Operating under a shroud of deception and feints, fleets of smuggling ships have silently filled the ocean's Black Markets with brand new Series 4 Black Boxes! These new boxes reportedly contain a bizarre bundle of Smuggler and Vampire furniture along with a number of varied and shadowy Sea Turtle pets.

Rumors are spreading that some of these boxes containing deadly Booby Traps! There's a chance you could lose an eye, a hand, or a leg when opening one of these new Black Boxes, so be warned!

But perhaps that's right up your alley? In any case, creep on over to your local Black Market to engage in some dubious dealings! If you've simply got to know what's inside, you can take a look at the full list of contents right here.

Yes, we’ve finally got to that point where we had to put together a comprehensive design for how combat works in Clockwork Empires. So let’s talk a bit about it.

Not an in-engine screenshot.

We’ve all played lots of games and almost all of them are about combat in one way or another so this seems like it should be a fairly straightforward problem to solve. But CE is not like most games; Not at all. Combat is not the central game mechanic and focus for the game, merely one possible component in a much larger system. It can’t be allowed to take over the game and unduly tax a player’s attention, nor should it be irrelevant or some kind of tacked-on side-game as seems to be the pitfall of combat systems for a number of classic city-builder games. In CE, combat should tie in with as many other game systems as possible so that it supports the other mechanics in play and in doing so enriches the overall experience. Simple enough, eh!

With those requirements in mind I tried to sum up CE’s take on combat in a sentence: “Combat should be slow, mostly positional, and have its outcome determined by supply and setup instead of tactical micromanagement.”

The pace shall be deliberately slow so a player can take the time to properly assess the effects of their decisions and have time to adapt their strategy to failures. (And besides a slower pace, the game can be paused outright in the manner of tactical combat in classics like Baldur’s Gate or Darklands.) Outcome determined by supply and setup instead of moment-to-moment Starcraft-style micromanagement means decisions most important to the outcome of combat can be made well ahead of time. This makes it a game of strategy over tactics, and tactics over twitch. To further that point, as is proper in a city-builder game, thoughtful positioning is everything: just as it’s important where the mines are built in relation to the middle class housing and the metalworks, just so it is important to be mindful of the placement of your defensive wall, the artillery squad, and Steam Knight patrols. Rather than a reflex AWP shot, think of it more like gardening, albeit bristling with barbed wire and Redcoats.

The Chain of Command & Command Disposition

Mjr. General Ogden Cogsbold’s timid manner is reflected in the behaviour of the entire regional military.

Clockwork Empires is a game about characters, not just the cold mechanics of supply chains and industry. Therefore the character of your soldiers must be essential to the outcome of combat. In the post about overseers and work crews it was implied that the character of an overseer is reflected in the performance of the work crew they lead. It’s just the same for military squads with NCO and officer leadership of military squads having an even greater effect which we call “Command Disposition”. And I daresay, the hierarchical theme of top-down leadership fits nicely into 19th century military doctrine.

Now, the Command Disposition — in addition to how a squad is manned — can act a bit like scripting orders for squads like some kind of really lightweight version of Dominions 3 tactical combat. Assign a bookish and stubborn NCO to a squad and they’ll tend to be defensive and stick to their trenches. Assign an aggressive, violently-inclined NCO to the same squad and they become more likely to order a bayonet charge against the enemy. There’s a bit more to it than that of course; equipment has an effect, so Steam Armour equipped squads will be used for the role of assaulting defenses and artillery equipped squads will stay back and merrily bombard the enemy.

(I will also admit here that the random leader personality trait generation of Paradox‘s Victoria as well as Hearts of Iron III’s command structure system have had a good bit of effect on my thinking.)

It is worth stating of course that the personalities and interactions of characters is a whole system unto itself which has effects that are felt in combat which is a subject which deserves a post of its own.

Managing Defeat

For many combat games, once the sequential play-through has its reloads trimmed off, the timeline looks like a straight line of victory after victory after victory. The player has power over some kind of quantum multiverse which allows them to select the timeline in which they won every battle. In contrast, we want players of Clockwork Empires to be able to fail, but we want it to be a rewarding experience to fail. As we keep saying in interviews, “Things going spectacularly wrong makes a great story.” Remember the Alamo, the Charge of the Light Brigade, the Battle of Isandlwana, and Dredmor’s planned release date!

