February 2012
8 posts
MM's blog
I started blogging more frequently on my personal blog http://mm.soldat.pl. I write there about things not directly related to KAG. It’s more about my current thoughts on game design and what I want games to be like. If you are interested in making games or just reading about it check it out!
MM
KAG is one of the Essential Free Indie Games For...
We got featured yesterday on G4TV.COM along with classics such as Cave Story and Dwarf Fortress in an article called “Essential Free Indie Games For Your PC”. This is really amazing that we’re getting this attention.
KAG is a completely free game right now and it offers an insane amount of fun. In a couple days we’ll have a patch ready with more new stuff for the free...
Wrapping up zombies
We are officially wrapping up the zombies build. Not adding anything more. Fixing and tweaking the most important things. Consulting with the few happy testers and heading straight to the bliss of release. This is gonna be like 30% of what we plan this mode to have but since this is still alpha we want to push this out so that you can have some fun. I personally haven’t gone more than an hour...
Quotes from Testing Day 1:
A selection of quotes from today’s testing, which will be ongoing until the build is released:
<Rayne> yeah it’s damn fun.
<Nixito> I love those one undead with the mad jumping skills
<incarnum> :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD <incarnum> mfw per-generator map sizes
<Contrary> hwoo that was fun <Contrary> oh just played a really long game...
More stuff in next release
Next release aka “Zombies Release” will not only contain zombies. It will have numerous significant improvements which we have (briefly) or haven’t talked about really. Here’s some of them:
real light and darkness
new workshops and rooms
new items such as a keg (made in demolition workshop)
much better Bot AI with A* path finding
archer bots and other AI additions
...
New payment options?
The demand for getting KAG full version is growing and growing! We are very happy about this and we want everyone to be able to get it. PayPal is the most popular and easiest choice for paying us the couple bucks KAG costs but isn’t available for everyone. So what should be our next priority for adding a payment option?
Zombies Soon!
Soon enough you’ll be all like:
The zombies will be on your doorstep and you’ll be able to fight them as a team.
However, we’ve got to get some testing out of the way before that can happen - We’ll be working with a few core members of the community to make sure its as bug free as we can make it, as exploit proof as we can make it and balanced enough to keep you playing...
Jay is Games: Best of 2011!
We won the Best of 2011 award in the Indie Strategy or Role-Playing category on Jay Is Games! We couldn’t have done this without your support, so a huge thanks to everyone who voted, and an even bigger one to those who voted multiple times!
They sent us this snazzy medal to parade around:
You can read the article here!
Again, a huge thanks to all those involved at Jay Is Games and to...
January 2012
19 posts
More Zombies Updates! Also, patch explanation.
I know, I know you all scanned every letter of that last patch for zombie related goodies and then punched your screens in collective rage at the lack of undead to slaughter. I hate no zombies just as much as the next guy.
The patch was forced by a few unsavoury types exploiting a bug that allowed them to impersonate both members of the staff and community. We took it upon ourselves to work a few...
Free accounts from G+ to get the ball rolling!
Shadlington has set up a competition on the google plus page, the rules and where to sign up can be found here! Good luck!
Zombies progress
Today we were solving some gameplay issues with zombies. This mode is hard to do because the whole game world is random. There is a lot of issues that we must predict and make it work. This is NOT gonna be a dumb game like something in Flash where you just stand on a fort and mindless zombies come at you. The zombies are gonna be part of this random world and you are the intruder. This is going to...
Free Indie Game of the Year 2011 IGM - King...
King Arthur’s Gold aka KAG is officially free indie game of the year in IGM’s Readers choice (click for official link). It seems players love the game already despite being in alpha stage. So this is just the beginning. Thanks to all that voted.
Voting has still not ended at JayIsGames so do that now (CLICK) and support your favorite multiplayer game! You can vote once a day so do...
Wang Tiles
Today I explored the subject of Wang Tiles and Herringbone patterns.
These funny little beasts are used to create randomly generated castles, dungeons and ruins. Zombies need to inhabit something right?
Here’s a preview of the first day of work.
More live game footage soon, including dungeons and caves. Oh and some patches to the current public version too…
MM
Coverage Roundup for the New Year!
KAG’s been in the news more and more recently, which is encouraging!
Firstly, the Game Of the Year poll from JiG (Dont forget to VOTE :D) at the start of the week. Did we mention you can vote every day?
