Hey there!
Last week I started posting my DevBlog here, and I realized I hadn't properly introduced myself! I'm Dean, I'm the creator of Vidar, which is an RPG Puzzler where everyone dies. I had heard that Gamedev.net is going through something of a rebirth last week at the Austin Games Conference, which was an awes[font=arial]om
e opportunity, and wanted to reach out and meet the community here.
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I started working on Vidar about 3 years ago, not really knowing what I was doing. Since then, I've done a Kickstarter, been Greenlit, and found myself constantly beating back a lot of im
postor syndrome because I have absolutely no qualifications to be doing any of this. I have quit my job, started teaching RPG Design in New York, and just in general found myself now completely immersed in game development. It's been a wild and largely inexplicable journey. At some point, I want to talk about all of this on here, but as it turns out I'm trying to release a dang game, so let's talk about that for now ;)
This past week I was at Austin Game Conference, a recently-revived event focused on the games industry, development, VR, and all kinds of fun things. Vidar was part of Intel's Game Developer Showcase; it was a great time seeing games that were different from the usual East Coast Indie Circuit.
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[font=arial]For those curious, Intel brought 10 indie games as part of their booth. The other 9 were:[/font]
[/font][/color][font=arial]Time Golf Squad[/font]
[font=arial]Kingsmen[/font]
[font=arial]Loteria del Adios[/font]
[font=arial]Sundown Arcadia[/font]
[font=arial]Shadow's Kiss[/font]
[font=arial]TexVR[/font]
[font=arial]Confronting Fears Through Virtual Reality[/font]
[font=arial]S#arp Shooter[/font]
[font=arial]Shapesong[/font]
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[font=arial]VR was definitely a highlight of the conference, with a full speaker track dedicated to the subject (and other tracks veering into the space), and several booths on the floor dedicated to demoing indie games on VR. For attendees who had never played with the Oculus or Vive before, it was the best time to try it - typically any game using a headset no matter how good or bad has a long line at conventions. Here, there were enough that you could just walk up and start playing.[/font]
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[font=arial]For my part, I'm thrilled to have emerged with close connections to Intel, and hopefully they'll be able to help promote Vidar in the future![/font]
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[font=arial]Because I was demoing at AGC, a lot of polish was added to the specific scenes that appear in the demo, in an effort to really showcase Vidar. Lots of other fixes have been added as well, and the game is feeling pretty decently stable. Just in time, too, because I'll be on vacation next week, so we won't have another patch for a while.[/font]
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[font=arial]Alpha Build 0.7.1.0[/font]
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[font=arial]Quest Updates[/font]
[/font][/color][font=arial]New Quest: Giving Back. Get it from Csaba, but only if she really likes you.[/font]
[font=arial]If you back out of the menu for giving Csaba charity, she'll now correctly treat you as though you said "no."[/font]
[font=arial]Fixed various crashes related to "Historic Preservation" and "Rewriting History"[/font]
[font=arial]Fixed a crash that could occur when picking up fish[/font]
[font=arial]Picking up a fish that is flopping will correctly update the journal[/font]
[font=arial]Added additional tutorials to the Wolf Cave[/font]
[font=arial]Using the bucket against a non-bucketable event should no longer freeze the Stranger in place[/font]
[font=arial]Added graphic improvements to "Curse II"[/font]
[font=arial]Control is returned to the player much quicker after Rozsa's cutscenes[/font]
[font=arial]Ghosts no longer gab as you're in the middle of their return-to-grave text[/font]
[font=arial]Improved graphics in Erik's Cave[/font]
[font=arial]Various clean up to the cutscene for receiving "The Second Son"[/font]
[font=arial]Conformed text for a number of journal entries[/font]
[font=arial]Arpad no longer comments on Groa's death if the corpse has not been found[/font]
[font=arial]Tomi is no longer outside if Groa's corpse has not been found[/font]
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[font=arial]Map / Puzzle Updates[/font]
[/font][/color][font=arial]Dramatically decreased the amount of time it takes for the puzzle dungeon to spawn[/font]
[font=arial]Glowing mushrooms now spawn dynamically in the Boulder Cave[/font]
[font=arial]Campfires now spawn in the Boulder Cave[/font]
[font=arial]Added falling rubble and screenshake to the balance of the Ruins Cave[/font]
[font=arial]Fixed a bug where the map would be black after using the menu to enter the cave[/font]
[font=arial]The door to the inn will no longer shut even if everyone inside is dead (because you sleep there, silly!)[/font]
[font=arial]Torches and wall lights can now be deactivated early by interacting with them[/font]
[font=arial]Fixed various lights in the Workshop and Cecilia's House[/font]
[font=arial]Fixed various gate-clipping issues in the Water Cave[/font]
[font=arial]Cracked ice breaks more consistently now[/font]
[font=arial]Corrected a passage issue caused by crystals in the Ice Cave[/font]
[font=arial]Fixed a passage issue in the Ice Cave Waypoint[/font]
[font=arial]Leaving Ice Cave 1 is more intuitive[/font]
[font=arial]Added a non-text tutorial concerning geyser use[/font]
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[font=arial]Miscellaneous[/font]
[/font][/color][font=arial]Fixed graphics glitches with various lights in town[/font]
[font=arial]Edited some Kickstarter graves to improve readability[/font]
[font=arial]Fixed Dani's text when Rozsa dies[/font]
[font=arial]Added the conclusion cutscene[/font]
[font=arial]Added a spoiler warning before entering the conclusion area (this will be removed after alpha)[/font]
[font=arial]Added a new title screen[/font]
[font=arial]The "Razbury Games" splash screen will no longer show if you return to the title screen for any reason (from the game, from the options menu, etc.) - in other words, it only shows on launching the game, and then not again until you exit the entire thing and relaunch.[/font]
[font=arial]Added 5 cutscenes[/font]
[font=arial]Lantern light will no longer display outside of the Dark Cave if you have no oil left[/font]
[font=arial]Fixed a lot of issues with the tool window[/font]
[font=arial]Moved the window for choosing items (Charity, Curse II, etc.) to the bottom of the screen so it doesn't conflict with the Tool UI or Timer UI[/font]
[font=arial]Fixed a crash that could occur when returning to the game from the menu[/font]
[font=arial]Fixed a crash related to torches outside of the Dark Cave[/font]
[font=arial]The light outside the inn is back on[/font]
[font=arial]Fixed a crash that could occur once Bernadett and Borbalo were both dead[/font]
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[font=arial]This week we started deploying Mac keys - 10 went out as our test run, and we'll ramp up depending on how that goes. Additional Kickstarter backers got their copy of Vidar as well! [/font]
[font=arial]That's all for this week. We're off next week and the week after, be back around October 18!
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