Defeat should be a bloody good story. A player who keeps a stiff upper lip and endures defeat should be rewarded with narrative richness. And that said, we game designers should be nice enough not to punish them by making their entire game collapse because a squad of soldiers had a bad day. So we must soften defeat from the traditional red mist and bone chips model that’s had such a strong tradition in games.

So: Combat won’t be a meat-grinder. The Starcraft-style RTS has its soldiers eagerly fighting to the death – and always to the death. In CE an individual character’s willingness to fight affects whether they will actually stick around to fight. Sometimes a coward is a coward, but a player can stack the odds in their favour by choosing the right military leadership, setting their squads in good defensive positions, keeping troops well supplied, and doing everything else they can to keep moods positive.

Concepts for field fortifications based on American Civil War era gabions which I spelled “galbion” and know is incorrect so no one has to correct my spelling now, thanks.

It must be said that with all the character-driven action in mind, there’s very much a balance to be struck between characters’ willingness to follow orders and the player being able to actually play the game in any meaningful sense. This goes for civilians as well because if your lumberjacks are more interested in dancing jigs and drinking gin than ever getting to work, this game is going to get really frustrating.

Pictured: Steam Knight pulling on invisible rope.

Back to the subject of defeat: Even victory can be made expensive to slow down runaway success. Combat actions wear down characters’ stamina, and suppressing fire saps willingness to act – perhaps in the manner of Jagged Alliance 2 in which suppressing fire would actually reduce action points. When in a tight spot, buy some time with ammunition! (Though supplies are limited and must be properly restocked.) Further, the best combat positions are of course immobile defensive works in the grand tradition of something between the American Civil War and World War 1. Anything strong enough to punch through those static defenses, be it artillery batteries or Steam Knights, requires a solid supply of fuel and munitions which in turn requires careful use of terrain, guarded flanks, and measured advances. (By the way, these logistical themes are explored elegantly in Unity of Command. Hi Tomislav!)

Not pictured: the Lightning Gun.

Right! Well, there’s more to it than all that: equipment, types of soldiers, the exact personality traits which affect combat, types of units via squad equipment attachments, the role of armour and artillery and static defenses, psychological effects of combat, and of course how the heck the UI for all of this is going to work. It’s all very early in the design process and what we’ve got here is largely a statement of goals & high-level plans for how to meet those goals using the other systems in the game as a framework. The details are very much subject to iteration as the game hits testing so there’s not much use in getting into the gritty specifics. But in all I hope this has given you an idea about where we’re planning to go with combat in Clockwork Empires.

Q. What, no cavalry? A. Not on horses, no. The Gaslamp Way does not involve doing anything so mundane. Plus it’s actually really hard to animate horse cavalry properly in limited space. The Mount & Blade or perhaps Total War series are about the closest you’re likely to get at this point. That said, keep in mind: Nothing So Mundane As That.

Q. Are there tanks? A. Of course, because what else would Steam Knights keep their high-pressure steam in? (Surely you’re not referring to those burdensome Stahlmarkian Landkreuzers?)

Q. Can you fight your friends in multiplayer? A. Naturally, and didn’t we cover this already? Every Gaslamp Games Press Release is Totally Serious About Everything.

Great Gluttonous Gorgos!
A new fiend has been summoned from the Underworld to swell the ranks of the devilite workforce: the gluttonous gorgo!

Gorgos are bulbous fiends who are constantly on the lookout for their next meal. Within the Underworld they are among the lowest in the fiendish pecking order and are used as a twisted form of motivation for white collar devilites. For those that don't work hard every day will eventually become a terrible gorgo; their bodies bloating and their two eyes forming into one, because why waste all that extra energy blinking both?

