It’s really hard to beat a branded Xbox controller, these days. I was extremely skeptical for a long time, then I gave one a shot, and there’s no going back.
The story is pretty dumb. I wouldn’t say it’s bad necessarily, I just think it’s dumb how often we get into whole town shootouts, amd then just pay 80-90 bucks to make it go away. Oh, and fuck Micah, that guy can get lost.
Except… for the combat. By the end of the game, they need 50 bad guys to even pose a challenge to our Max Paine protagonist. But not in the cut scene, of course. By mid-game, you’ve killed more cowboys than cholera.
There is a beautiful quick-draw mechanic that’s only necessary in 2 (optional) side quests.
Wouldn’t even be in my top 10. I loved the world, I just wished the story would go away and just allow me to experience it by myself. To. Me it felt like amazing technology being wasted on a decidedly average game
I agree. Stunning. It’s not for everyone, but, those who can appreciate the slow, beautiful, revealing beauty and enjoy taking their time, this game is as good as it gets.
Those that mash buttons to skip cutscenes, may as well give it a miss and try something else
I love the idea of paying one-time to play offline, but it’s not currently very possible to do in-app purchases on a ROM like GrapheneOS, which you mentioned in the post as being something users (myself included) have. Will there be a way to pay outside of the in-app purchase dialogue to get access? (i.e. donate through bmac, then link account to app temporarily to confirm) I’d definitely like more of my money to go to you, rather than a play store fee.
Additionally, will there be a direct APK download at all, or will it only be available through the Play Store? (obviously privacy-preserving frontends like the Aurora Store exist, but it’s nice to have an APK download too 😊)
Thank you for making privacy the default setting, while still letting users share more if they want to. This is something I always love to see!
I’d 100% sign up for the beta right now, but since my GrapheneOS phone doesn’t have the ability to use the Play Store beta features, I’ll hold off on that so I don’t take someone’s spot :)
Depending on how the legislations now post-DMA go, it might be possible to also handle payments throughout our Portal instead of app stores. The app stores, especially Apple’s, has still a bunch of rules in their ToS about this where they might remove the game entirely if you’re not using their payment system. Android is slightly more lenient on this regard though.
The cuts Patreon already takes (a whopping 14% in total, after which we then play VAT) already affects us enough that I would definitely love to rather have my own systems, but also they offer a lot of convenience to the users that we couldn’t at this point.
But overall it would be great if we could provide a direct payment system straight from Portal, as we could price that one also significantly cheaper than using Google’s or Apple’s systems when we don’t need to pay their cuts. It’s something I really want to do to be able to make the pricing as affordable as possible, and everything depends on if it’s both feasible and allowed by the app stores. But can’t promise this, as there are a lot of factors in play whether it’s feasible to provide our own systems and if it’s allowed by the biggest stores.
When it comes to direct APK downloads, maybe if we can get a good pipeline for those. I think the most realistic option is that we’ll pick the one for an “extra release pipeline” that we can automate most easily to our current systems. Could be Aurora Store, F-Droid or some other depending on what kind of automation options they offer.
I’m not an expert on what automation options they might offer, but I know Aurora Store will essentially just pass through anything you do on the Play Store since it’s just a frontend, and for F-Droid you can host a repo where you place any updated APK to automatically make it available to anyone linked to your repo.
I know alternative payment options are probably a nightmare to properly set up and integrate, so it may not be worth the increased cut of revenue you’d get, but I’m really glad you’re considering it!
I look forward to trying the game when it comes out :)
Oh yeah, I wanted to recommend an f-droid release as well, but thought you had to open your source up for that.
I hadn’t thought of making your own repository where you don’t have to do that \o/
I’m not an expert on the process, but anyone making a custom repo should be able to store the F-Droid repo on GitHub.
It looks like you wouldn’t need to make the app open-source either, as it should be capable of just accepting an apk file. (and possibly auto update from any GitHub releases page, not sure on that though)
Again, not an expert, I haven’t made an F-Droid repo yet myself, so I may have understood something wrong, but it looks relatively straightforward according to their guide
This wouldn’t make it available to users through the default preinstalled repo in F-Droid (which is heavily privacy-focused and limited in scale) but it would allow any user to just click a link or scan a QR code to add your repo to their F-Droid app.
As a person who hates phones, I love this game. I got accepted into the beta a week or two ago and having a game that doesn’t require me to touch my phone all the time is my favorite thing.
The only thing that would make it better is integration with other smart device step counters. Being able to play (more like progress I guess) a phone game while not even carrying my phone would be hilarious. I am sure you’re getting hounded by people about this non-stop.
That’s true, it could be procrastinative instead of actually working on the things that should be done…
I think it would come down to when and how I work on it, I can’t really spend 5-15 minutes on various downtimes learning coding or doing the art, but I could probably whip up an interaction chart and add to it with that short amount of time
Why force yourself to start something big and complicated? Just enjoy your life lol and do stuff that comes to you and feels right. Maybe that’s a game, but no need to force it.
Oh it does :) it’s a passion project that gives me some opportunities to make music and sound effects (something I like to do but don’t always record and save my work), and similarly I love making art but having a strong vision for what I want to make can get difficult.
But I have a really strong vision for the game in its entirety, which helps with the direction for my art and music :) I just need to build the pieces (obviously, easier said than done!) and so far it’s been enjoyable. Difficult, but understandable.
Basically, I save so many notes and other junk, but I rarely save my creative endeavors. This will be a good way for me to not only reach that goal, but to also create a game that is somewhat unique and that would be really fun to play :D
I’m whole-heartedly impressed with what you are presenting here. I wish I’d seen your booth at gamescom, since I am sincerely excited by the non-predatory design philosophy you’re describing in your blog posty on your website.
I have already set up an account and written an application. Hopefully I’ll have the chance to try this out. :)
Just signed up for the beta. I also have adhd and I was overweight for the majority of my life, and then in 2018-early2020, I went from 300ish to 160ish, and I felt great. Then the pandemic hit and I could no longer go on walks and runs and then I got depressed and then injured my leg permanently and now I’m back up to 235 and I fucking hate it but I can’t seem to get the will to walk again. So this game sounds like it would be really fun.
Refinement wise origins is to Fallout 3 and Odyssey is to New Vegas.
I liked Origins. Tomb exploration. History lessons. Angry hippos. It was solid.
Odyssey is my favorite of the 3. Worth it.
Valhalla was too long. They took the Odyssey formula and just did too much. Normally I completionist games, but I could not finish those repeatable side quests. Odin’s marathon runs among other things. After Valhalla I had no interest in buying Mirage and doing it again.
It’s a charming little tower defense game where you fight bugs with very fun abilities. I also play tested it so I may be a tad biased but I think it’s underated and fun :3
I recommend Scavenger SV4It’s a very unique game where you send a rover down to a planet to grab what alien artifacts you can before your radiation exposure gets past the point it can be treated. You can bolt some of them onto your rover to make it better and send it down again. It also has several hundred different endings that are decided by how much radiation you absorbed and how much loot and what loot you brought back.
Crab Champions is a fast paced PvE shooter with roguelike elements. You basically are a crab and fight through multiple waves of enimies. You collect loot to become stronger, and there are fun boss fights. It supports co-op multiplayer, and is made by a single indie developer.
VoxeLibre, what started out as a Minecraft clone is now trying to go it’s own way. Does what it says on the tin. Being not quite MC gives it something fresh, yet familiar imo.
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