Erkki

A Valley without Wind

Recommended Posts

RPS Interview

Part 1: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/02/07/arcen-talk-a-valley-without-wind-part-1/

Part 2: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/02/08/arcen-talk-a-valley-without-wind-part-2/

Sounds pretty interesting, a post-ice-age 2D survival game with a procedurally generated world and some other cool-sounding concepts.

[edit] Added part 2 link.

Edited by Erkki

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's too bad it's so ugly. I don't know, man.

Love the gameplay concepts as described, though! Like, a lot. Maybe enough to overlook the UGG.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's pre-alpha, twig. I hardly think their art is finalized. At least, i would hope not. :)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thank God it's not going to be a hardcore survivalist game, but how can it call itself survivalist if you can't really lose? :erm:

Then again, I don't think you could really lose in Survival Kids?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Terrible programmer art aside, sounds relevant to my interests for sure. I love procedural/terrain generation (something I am currently working on myself).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I hope this Park guy doesn't turn out to be another Molyneux. The second part of the interview (I put the link in the original post) makes it sound like they have all these ideas but are not sure if they can actually do all that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

They managed some utterly ridiculous bullshit with A.I. Wars, that I haven't seen duplicated before or since. (From AI to procedural generations.)

But it seems like AVWW is neither what I pictured, nor anywhere near being finalized. So I'll sit back and wait.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Some more footage

n_Cn881LSnI

This time with less ugly, and some actual interaction, and windmills. The previous RPS interview was odd due to the screens/video contents was very far from what the developer was saying.

PS. the video says "this is only three weeks in". So they just started the project? This blog post confirms it: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2011/02/valley-without-wind-screenshots-and.html

So basically what we can deduce is that the uglyness in no way portrayed the final product, it had been in development for less than 3 weeks!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Unfortunately, making the game a side-scroller didn't fix my biggest problem with what we've seen of the game: the animations. They're still awful. D:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The demo has been available for a week. I tried it and don't really see anything interesting about it. It has elements from Terraria, but one game of that sort was enough for me. Still a beta, of course, so there may be some hope, but I won't really be anticipating the final release.

http://www.arcengames.com/w/index.php/avww-downloads

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Steam kinda forced the demo unto every Steam user, I only noticed it after buying it... :violin:

The game is full of gravestone that serve as tutorials as in " I died because I didn't know this button did this thing!".

The world looks nice enough, but the rest... UGH! The characters look UGLY! I know you shouldn't be attached to them because the game insists they are going to drop like flies, but still, SO UGLY!

It's supposed to be part Terraria, part Metroidvania, but the Terraria part has destroyed the Metroidvania part, sure you still need to find items to access certain area, but you can create platforms in thin air (apparently you get less in harder diffiuculties), which takes half the fun from the game.

I don't know if it's because of my difficulty settings, but the first enemy I encountered was a slime that just a barrier and the second was just a jumping light effect. :hah:

It seems the game a lot of depth, but with the horrid, TERRIBLE look, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to play enough to find out. (And I tolerate early 3D polygonal games!)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm really not bothered by the graphics, despite the fact that they really are kind of ugly. I'm more bothered by the fact that I can't figure out why I'm supposed to be doing what I'm doing.

I guess wandering around in procedurally generated areas is amusing enough for a while, but I just can't find why I should be motivated to do so? I've gathered a million random things and crafted some skills but for what? The combat is dull, the platforming is... whatever... and everywhere I go is pretty much the same. You don't even get the fun you get from Terraria or Minecraft where you get to make your own fun by building things.

It's a neat exercise in programming but as a game it falls pretty flat.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The game only tells you your mission once you leave the first area for good. You must defeat the "big bad" and you can the very moment you leave the first area, but you'll probably die without upgrades.

I haven't advanced a tier yet, but I think I have the ability to? It seems that it upgrades the settlement or something else of your choose and it also upgrades the monsters.

Also you must fight the monsters to unlock new powers that you can get with these canister things, but if you might them even more, a new enemy appears!

I have no idea why I seem to be liking this now, I guess it's because of the upgrades? I can finally double jump? I've yet to use the resource I've collected to make anything but spells though.

I think you try to at least complete the first area, it may be procedurally generated, but I'm sure it's just a tutorial level for everyone. The game seemed to start for real the moment I left it.:erm:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I must express a slight feeling of disappointment that it became sidescrolling instead of isometric. An isometric RPG-ish game takes me back to charming 90s efforts such as Dink Smallwood (!), whereas sidescrollers are much more common.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The game is really starting to annoy me now, it might be a procedurally generated free roaming "metroidvania", but after fighting those slime I mentioned, I can think of a single situation where anything I've got would have changed the game that much.

It seems to be all about the spells, many enemies are immune or get minimal damage from spells of a certain time, but that's about it.

You constantly have to check on BOTH maps, one tells you about the screen you're in and the other lets you know what might be in the next screens, you can't really explore, you just go where the game says there is something decent on the map, there are also secret areas in the map, but I think the game tells you about that too? If it does that's stupid, if it doesn't then it's contradicting the previous statement of "DON'T GO THERE UNLESS I TELL YOU TO!".

I still have no idea what settlements do, they have characters I can switch with with a certain scroll, and they seem to have a job, but I have no idea of what I should do there, the game says there are "Guardian Forces" you can unlock there, but it doesn't tell you how to unlock them!

I think I'm in a meh-hate relation with this game, the game is getting ridiculously boring now and unless I find out something interesting about the game, I might be done with it, I'm fed up of searching for damn spell ingredients.:getmecoat

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I see you reached the point in the game that I did.

This game would benefit from a survival aspect, where maybe you were foraging food and weapons for your village maybe? Bleh.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, it does have permadeath, but with randomly generated characters, who cares?

I unlocked a wind repellent thing which lowered the tier of the bosses area, and I just made a mad rush to it, since I was playing on easy, it was pretty easy.

And boy is the boss ugly, and not in a good way!

Oh, did you know that the game never ends? You just unlock new continents with new overlords and new areas, but still, I don't care anymore...

Their wiki has thing that make the game sound a bit pretentious. You have to earn the right to be pretentious!

-The enemies are boring, ugly and badly animated.

-The world looks better, but not that much, you've seen one screen, you've seen all the outer world screen of that area!

-Inner areas are boring and monotonous! Sure the game tries to tell where the good stuff is so you don't wander but still, it's boring!

-People who called this a "Metroidvania" are lying, there is no real exploration since the game tells you were everything more or less is, there is no "get item A to reach area B". While you do get powers, you get more or less at random and none of them are necessary to complete the game!

Only get this game if you want to grind and explore "effectively" a.k.a. "the boring way".:tdown:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I lost interest in this completely some time ago after playing a pre-alpha or something. My disappointment started with the switch to side-scrolling.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I feel like they just kind of shoved a bunch of things from other games into one thing and hoped it would work. I was hoping it would improve a lot when I pre-ordered it and got into the alpha but it still feels like it needs work.

Also, agree with the billion other people that have stated that the graphics suck.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now