Weiterlesen

Hi everyone,
I just released a new development snapshot of MegaMekLab. Get it on the download page, as usally.
Here's the changelog:
V 0.1.22
+ Bug: removing multiple equipments at once doesn't work
+ Bug 36: Hang when Building Battlearmor
+ Bug: extra crits when loading unit with crit-using IS or armor and using
reset button in build tab
+ Bug 50: fixed location equipment can't be added correctly and shouldn't be removed on reset
+ Drag and Drop for moving stuff from location to location in mech build view
+ MASC and Supercharger bug fix
+ VTOL with lots of rear armor printing fix
+ Spheroid Small Craft vectorized printout
+ Raw type warnings removed
+ Bug 60: Remove Lower Arm Actuator
+ Bug 63: Stealth Armor shouldn't get removed on reset click in build view
+ Bug: Fixed location equipment should be only deletable, not removable
+ vectorized VTOL printing
+ added support for printing VTOLs with turrets
+ Print Ferro-Lamellor armor info on sheets
+ Fix patchwork armor allocation for mechs
+ Revamped UI for tanks
+ Fixed lots of equipment codes
+ Fixed pop-up mine ammo printing
+ Fixed TAG damage code
+ Automatically remove hand and lower arm actuators for Omni Mechs when mounting
PPCs, ACs or Gauss Weapons in Arms

Tags:

• megameklab
• development
• snapshot
• release

I decided to upload the game on Game Jolt, a site and community for free indie games.

They provide a nice API to upload highscores and unlock achievements on their servers. The code looks very simple and I will try to integrate it into the next or after the next update.

Check it out, all games on this site are free.

Thank you for reading
- Martin

I have been asked I few times regarding my income (i.e. game sales) and what I am doing all the time. Basically, as some of you know, “Noble Master Games is a single member company, it’s more or less me doing most of the work. I spend about 10-12h/day including weekends (sometimes I take a day off) developing games, programming, fixing bugs, marketing, talking to customers, keeping up-to-date with latest tech, contributing to open source projects, coordinating with contractors, paying bills, accounting, maintaining servers, posting in forums and so forth. I generally contract out all the artwork, music, translations and modding out if I can. I have a few great artists, musician and modders I work with. I couldn’t do it without them!

So now, how much did I make in 2012 (in US Dollars) based on my taxes filed?

Gross Income: $162'324 Expenses: -$130'755 Taxes: -$15,324 ----------------------------------------- Total Income: $36,246

Please note the Gross Income refers to all income (about 99.5% game sales) over all games and platforms (see below). I don’t have any other income. The Expenses include to a large part contract payments for art & graphics, music, translations and modding. A large portion of it is used too for hosting fees/internet, marketing, accounting/financial transaction fees, hardware (e.g. devices for testing), software (e.g. Photoshop), developer fees (e.g. Apple), business fees, phone/fax and smaller office expenses (e.g. paper, stamps & the like), personal retirement payments and health insurance. A small portion has been used to fund open source projects or sponsor tournaments (e.g. Age of Conquest).

So basically this leaves me with a total of about $36,246 for personal expenses such as food, rent, utilities, transportation, personal entertainment and such, i.e. my personal income. To be fair, the Expenses includes about 40% of my rent and my utility bill as I am able to deduct it from taxes but the rest has to come off from the $36,246.

Based off my actual income, I can make more money working for a company, for example Google, than working for myself, so why am I doing it? First of all it is to a big part “fun” to have your own company and develop games. Also, there is no boss to report to. Although I spend a lot of time working, I can choose freely when I want to take a break. So no, I am not complaining. I am not poor but I am also not bathing in Champagne. I wish I could afford to hire 1 or 2 people full-time to work together with as things can get lonely at times. Generally, it’s difficult to say if I am able to continue doing this in the future as it the actual income is little bit low to sustain over a longer period of time. Also, it doesn’t look like sales will increase this year unless I am able to complete a new game soon. Demise of Nations is planned for release towards the end of this year.

If you like strategy games and you like to see more of it, please don’t pirate but support the following games.

• Age of Conquest: a medieval Risk-like turn-based strategy game (PC, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS). Includes ONLINE multiplayer.
• Tropical/Desert Stormfront: a modern real-time strategy game (PC, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS). Includes multiplayer via LAN/internet
• Demise of Nations: in the making. Follow my twitter feed @noblemaster for latest updates.

