▶

Follow Up: Let's Talk About Leaving Early Access.

Hey again everyone, Thanks for the ridiculous amount of feedback you all provided over in the original announcement. I've read pretty much all of it, and I decided to write a nice neat follow up addressing the common feedback among all of you, since even my own comments get buried in the sea of feedback over in the other announcement. Feel free to continue providing some follow up feedback of your own down in the comments! I'm always open for more. Here's some of the hottest topics;

"The game needs endgame/a campaign!"

This ones an interesting one to address. Many people are requesting "endgame" content or a campaign mode of some kind. The problem is, this game isn't actually the kind of game that makes sense to have either. I could shoehorn in a campaign, but that really is just "forcing goals" and masking areas where the content is lacking, and I don't feel that would jive well with the nature of the game. Although a scenario mode is on the drawing board and may be implemented at a later date! Most of the time in a game like this, when people are asking for "endgame" what they're really asking is "Give me more late game content" without realizing it. That's certainly something I want to address in future patches, but that's not really "endgame". That's simply adding more late game content and pushing the content wall farther away. My plan is to keep pushing that content wall out as far as I can, with the end goal of a player never really being able to experience everything in a single village, and if they somehow do, they're probably satisfied with the hours they put in and is ready to move on to another game in their library. This goal simply takes time though, I can't make an "Endgame" patch, as that wouldn't make much sense and that's not really how all this works. Endgame is really just the content wall being hit and giving the player some arbitrary goal, that once hit, still circles back to the same problem; nothing left to do. The ultimate goal isn't really endgame, it's to avoid the content wall being hit all together. So my plan is to just keep on chugging out more content, endlessly, before and after the game leaves Early Access.

"The world map needs more purpose. I want a reason to expand and maintain more than 1 village."

Whole heartedly agree, and I will take any and all feedback related to accomplish that. :) The original game design plan did not include a world map, this was something added post Early Access. I am still wrestling with a solid plan to push forward on tying all the maps together, and would love to hear your thoughts on the matter. Keep in mind a technical limitations when providing your ideas though; The simulation can only run on one map at a time, and the passage of time can only happen on one map at a time. The villages cannot communicate with each other from a code standpoint. Each map is in "stasis" when it is not being played, only the data in the map currently being played, and the world map itself, is accessible.

"The game needs before release."

A lot of you have great ideas for future content, surprisingly a lot of your ideas are actually already planned too. But one thing I noticed quite a lot in the other announcement was many people seem to be under the impression the game's development will stop, slow down, or transition into DLC releases once the game is released. This is wrong. The game will continue to be developed, at the same pace it is currently being developed after release. The day Rise to Ruins is released will not be the day development stops, it will only be the day the community feels the game is worth the pricetag as-is, without any additional content. But development will keep pushing forward! :)

"The game needs , but I don't mind if it's DLC after release."

This sort of plays in with the feedback above about needing before release. The game will never have DLC (outside of the soundtrack). If you own the game, you will own all the content the game will ever have. You will never pay more for anything extra. Anything that could have been "DLC" will just be a free content patch in a later version of the game. So no worries! I have you guys covered there.

"Make saves backwards compatible before release."

It's planned, don't worry about this one. After release, saves will only break if there's literally no other option. But "never" is the ultimate plan.

"Each map feels the same.."

Agreed, and this will be partially resolved with the new per-map difficulty, weather, and mob spawning settings being added in a future patch. :)

"Needs workshop support!"

Sadly, modding is not planned as an official feature. Unofficially, the game is written in Java, and thus anyone with the technical skills can simply decompile the game and do whatever they want (Hint: Minecraft technically doesn't support modding either!). But, workshop support is still planned for custom maps and localization support, slated for release some time after leaving Early Access.

"Game needs language!"

There's no gentle way to really say this, but I only speak English. I can't support your native language (unless it's English!). There's too many technical and logistical problems in a game like Rise to Ruins to pull it off effectively and professionally. Thus why I am adding user-made localization support to the workshop, to allow you guys to maintain them yourselves. :) Now, before you say "But will translate the game for you!" or "I'll do it for you, no worries!", keep in mind the game is constantly in development, now and after leaving Early Access. I can't pay a professional service to retranslate parts of the game every major patch and I can't rely on fans to keep with it either, it's just not financially and logistically realistic. I apologize for it, but it's just the way it has to be. I'm a one man dev with limited time, budget and resources in this department. The best option here is to open up the workshop and let you guys maintain localization yourself. :)

"Game needs a tutorial!"

