Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Gratuitous DLC Experiment

Posted on September 13, 2010

Ok, first things first, let me announce the release of a new race for Gratuitous Space Battles. They are called the nomads, and you can see more info here, and watch a video of them here (or below). And you can even go buy the new DLC here.

The idea for the nomads are a sort of retro-future race, suggesting a species that has been around a loooong time. They are travellers, and fighting purely for sport. They don’t come with any new technology or weapon types, but they do have a few extra tweaked ship modules. Also, there are not new singleplayer missions, this is just a race for you to use in existing scenarios, or in challenges.

Here is an embedded video showing off the new ships:

Now comes the slightl wacky bit. I’m selling this DLC for $5.99, just like all the previous races were, and there is no change there. If you are a long time GSB plauyer and just want the new race, then go buy it, it’s $5.99. That gets you the standard version of the DLC. There is also a ‘discount’ version of the DLC. The difference between the two is that one is $5.99 and one is $2.99. That’s it.

Obviously the standard one costs more, and I get more money as the developer. The discount one costs you less, and I get less. There will be updated stats on the page here showing who bought what.

It’s entirely up to you, which one you buy. You decide. I would obviously prefer you bought the standard one. Nobody will ever know what version you bought, the files are identical. This is a bit of a sudden manic experiment to see what happens. If you genuinely have very very little money and would have waited months hoping for a bundle or a sale, then you could make an argument you could get the discount one. If you frankly, *do* have the money to spare and would buy it anyway if there was only the $5.99 option, I’m asking you to do that.

This might make me look really stupid, but I’m prepared to risk it. I like trying new stuff in business. I think it will be interesting either way. Also, the DLC is more about promoting the game and making a bigger range of ships, so there is more variety. None of these expansions are really aiming to make money, the core game does that. ( I hope!)

Anyway, it should be interesting. If you find the time to tweet, facebook like, link to, blog or otherwise promote this experiment, I’d appreciate it. It could be interesting.

Cheers,

More Eco Stuff

Posted on September 11, 2010

For those who don’t know, I moved into an OLD house (approx 1750), and am trying to improve its energy efficiency. The house was laughably inefficient and leaky when we moved in, and its better now, albeit incredibly bad by modern standards. Being a ‘listed’ building, I can’t have double glazing, and the house is built before cavity walls were invented.

Anyway, one of the long term plans has been solar panels, and many many weeks and months of debate later, I’m slowly edging closer. A structural engineer told us (for £200) that he has  ‘no idea’ whether the kitchen roof can handle the weight of solar panels. So that was just fab.

A better person than me recently found a company that seems to be the world experts in making lightweight steel roof tiles that have integrated solar panels. How cool is that? And where in the world are they? About 10 miles away. How double cool is that? I’ll be speaking to their solar guy on monday.

In unrelated news, I bought an ‘ecofan’. It’s one of those clever little propeller fans that sits on top of a wood burning stove, and uses the rising heat from the stove as its own power source, then gently blows the warm air around the room, reducing the amount of wood you need to burn. Is it worth it? I dunno. It’e been warm ever since, so the fan sits there, unused, braced for it’s first night, full of exciting promise.

One of the things we changed was to get new radiators fitted. We now have the old fashioned big tubular things, like they used to have in British schools. They are pretty cool. We swapped some badly placed ones for longer, shallower ones, so that they don’t just throw all their heat out of the windows. We also got a cast iron radiator. Have you ever tried to lift a cast iron radiator? They weigh more than a star destroyer. It took four of us, together shuffling it a foot at a time. That thing holds more water than a thousand olympic sized swimming pools, and when you turn it off, the house stays toastry warm for six months. It looks incredibly steampunk. If there were radiators in captain nemos office, they would be that one. It has etched patterns and allsorts.

If I ever actually get working solar panels installed in this house, I may have to have a celebration cheap games sale or something.

I’ll have news monday. News of a silly experiment.

The current positech plan (posiplan?)

Posted on September 8, 2010

I see no harm in making my immediate future plans public.

In no specific order this is what I have coming up:

1) Release of the 1.47 patch to all partners (valve etc). I did this this morning.
2) Release of the new Race (The Nomads) On my site, in a slightly strange way (details to follow) then on the partner sites when I know it works ok. Teasing screen:

3) Talk to Steam and other partners about selling the Mac copy of GSB.
4) Pre-order / beta access and eventual release of the GSB campaign game.
5) Game IV.

This should last me a good few months. Hopefully the money lasts a good few months too. Ha!

In amongst all this, I’ll be taking the first holiday (only a week) since I moved house, and it will be my Birthday. I also have a visit from a  structural engineer today to tell me if my roof can hold up solar panels or not. I will be mr sad face if he says it cannot.

Nomads

Posted on September 4, 2010

I spent some time today on a new race for GSB. It looks like I’ll release this pack before the campaign is finished. I actually had expected to have finished the campaign and have released it by now, but it’s much more involved than I thought, so I’m still working on it. Once I’ve finished complete bug free playthroughs as 2 different races, I’ll get some people testing it for me, then there will probably be a pre0order beta thing, then release. That is probably another month (best case) of work.

So in the meantime, luckily I have artwork for a new race all complete, and am working on the data and the balance. There is nothing radically different in the race in terms of gameplay yet, but the style is interesting. The backstory is that it’s a very very old race, a bit like the dwellers from The Algebraist (Iain M Banks). Over the years, they have rebuilt their ships from the salvage of their enemies, so you will see that their ships have some rebel engines, some order engines, and various other components. They are also the first race to have multicolored ships. I’m calling them Nomads, and they basically fight out of sheer boredom on their multi million year journey across the universe. They have a cool retro look.

I was lying awake at 2AM this morning unable to sleep, thinking about new weapon and ship modules for that race. This pack will be different, likely no new missions, just the raw fleets for you to use. I had originally thought no new modules, but I think I’ll at least add some variants.

A lot of the more interesting ideas involve a ton of code, which I’d rather not do when I’m so busy with the campaign, but there is plenty of scope for module variants that work within existing parameters. I keep thinking that a very long range sniper laser with high penetration but low tracking speed and low damage could be interesting. Hopefully I’ll do some work on it tomorrow.

Nobody wants my money

Posted on September 3, 2010

I’m interested in two new games, that I might like. Patrician IV and Starcraft 2. Neither game has demos. If they do, they don’t want me to find them. So I spent the money on an Iain M Banks novel and some archery target pins instead.

It’s like these companies owners are scared customers might find out what their product is actually like.

I’m not. Try some free demos. if you don’t like them, you won’t like my games. It’s easy:

http://www.positech.co.uk/gratuitousspacebattles/demo.html

http://www.positech.co.uk/democracy2/demo.html

http://www.positech.co.uk/kudos2/demo.html