Please note, you are not only supporting me, but you also support all the people I work with (which I prefer to pay decent so they don’t have to starve) including Antony Hager (Artist), Nick Lee (Artist, previous), Sean Beeson (Music) amongst many others. Also, you indirectly support 3rd party companies which products and services I purchase (software, hardware, internet services). You also support Open Source projects, namely libGDX and LWJGL, two excellent projects amongst many others out there.

Feel free to comment or ask questions! Thanks, Christoph, a.k.a noblemaster.

QUAKE LIVE is now back online. We have temporarily reinstated service and are monitoring its stability as we conduct further testing. Service may be sporadic, and the site may be taken offline again if needed as our staff continues to resolve the performance and instability issues we have been experiencing.

We will have a more detailed post, containing our plans going forward sometime in the near future.

It's springtime, and RuneScape will soon be blossoming with fresh new content in the merry month of May. There'll be a scarily fun, social Prayer training method for low-level players; emissaries of the RuneScape gods who want you on their side for the 6th Age; and awesome new high-level plants with cross-skill training opportunities for farmers!

Hello, and welcome to FreeDroidRPG's progress report for the months of March and April! We've had two stormy months, marked by a vicious attack by a devious hacker that added big, red frightening text to our home page, an attack which we've held off successfully thanks to the team's ingenuity and resourcefulness, and by a smooth transition to SourceForge's new git repository setup. The game itself wasn't left to gather dust on a shelf, either, and this is a list of some of the major changes:

• Mike Fleischmann changed the way the repair skill works: the chance of fully improving an item steadily increases with the skill level, and if the level is at its maximum, the player has a small chance of either damaging the item or improving it. Additionally, the repair manual (which upgrades the player's repair skill) has been released for sale by the game's NPCs.
• Until now, the only obstacles which could have been "opened" and have item contents were chests. This was changed and the first obstacles to show this are bookshelves, which can contain great (digitized) tomes of ancient lore... Just don't make too much of a mess when searching them. Thanks to Infrared, fluzz and Matthias Krüger.
• Are you a fan of diversity? Do you already know all the chord's to the town's music track by heart? Would you like to control the way your environment sounds? Well, Matthias Krüger's new experimental radio may be just the feature for you. Visit the nearest terminal and adjust your jam today!
• Miles McCammon added a description of the game's shops and their interface to the tutorial.
• In the level editor, a new action clears the redo queue, as is the norm in most applications. By Xenux.
• Many optimizations and cleanups in the game's code that ensure a smoother and more stable playing experience, by various members of the team.

All in all, 84 changes were committed during March and April.

As usual, we want to thank everyone who contributed to the game, and ask of anyone who has an idea, suggestion, query, bug report, patch, free time and will to help out to contact us, take a look at our bug & feature request tracker, or show us how you think things should be done with a patch. Who knows, you may even find you name on this list in the future!

-The FreeDroidRPG Team

It's springtime, and RuneScape will soon be blossoming with fresh new content in the merry month of May. There'll be a scarily fun, social Prayer training method for low-level players; emissaries of the RuneScape gods who want you on their side for the 6th Age; and awesome new high-level plants with cross-skill training opportunities for farmers!

Version:  v01 Spring Maps Freeware

Another Flat Shaded map. This one is good for FFA and 1v1. Has pretty features, a metal rich oasis in the center, and really tall hills to start on. Wheeee!

Take the Spring Mapping Quiz!: http://goo.gl/F8EWo

Dependencies:  Spring Features Author / Publisher:  Forboding Angel

We are proud to announce the release of Towns v13!
We are proud to announce the release of Towns v13!

Version:  1.76 Games Freeware

— Not OTA v1.76 —

NOTA is a TA themed mod designed for larger maps with to-scale units, fuel for airplanes, and more.

NOTA features more strategic play, more diversified unit types, and a slower tech/econ development.

NOTA games can be very quick, seeing only t1 units, or very long, ending with the appearance of incredible superweapons.