Secondly, we hear the game has been buzzing around on /v/ and reddit, and they’ve brought an influx of new, seemingly highly motivated players. Good to have you guys on board, be sure...
BUILD 274 RELEASED
* BUG FIX ONLY RELEASE * Doesn’t have anything new (like darkness), because that is still not finished.
Changes 265-274:
- fixed “reason 5” players ban - fixed “COLLAPSED BY” console spam - fixed giant holes in mountain maps - fixed server browser crash after closing password box - fixed server browser password box letters visible - fixed / not working with...
Community Links Request
Hey, we know some people have gone to the trouble of setting up specialised community sites for KAG (the excellent kag2d.fr managed by kiro (and depending who you ask potentially hapistorique) springs to mind) - We’d like to give recognition to those who’ve managed to help KAG make a splash and are requesting links to all active KAG sub-community sites.
Post ‘em here :)
Network lag after build 265 poll
Vote KAG! (JiG Best of 2011)
Hey, you know how cool Jay Is Games is right? Fairly cool? They certainly gave us a nice review a few weeks back.
It’d be pretty super awesome if you’d vote for King Arthur’s Gold in their game of the year thing. Be sure to check the box up the top when voting for it so that you submit a vote for game of the year, it’s on the first page about 3/4 of the way down with a...
New engine news clarification
Some time ago I wrote about starting work on a new KAG engine. I haven’t spoken about it since then. So to clarify that…
I have started work on a new engine but realized after about a week of work that it’s gonna be more work than I expected. So I stopped doing that and decided to make a game engine live organ transplant.
What this means is that the skeleton of the engine...
Duel map with radiosity lighting
Here is how the old swordfight map presents itself with the new lighting model. As you see caves and castle interiors are darker. It is possible to make a room totally dark if you don’t build any holes or windows.
(click)
Lighting is pretty much done. Zombies are also half-way through. We should make this release this month.
MM
Real darkness
Today I worked on fun zombie AI. My favorite monster AI of all time is Doom II. I try replicate that wherever I can.
But most importantly I made real darkness on maps today. Meaning only surface areas have light. If there is a cave it is dark and you need a lantern to see inside. I’m not using ray-casting for the lighting like I did for example in Link-Dead. I feel that does not fit the...
BUILD 265 RELEASED!
Most important fixes coming your way! You’ll also notice the chat is now on top. It makes so much more sense to have that there, especially if you’re an archer shooting poor knights from top of a bridge.
(if you want to change this open KAG/Base/Scripts/config.gm global cc_valign = 2; - for the old bottom chat)
Changes 263-265:
- fixed native resolution in fullscreen broken -...
BUILD 262-263 RELEASED!
THIS BUILD IS A PREPARATION BEFORE THE NEXT BIG UPDATES INCLUDING ZOMBIES & WAR MODE
This means the goodies aren’t yet here but if you consider bug fixes and game improvements goodies then you’ll be really satisfied with this release. The most important changes in this build are:
Changed workshop building to an UPGRADE MECHANISM using USE KEY [E] All rooms are 3x3 grids that you...
New Release Imminent
We’ve been toiling to get everything converted for an interim release before the zombie release soon - We’re as keen for it to be out the door as I’m sure you guys are to play it.
We’re working out the last of the bugs at the moment and collating everything, so be sure to keep your eyes on the devlog so you know when to patch your game.
If you’d like to help out...
Test build available
The testing build of the next KAG patch is available for testing for all 3 platforms.
http://kagforum.com/index.php?threads/test-build.216/page-75#post-47021
General testing notes:
Be warned that there might be unexpected bugs that won’t allow to play the game.
Please post bugs/opinions about the test version on that forum topic ONLY. READING THE CHANGELOG IS MANDATORY. Asking stupid...
December 2011
13 posts
Merry Xmas!
We’d like to wish everyone following KAG development and playing the game a happy and wonderful xmas. May you have power in your sword, aim in your arrow and strength and wisdom in your hammer to build the best unpenetrable castles.
Got some good news. The IndieDB Awards for 2011 have ended and King Arthur’s Gold got a really significant award. Despite being still in alpha stage it...
Little zombie survival screenshot
We’re gonna just publish little bits of things from the new gamemode because we want this game mode to be a surprise.
When was the last time you said “holy shit!” in a video game? We’re aiming to bring you that experience back.
MM
KAG Tournament!
While we’ve been busy getting this round of goodies together, the community have put together a tournament, set to kick off December 26 or 27!
