June 19, 2015

Play by Play

DREAD SPACE LAUNCHES TONIGHT NOW!

Hiya all! Artix here. I am very exicted about my first release since the last DoomWood. (That was my last one, right?)  To get back in the spirit of things I did a Play-by-Play on the homepage. Here is everything that was written so you do not miss out on anything!

NOON - "The Code-pocolypse"
I had honestly expected us to already be in testing. I guess that is what I get for adding more and more stuff every hour. So far, ghost has sent in the cutscenes, and J6 finished all of the art. Currently Reens and I are coding the teleporter pad (super convienent for when you are far along) and these little red buttons you can click on to get a deeper glipse into the story. There are actually 3 sets of quests. The main storyline... then about half way through you unlock J6's super ultra crazy bounty hunting quests. There is also a replicator which gives you quests to make things... like Star Crew Uniforms. Because about making Red ones. the red ones are super dangerous. There is a curse tht anyone who wears a Red Star Crew Uniform is certain to not survive the episode.

1pm (EST) - War vs Evil Red Button
Reens and I spent the last hour fighting with an evil red button. So... true to the curse of the Red Shirts, we killed it O_O. We are building the rest of the screens manually. Meanwhile, Ghost turned the skip cutscene button into a more tiny text button so it did not distract from the cutscene... you really are going to want to see the dialog in the first cutscene. Especially since there are only two total! (The other is when you finish... which contains a pretty huge spoiler.) Now are are onto Music and SoundFX fixes, and then J6's bonus quests.

1:30pm (EST) - Expect a lot of SciFi references...
I had a lot of strange goals with this release. First, I wanted it to be highly accessable to everyone. That is why there is both a low level and a high level version. If you enjoy single player questing... then the main storyline will keep you busy for a long while. There are 40+ storyline quests in this release. Including the ultra hard bounty quests which are completely optional.. but should satisfy those of you who feel the normal releases are too short. If you just want to explore the map and fight the boss without doing the quests, I made it possible to do that too. You can still get the gist of the story... especially if you hit the little red buttons in most rooms (yes, same evil button as above) which give flavor to the story of the mysterious Space Station. I included a lot of references... I tried to keep them all as obvious and "gettable" as possible. I am a fan of Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, and countless Space horror movies. I recommend taking your time with this release and enjoying it. Despite all the complicated looking stuff, I kept it simple and fun adventure... definatley worth getting to the end!

2:00pm (EST) - Music
Ghost did a remix of MechQuest's "System Overload" for tonight's release. It has a nice beat and it nice to battle to. Which brings me to another subject... that "Music On/off" button needs to go. Instead we need a nice soundFX and music toggle button cleanly integrated into the main interface that does not distract from the beautiful background art of the game. It was a left over from when we did a live event-- and long overdue to be fixed. Yorumi says after the server re-write, the game client will get a new round of polish fixing this and many other things.

4:00pm (EST) - Making items... FREE (with crazy questing)
We already have a big Limited Quantity Shop sale going live this weekend, so the awesome items for DREAD SPACE are almost entirely free if you are willing to quest for them. The Replicator is a device that creates something from star scrap metal that you find while adventuring. You can create different color Star Crew Shirts, Armored versions of those uniforms, my Star Paladin Uniform, the Blinding Lightsaber of Destiny and... as promised... if you got my faithful battle puppy, Daimyo, during his birthday, you can use the Replicator to turn him into Star Daimyo. There are two larger things you can make... MUCH LARGER... as in MUUUUUUCH LARGER. As an additional bonus, we added a few extra things just for you upgraded Members.

5:00pm (EST) - Final work... and AQ3D's stealth release
We are getting close! The final quests and items are being added. Meanwhile, Zhoom stealth released an AdventureQuest 3D Update at www.AQ3D.com -- Interactive objects! In the cave, there are 4 glowing stones. If you... or your gorup of friends, press all of them it summons a monster to fight. This is the first test of a highly flexible interactive object system that will allow us to do a lot to make AQ3D fun and different. We are still in early development, but the progress have been rapidly evolving. Upgraded Members are welcome to login and help us. the game will be free for everyone once we get to open beta-- at which point it will be playable on the web, apple and android devices.

6:00pm (EST) - Preparing for release!
I sincerely hope you enjoy Dread Space tonight. It was an honor working on this for you alongside the skilled AQWorlds team. As usual... I expect there to be a few uncaught bugs. Please report them and we will fix them ASAP. The next time I see you... will be when I beam you aboard the Starship Paladin for the most important mission in the Galaxy.

7:00pm (EST) - DREAD SPACE IS LIVE!