——————————————–

INCLUDED

- LuaAI: Spacebugs – specific scenario enemy, space insect invasion (v1.6)
- LuaAI: N.O.E. – skirmish enemy (v1.76)
- KOTH mode – scenario where players fight for specific territory (v1.6)
- MISSION: TTD – multiplayer mission (v1.69 alpha 05) (map Throne v1 needed)
- MISSION: rom-a03 – multiplayer mission (v1.75 alpha, no storms, no story messages yet) (map RoughShoresV6 needed)

HOW TO USE THESE MODES? CHECK: http://nota.machys.net/gameplay

———— CHANGELOG ———————

GAME

General
- modrules – gaia features ONLY are visible without “exploring” them (before: all were seen)
- strange secondary tracks behind small commander (armcom2/corcom2) are history

AIR and Anti-air
- enhancment of Toadfoot – weapon targetting tolerance lowered (3000 -> 500), changed max altitude (220 -> 440), possible button highAlt/lowAlt, (btw sure 0% missfire with HOLD FIRE)
- Samson/Slasher AA missiles damage rethink (Samson 145 -> 3×66 split 0.3, Slasher 145 -> 2×88 split 0.5)
- Slasher’s LOS enhanced (+20 %) (400 -> 480) and HP enhanced (+20 %) (650 -> 786)
- AA missile range of Panther lowered (700 -> 650)
+ loopback attack possible for all AAA units (A-fighters, sea A-fighters, AA-fighters, Interceptors), but theres a new widget that select the default behavior for plane
- Black Lily loose 6 bombs (8 -> 2), +100% bigger area effect of bombs (74 -> 150), 400% damage for each bomb to all targets (380 -> 1520)
- Firebat napalm bombs have slower drop (=> bigger area off effect)
- advanced bombers Phoenix/Hurricane becoming carpet bombers – gets +18 bombs (4x, 6 -> 24), but 50% damage for each bomb and energy price of bombers +50 %
- Thunder/Shadow and Phoenix/Hurricane do less damage to medium armor and much lesser to heavy armor (230,230,230 -> 230,184,103 for basic bombers, half for advanced ones)

Ground
- crawling bombs buildtime reduced by 40 % (8000 -> 4800 for Invader, 8900 -> 5340 for Roach)
- 150% build range for all commanders (128 -> 192)
- underwater platform added in buildlist of hover constructors for both sides
- again changed the hitsphere of both dragon-teeths (20/20/20 -> 30/20/30)
- Triton is now radar stealth, its energy cost is increased by 33 % (2900 -> 3857) and buildtime increased by 20 % (6112 -> 7334)
- changed hitsphere of Shika
- much smaller hitsphere for ARM Pod, a bit smaller hitspheres for Triton, Grayhound, Bulldog, Reaper, Crock

Sensors
- radarEmitHeight higher (20 -> 80 for CORE radar, 20 -> 75 for ARM radar)
- all ships LOS and radar emit heights added (all were default 20, now 50 for destroyer class, 70 for cruisers and carriers class, 90 for flagships)
- +33 % for radar range of both electronic war ships Scrambler/Blotter (2500 -> 3325)
- sonar range enhanced +10 % (1276 -> 1400)
- seismic signature for all subs working now (0 -> 2)

UI and WIDGETS

+ New chili based Nota UI = gui_chili_nota_ui.lua minimap, selection bar, build/order bar, resource bar
+ Grab Chili Epic menu, Chili tooltip integrate it to NotaUI
+ Add gui_tactical_grid.lua (default OFF)
+ Add cool gui_tactical_select.lua
+ Add cmd_air_loopback_default.lua
+ added notAicon in game (for taskbar)
+ added widget camera_smoothcam.lua (= smooth zoom)
+ added widget map_external_grid.lua (= grid instead of water as background)
+ created new widget gui_radar_view_on.lua that enables radar view at start of the game
+ created cool widget that make formations on gathering points (for units comming from factory)
- widget Factory Auto-Repeat sets repeat on just created factories, not finished ones
- Renamed ui_ron_taunts.lua > api_ron_taunts.lua
- Renamed gui_radar_view_on.lua > map_radar_view_on.lua
- Turn off default RedUI
- Changed unit_healthbars.lua = added fuel bar, remove feature health (slowdowns)
- repaired end-order patrol for clever_gathering_point
- killed anti-spam for game taunts
- fixed LOS and RadarView from start for Specs (OFF for them by default now)
- ON default – unit_improved_metal_maker.lua
- ON default – cmd_fac_holdposition.lua
- ON default – unit_smart_area_reclaim.lua
- ON default – cmd_factory_repeat.lua

