All posts tagged Update

A Preview of AtG’s Revolutionary UI

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Hello again from the Conifer team!

At long last, we’re finally back with a new edition of ‘Jon rambles for too long about some esoteric game design topic (and along the way mentions AtG once or twice)’. Today’s lucky recipient of this most distinguished spotlight is the game’s user interface, or “UI”. I know this topic might sound roughly as exciting as watching paint dry, but I really do encourage you to stick around because once you’ve seen things with your own eyes I think you’ll understand why our bold claim of AtG’s UI being “revolutionary” isn’t just pre-release marketing hype.

It may also come as a relief that this update is actually a 3-for-1 deal where ‘Jon waxing poetically about his eternal love for UI and the beautiful soul it hides from the big, bad world’ is reinforced by two additional features.

The second member of our update trifecta is a fairly detailed bullet point outline of what’s new and cool with AtG’s UI, and provides the most bang for your buck if you only have a couple minutes to spare. I’ve attached it to the end of this article, so to check it out just scroll to the very bottom of this article and then back up until you see “UI Feature Outline” in big, bold text.

The real the star of our show though is this hands-on video preview of the UI (total of 66 minutes, split into 2 parts roughly a half hour long):

 

 

The old “seeing is believing” mantra sums up UI perfectly, and so much so that even a designer and UI fanboy like me can’t do it justice simply by describing it. So even if you don’t normally watch game videos I strongly encourage checking this one out. If you’re in a hurry skip ahead to the 11-minute mark, as that’s when we introduce AtG’s secret weapon.

The rest of this article makes up the final member of our trifecta, and is a dive deep into a number of UI-related topics that include: why good UI has never been (and never will be) the kind of ‘sexy’ bullet point that helps sell magazines, why in spite of that developers should still care, what makes UI design so difficult, where the idea for AtG’s Adaptive Tooltips came from, some of our UI design ‘rules’, and a look at the design process behind a few UI features we’ve put a lot of thought into so that players won’t have to.

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by Jon Shafer on July 14, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by Jon Shafer on July 14, 2015

https://jonshaferondesign.com/2015/07/14/a-preview-of-atgs-revolutionary-ui/

AtG Update + New Let’s Play Video

Hey all, I’ll try make this post short and sweet (by my standards, anyways!), as I just posted another massive “let’s play” video which does a better job of showing off what we’ve been up to than I can with words alone:

Weighing in at a whopping 3 hours this video is by far the longest yet, but don’t let that scare you off! I’ve broken it up into six 30-minute parts that should be much easier to work through in multiple viewings. Much of Part 1 covers the recent changes I’ll be talking about below, so if that’s all you’re interested in feel free to pass on the other five parts. If you prefer text to video though, well, read on!

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by Jon Shafer on March 16, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by Jon Shafer on March 16, 2015

https://jonshaferondesign.com/2015/03/16/atg-update-new-lets-play-video/

AtG Update: Economics, in Ink

A few of AtG’s new professions.

Hello again from the Conifer team!

We’ve been hunkered down working hard on At The Gates these past winter months, and I figured it was finally a good time to come back up for air.

If you’d like to stay completely up-to-date with all things AtG we’re still posting updates every few days on the Twitters, but I know there’s at least a couple of you out there who enjoy my 20-page treatises. And should you enjoy updates in the form of colors and shapes moving around we’ve also just posted a new ‘Let’s Play’ video (2 hours long!) covering much of the same ground I’ll be talking about below.

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by Jon Shafer on January 27, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by Jon Shafer on January 27, 2015

https://jonshaferondesign.com/2015/01/27/economics-in-ink/

AtG Update: Progress, Pacing & People

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A few months ago I hinted at the possibility of some big changes – well, said “possibility” has turned into reality, which means some exciting new features to talk about. But before getting into the details I think it’s best to explain why we have “big changes” to talk about at all.

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Iterative Design – Not Just a Buzzword!

I’m sure some of you are thinking “What do you mean ‘big changes’? Wasn’t the game supposed to be done by now? Has AtG succumbed to feature creep? Has Conifer run out of money? Do you guys have any idea what you’re doing?”

Given the state of Kickstarter these days I begrudge no one for having perfectly-justified concerns of this sort (hell, I’m in the same boat with quite a few still-unreleased projects I’ve been looking forward to!). Thankfully, I can state with zero reservations whatsoever that AtG is in great shape. There are no gaping holes in the gameplay that may or may not ever get filled, nor dark clouds portending a studio closure looming over the horizon. The game is fun, all features are at least roughed in and we still have plenty of money (mmm, ramen…).

Make no mistake, we’re going to overshoot the projected release date I came up with back in late 2012 by a pretty healthy margin, but I’ve never by shy about the fact that our one and only priority is delivering a great game – regardless of how long that takes. I know I sound like a broken record here, but that truly is Conifer’s “mission statement”. No one remembers when a game is late, but no one forgets when a game is bad!