Agreed and planned. :) Thanks for taking the time to read this wall-o-text, see you in the comments. ːrtrzombieː

[ 2017-10-24 19:40:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Retro-Pixel Castles

Raymond Doerr Developer

SixtyGig Games Publisher

2019-10-14 Release

Strategy Simulation Singleplayer Tags

Game News Posts: 175

🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse

Very Positive (7080 reviews)

http://risetoruins.com

Steam Store

The Game includes VR Support

Get Involved in Development

Follow @RaymondDoerr on Twitter

Game Concept

Retro-Pixel Castles is at heart a godlike village simulator, but it also throws in plenty of familiar game play mechanics from classic 90s era real-time strategy games like Warcraft, along with some tower defense and survival elements in an attempt to create a new kind of village simulator. The goal is to try to bridge the gap between the depth and complexity of traditional village simulators, the fun of godlikes and the simplicity of real-time strategy.

Key Features

You can't win!
The problem nearly all village simulators tend to face is you seem to eventually reach a point where you can't lose the game. You become so skilled at knowing exactly what to do and in exactly what order, the game loses all of it's appeal and you eventually run off to play something else. That's not the case with Retro-Pixel Castles, it aims to make a game you can't win. Every game day, the game gets progressively harder. In RPC you will eventually lose. The goal isn't to win, that's not possible, the goal is to see how long you can survive!

Build a village, and die trying!
A major part of the game is village management, and trying to discover new and creative ways to use the tools at your disposal to keep yourself alive as long as possible.

Several Game Modes
Currently, the game offers two main game modes. Survival and Peaceful, Survival is the game the way it was meant to be played, as a brutal survival style village sim. Peaceful on the other hand has nearly no monsters, and plays out much like a traditional village simulator with some godlike and RTS elements sprinkled on top. More game modes are planned like the upcoming Sandbox mode where you basically are given unlimited resources and access to play around with the engine.

Godlike Elements
Not only can you manage your village, but you also have many godlike abilities at your disposal. You can alter the terrain, blast enemies from afar, heal your villagers and speed up resource growth.

Unlock Content Through Gameplay (Coming soon!)
In RPC, you will find yourself in a harsh and unforgiving environment, constantly trying to find new ways to keep your little villagers alive for just a few more days. As you play, you'll unlock more content, like additional buildings, items and units you can use in your next attempt to see if you can survive even longer than the last!

Even though you can't beat this game, you most certainly can make progress in it! Every round you play you'll gain experience, unlocks, and other interesting goodies that will expand the game.

Tons of map set themes!
Every set of maps will follow a certain theme (Forest, Desert, Underground, etc). Most of the current screenshots only feature a few of these map sets. But many, many more are planned.

The Soundtrack!
A full original soundtrack, made by Bibiki Garcia that blends orchestral instruments in a way fans of old 1990s era PC gaming will love and remember!

DRM-FREE

SixtyGig Games is a DRM free independent game developer! Retro-Pixel Castles will not now or ever in the future have any sort of DRM! Piracy protection only hurts you guys, the loyal paying players. So you rest assured knowing that once you buy yourself a copy of Retro-Pixel Castles you'll never again have to concern yourself with nagging questions about if you can continue playing the game down the road due to something like always-online logins, lost registration codes or because you bought a new computer and you're only licensed to put the game on one. All I ask from you is to be reasonable and responsible, you can buy the game and play it as much as you like, wherever you like. Just tell your friends to support my DRM-Free philosophy and buy their own copy! Free Content Patches, no paid-DLC

100% FREE CONTENT PATCHES/DLC!

I don't believe in paying for Downloaded Content. If you buy Retro-Pixel Castles you will have access to the entire game and all the content I'll ever create for this it, forever! I believe DLC is greedy, and you deserve to have the full gaming experience from day 1, right out of the (figurative) box!

Have a say!

Your feedback is extremely important. You can reply here or head on over to the Official Website and help shape the direction of development! :)

MINIMAL SETUPOS: Most 64 Bit Linux Distros (Must support Java)
Processor: Intel i5 or equivalent (Dual Core with Hyper-Threading)Memory: 4 GB RAM
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: Intel HD 4400 or equivalent. 1280x720 resolution or higher.
Storage: 1 GB available spaceAdditional Notes: OracleJDK or OpenJDK 8 Required (OpenJDK bundled with product)
RECOMMENDED SETUPOS: Most 64 Bit Linux Distros (Must support Java)
Processor: Intel i5 or equivalent (Quad Core)Memory: 8 GB RAM
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: Most Dedicated GPUs. 1G+ VRAM / OpenGL 1.3+
Storage: 1 GB available space

💰 Games on Sale 💰

GAMEBILLET

[ 6102 ]