FIXES

- fix – again smaller spheres for planes (14×14) to avoid crawling mine unload bug and not loosing airbus from view
- fix – bombers (spring 94.1, killing “manualBombSettings” parameter), true working bombers, including carpet bombers and flying fortress
- fix – long console content (=> was crash)
- fix – much smaller hitsphere for ARM Pod, a bit smaller hitspheres for Triton, Grayhound, Bulldog, Reaper, Crock
- fix – Grayhound AA gun cannot attack ground now
- fix – added missing commands icons – Jump and Teleport
- fix – noe_sprits.lua (random function in mexes builder)
- fix – huge increase of heatmapping for ships (0.8,200) and small increase of it for tanks (0.2,30)
- fix – collide/avoid friendly unit for ground weapon of CORE tower = false
- fix – spawner fix for game launch without lobby
- fix – floating mexes and metal makers tags (MaxSlope,MaxWaterDepth)
- fix – multiple bombs throwing fixed for Hellfish, Vashp, Flying Wing, Black Lily, Firebat
- fix – a bit buring units in napalm
- fix – tanks reverse (spring 94.1)

NOE

+ added “secret” terraform parameter (its executed when game starts, so its hidden for players who have not LOS on that place)
+ added recalculation of metal map for notAmap
+ NOE conditions added (LuaRules/Configs/noe/noe_conditions.lua)
+ NOE events added (LuaRules/Configs/noe/noe_events.lua) and enhancement of its execution
+ NOE actions added (LuaRules/Configs/noe/noe_actions.lua)
+ NOE terraforming added (LuaRules/Configs/noe/noe_terraform.lua)
+ NOE map added – noe_map.lua/map.lua introduced
- mission_data_loader updated for conditions, events, actions and terraforming
- added “spawLessPlayersDontSpawn” in spawnEdit library – function, that in mission looks at all planed spawns and if some slot for player is not used -> those spawns are not executed
- setting amount of resources for all games with NOE in unit_noe.lua/noe_side.lua and mission settings.lua
- fix – loader bad debug condition
- new conditions in conditions library
+ widget “mission editor” that generates the code for noe use+ NOE tasks added – noe_tasks.lua/tasks.lua and task table to describe groups mission tasks
+ all groupDefinitions have now own default values
+ new groupDef parameters – “factories”, “taskName”
- huge fixes and in group changer
+ missionInfo, missionKnowledge, etc.. introduced
+ initGroup structure introduced
- BigMove – dependant groups use rotation of their leaders now
- activity checking in RunSpirits function (spirits of not active groups are not executed, override notSleeper)
! fix of those bloody unit counters! (pepe is noob)
- fix for GetPositionOfGroup(groupID)
+++++ MANY MANY plans, spririts, conditions, events, actions added (tens of such things)

SPACEBUGS

- jamming effect of dust cloud of Dust Bug lowered (1400 -> 400)

MISSIONS

- all working missions equiped with conditions, events and actions files
- fix all .ini map setting (SpecMapName -> MapName) to be coherent with Nota :: Lobby
- fixed when mission doesnt have specified start resources (aiDefs/side.lua)

MISSION: rom-a03
+ full trigger map made
+ transport paths completed
+ air attacks
+ gadget checkers for transports added
+ first random taunt reactions added
+ tank raiders!
+ airdrops!
+ combined airstrikes!

Related links:  http://nota.machys.net Author / Publisher:  PepeAmpere

An abstract action game made for LD48#26. The theme was "Minimalism".

Press SPACE or Z to start. Move with cursor keys or WASD.
To complete each stage, merge all of the dots including yourself.

