelike Bundle preparations
« Reply #28 on: September 07, 2012, 11:39:34 AM »
Okay, I was just coming here to state that the LambdaRogue release will probably be just a 1.6.5 instead a 1.7 (because I think the changes do not justify such a big step in version number).

So if we say it is Halloween, I'd agree. I could use the time.
https://mariodonick.itch.io/lambdarogue-the-book-of-stars
-- LR: The Book of Stars graphical roguelike RPG

Paul Jeffries

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Re: Roguelike Bundle preparations
« Reply #29 on: September 07, 2012, 07:35:40 PM »
Playing devil's advocate (or devil's PR) a bit: I think you guys need to decide if you haven't already, or make clearer if you have, what the actual purpose of the bundle is from a player's perspective.

What I mean by that is that I think it's clear what you guys all hope to get out of it: a concrete outcome to drive the first stage of the incubator, a bit of cross-promotion, maybe a mention on a couple of gaming sites, bring in some players who haven't tried roguelikes before and so on.  But what isn't so obvious at least to me is what exactly is in it for the prospective player.  What are the key selling points?  What's the 'story'?  Why should I, Mr. John Q. Videogamesplayer, give a crap?

 The humble bundle etc. offer the purchaser a chance to buy a load of games a lot cheaper than they usually would (or a lot more expensively, if they choose to be very generous) and in doing so try out some games that they might not have done otherwise.

Obviously, that doesn't quite work here because (presumably) all of these games would be released for free anyway.  So there's not a lot of financial incentive to waste bandwidth downloading them as a bundle when you could just grab the one(s) that you might be interested in individually and ignore the others - like you can with any other freeware game.  You could emphasise the 'for charity' aspect of it but it seems like that's entirely optional anyway and something of an afterthought - the current website doesn't put a whole lot of emphasis on it.  Of course the danger with really pushing that aspect is that it might seem a little disingenuous to people familiar with the origins of the bundle, but what the hell - I won't tell anyone if you won't.

Alternative spin, and I guess the one you're probably going for, is quality: i.e. these games have been through a rigorous and intensive development 'boot camp' and are the best of the best of the bestiest, quality 100% guaranteed.  Of course in this case the games need to actually be really really good (as I'm sure they are), but then this is still really more of an outcome of the incubator itself, and the bundle is fairly irrelevant - the incubator is the focus of that story.  Where the bundle might gain some ground however is if it were selective - if it represented the 'best' n games to have been developed in the incubator as selected by peer review (or public vote, whatever).  It seems like you don't really have the number of games to do that, however, and so should delay.  And of course it's maybe not the strongest pitch in any case - most people won't know you from Adam (or your games from ADOM) and have no idea what any guarantees of quality you might make would be worth - while those of us that do will probably play the games anyway, bundle or no.

Alternative alternative spin would be something more akin to something like the 7DRLs - that creating these games was a specific challenge/accomplishment that took place under certain conditions and restrictions and the bundle is the result of that incubator 'experiment'.  In which case you shouldn't change the release date because what's on trial is not just the games themselves but also the process/environment that they were created in.  This doesn't really present any benefit to the players but it's still something that might pique their interest and get them to try out the games.

Anyway, you get the idea - I think you need to focus in on what exactly you want the bundle to achieve and then from that make the decision about what should go into it and when it should be released.  At the moment it seems a little like you're doing a bundle just because indie bundles are like, so totally in this season and I don't think that's a good enough reason on its own.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2012, 08:35:18 PM by Paul Jeffries »