Okay, okay, let’s all assume that AtG is in fact as amazing as I say – why are we making “big changes”? And how do we know the game actually is in good shape? The answer to both of these questions is simple: external feedback.

As one might expect from such a mature and supportive community, a number of amazing playtesters have stepped forward as huge contributors to AtG’s development. Not only have these individuals provided great insight and suggestions, but they’ve also provided honest assessments about the state of the game. I really do appreciate constructive criticism, and the AtG Test Group has certainly delivered on that front.

A few months ago and back before the “big changes” much of the feedback we were getting could be summed up as: “The game is good… but it feels like something is missing.” After journeying to a mountaintop and meditating in raging blizzards for a couple weeks I returned to my desk having come to the conclusion that they were right.

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by Jon Shafer on September 15, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by Jon Shafer on September 15, 2014

https://jonshaferondesign.com/2014/09/15/atg-update-progress-pacing-people/

Alpha II and Beyond

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Alright, let’s talk about what this milestone means for the game itself!

 

Seasons & Map Generation

This was actually a bit of a detour from the original plan, but I had long known serious work was needed here, and the map is so crucial to everything else that I decided to bite the bullet.

The old system for creating and managing the seasons was extremely primitive – and it showed. Climate zones were assigned in thick bands based on latitude, with small modifications made near mountains. Randomness was leaned on heavily in an attempt to add some fuzziness. In the end, rather than getting large cold fronts advancing from the north you were instead treated to obvious and unrealistic stripes, with the occasional snow tile peppered here and there.

Climate and terrain is closely linked, so when I decided to redo the former I felt it best to step back and add map generation to the task. What we want are believable maps that contain regions with strong character, but the old logic could do little more than produce an even mix of terrain across the entire map. I decided to basically burn everything to the ground and start over.

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by Jon Shafer on June 4, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by Jon Shafer on June 4, 2014

https://jonshaferondesign.com/2014/06/04/alpha-ii-and-beyond/

Welcome to Alpha II!

At The Gates - Now in Alpha II!

I’m excited to announce that as of today At The Gates is now in Alpha II! Hooray!

So, uh… what the heck is “Alpha II”, anyway?

“Alpha II” is the new name for the milestone we had been calling “Beta” for the past 15 months. So why the switch?

When most people hear that a product is in “beta” their immediate expectation is that it’s, you know, almost done. AtG is coming together, but with over a year of development left it would be unfair to set the bar quite that high. Calling it “beta” has lead to some confusion among both players and partners over the past few weeks, so I decided to bite the bullet and give it a more appropriate name.

What this all means in the real world is that if you contributed or pre-ordered at the $50 level you can now download AtG from the Humble website!

If you haven’t used the Humble Dashboard before just head over to Humble’s Key Resender and enter the email address you had associated with your Kickstarter (or PayPal) account when you contributed. This is also where new versions of the game will be posted, so keep the address handy.

Alpha II also, at last, includes working Mac and Linux versions! These gave Jonathan and I a bit of a headache over the past couple months, but I’m already glad we spent the effort, and I’m sure our non-Windows fans will agree.

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by Jon Shafer on May 20, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by Jon Shafer on May 20, 2014

https://jonshaferondesign.com/2014/05/20/welcome-to-alpha-ii/

February 2014 AtG Update: Art

Why, hello there! I know, I know… it’s been a little while since we’ve last spoken. Sorry about that!

Make no mistake, the At the Gates team has been busy with over these cold winter months, especially yours truly. In this post I’ll be talking about our progress on the art side, and later this month another article will explore my adventures with the diplomacy system in, frankly, absurd detail.

In the interests of full disclosure, my original plan was to cover both topics in this update but I just today discovered that Kickstarter imposes a word limit on these things. Woops! Well, at least we now have something else to look forward to. In the meantime I’ll be polishing up what I’d already started. But enough of that – let’s talk art!

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New borders: better than old borders! (Click to see full size image)

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by Jon Shafer on February 20, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by Jon Shafer on February 20, 2014

https://jonshaferondesign.com/2014/02/20/february-2014-atg-update-art/

At the Gates – June 2013 Update

Hey all, time again to provide a quick update regarding recent news and progress. Most of our updates have skewed heavily on the design and theory side, so this time we’ll be delving into the more artistic ends of the project.

Early next week I’ll also be posting our massive outline for the general design principles behind every AI subsystem. I was originally planning on including that with this post, but the length was starting to get a little crazy so I decided to hold off and split things up.

 

Unit Animations

The team has started on the rough animation work for the units. These will eventually be painted over, but I figured you guys would enjoy a little sneak peak.

The schedule and budget call for around 180 unique unit animations which run the gamut from running to fighting to dying. We’re starting with the run cycles.

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by Jon Shafer on June 20, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Jon Shafer on June 20, 2013

https://jonshaferondesign.com/2013/06/20/atg-june-2013-update/