(Wait to load and then click for focus)

:: Read More

3089 has a new widescreen trailer showing off the latest developments! v0.54a also includes construction fixes, better AI & "Quick Tips"
3089 has a new widescreen trailer showing off the latest developments! v0.54a also includes construction fixes, better AI & "Quick Tips"

Dear Illarionites,

due to a mistake on my end, Illarion was thrown six days into the past. This affects characters and accounts as well as forum, news and mantis.
I am very sorry for the inconvenience caused.

In protest against the Fairy Lax celebration, crafters created the Profession Day! From April 30, 3 PM GMT / 11 AM EST / 8 AM PST to May 2, 7 AM GMT / 3 AM EST / 12 AM PST: +20% experience on your professions (gathering, planting, crafting)! Gather your tools, prepare your hammers and sharpen your sickles, it’s going to be time to do some serious crafting!

40 hours.

That’s the time you’ll have to use this exceptional bonus in WAKFU: +20% experience on professions (gathering, planting, crafting)! If your plan was to lie down and do nothing between April 30, 3 PM GMT / 11 AM EST / 8 AM PST and May 2, 7 AM GMT / 3 AM EST / 12 AM PST, think again! It would be a shame to miss such and opportunity.

You’ll have all the time you want this weekend to get back to your fighting, questing and dungeoning!

People of Maj'Eyal, my minions!

 

Here is a little reminder that you can still take part in the modules contest and to all those that are working on it already, remember that you need to post the announcement of your game by the 1st of august!

 

Have fun!

 

PS: and for those that missed it, the announcement of the contest:

With the release of Tales of Maj'Eyal 1.0.0 I can now start to create new content again, branch into new campaigns, ... and this shall be great fun.

But there is one side of the game that is not as developed as it could and I wish to change that. It is however not something I can do myself: Modules!
So, in the spirit of promoting the creation of new, quality, games based on TE4 I would like to create a new contest!

During this year 2013 up until the 1st december your task will be to create new, amazing and fun games using TE4. Anyone can, and is welcome to, participate (except me obviously) !
When the contest closes there will be a big vote when ToME players can elect the "best" game.
Players will be asked to rate each game on fun, polish and innovation, the winner being determined by the best average of those factors.

In addition of fame and pleasure of having created a fun game the 1st place will also grant a 500€ reward, the second a 150€ reward and the third a 50€ reward (by paypal).

The rules to participate are as follow:

• Game must be announced on http://forums.te4.org/ by the 1st of august (but you are encouraged to announce, and start dev much earlier)
• Game must not use a modified TE4 engine (so taking the .team file should work on any ToME installation)
• Game must not be a "variant" of ToME itself, it must be its own thing. Code from ToME can be used, but only in small parts (i.e: taking inspiration of the party code is fine, ripping half the class files is not)
• Game must be comply with TE4 license (but it inherently does anyway)
• Game graphics (if you choose to have) can not use the shockbolt tileset (which is licensed only to ToME)
• Game graphics, musics, ... that are not code can be under a different license (and with the authorization of the authors obviously)
• Game must be released by the 1st december (you can, and are encouraged to continue dev on it afterwards obviously)
• Games are encouraged (but not required) to release often during the year. Remember for players to like your game they must be able to play it!
• Games can be adaption of other games/roguelikes, as long as you respect copyrights, licenses and the wish of the authors
• Game must be published at least on http://te4.org/ as a game module

You are very welcome to join #tome on irc.rizon.net where nice people can sometimes help you and post about your game/progress/questions in the modules section of the forums!

Now open your code editors and start coding!

 

Discuss on the forum there: http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=36083

Yesterday night we carried out the second part of the forum reorganization that had been planned well in advance. We would like to explain why this happened.

Curious about the new families to complete in the Encyclopedia?

Here’s a new batch of families for which you can start submitting your screenshots:

• Molluskies
• Sharks
• Creatures from Calamar Island

If your screenshot is selected, you’ll receive 15 Bronze tokens directly on your account. Also, your Ankama nickname will be displayed with the screenshot. 

You have until next week to submit your entries… Don’t waste a second and go catch them all!