The forum thread has the needed info: currently sign ups are closed but if you get onto IRC and hassle Carver, Stevedog, and anyone else involved with the organisation they might allow another team to participate, if you’re interested in doing...
Lighting!
The next release (which should be out in time for christmas!) is looking to be chock full of features! Insofar we’ve talked mostly about zombies, but also the new level format.
Now, the next feature to talk about (and the first thing that we’re going to give you some visuals for) is lighting! Days and nights will cycle in the next version and at night time, lighting will be important...
New map format
Today I’m creating a new map format called simply .kag. Right now map saving is done via PNG files. So each map is in fact a bitmap that you can edit in a paint program. This is cool and easy to edit however it is very limited because you can only save tiles and simple objects. The new map format will be able to save and load the entire world with all map objects and their current state....
Grrrrrr... mmmmh...
The sounds of grrrrr, mmmmh and “brains!” are filling my room. Guess what I’m working on?
Gonna post more soon.
MM
King Arthur's Gold. Now on Mac.
Mac version en route!
Michal’s confident the OSX version will be working on all macs soon, we’ll release a testing version as soon as possible, probably within 24 hours with a OSX-size temporary icon to boot ;)
Geti
Linux version fixed
Unfortunately with the recent changes the Linux version didn’t autoupdate so smoothly. Good news is I fixed it and re-downloading the full version should fix it.
Download: http://kag2d.com/download/file/kag228x.tar.gz
Build 228! Finally!
Restart your game to auto-patch!
We’re probably happier than you guys to see this one out the door, haha. It’s taken way too long.
First thing you’ll notice is the different menus and the awesome menu music by David Pencil (in-game music coming soon), but that’s not all that’s changed:
Collapses are the largest in-game alteration - we’re working to make them...
More voting to do!
Oh god so many buttons to press I know, but we’re really hoping for your support on this one. Be sure to check out the other indie titles vying for the top-100 (after you’ve voted for KAG of course ;)
2011 Indie of the Year Awards via Indie DB
(scroll down to the area with the nice trees after clicking)
Geti
Bug Reports!
So, we get a lot of bug reports, naturally, as the game is in alpha and we simply don’t have time to fix everything when it comes to making a release. Problem is, a lot of those reports are duplicates and reading through them burns precious fun development time!
We’ve decided to implement mantis bug tracking (same thing Bay12Games use for tracking all the bugs in dwarf fortress, so at...
November 2011
18 posts
A story about my recent experience with EA.
Excuse me while I vent a little.
You know that game that came out about a month ago, Battlefield 3?
Pretty fun right? With the shooting and the giant maps and the tanks and explosions and marksman headshot +500…
I assume so, anyway. I played and enjoyed the beta, but insofar EA haven’t actually let me download the game ever since I pre-ordered. This wasn’t some $10 indie alpha...
Aus Server up for testing!
I’ve been trying to find a good hosting partner for KAG in Australia for a long time, hopefully I’ve found a suitable company now :) I’ll be running the server as a trial for the next month to monitor bandwidth usage etc, over the next week it’ll likely stay as 16 players only to make sure it’s not going to explode with traffic, but feel free to give it a shot.
The...
Oh So Close
We’re pretty much on the home stretch with this build, just sorting out the menu presentation. All things going according to plan, we’re hoping to have it out tomorrow so we can get started on some fun stuff!
Things still on the todo list include:
Try to get the Mac build up to scratch
Tweak menu layouts a little more
Ensure it’s working properly on all systems
Optimise...
Off for the weekend, Quick Update.
I’m going camping, back monday. MM might be around, but be nice to the forum staff while I’m gone, yeah?
Test build coming fairly soon, if Michal can merge all my changes and get it out over the weekend then he will. We might have to drop ingame browser functionality for now which would mean no wiki, or IRC in-game, but less headaches for us. Either way we’re hoping to have this...
Vote KAG! (for serious this time)
OHEY EVERYONE.
http://www.indiegamemag.com/igm-awards-2011-vote/
Vote King Arthur’s Gold for Best Free Game of 2011 in exchange for free internets! Tell your friends for double points!
Discuss the IGM Voting here (including how much you love and want to marry our game)
In other news (and to sway your vote) - new build due out asap with menu fixes and a bunch of bugs slain, to be...
Huzzah! Build successful!
I’ve finally been able to get everything behaving out of the repository which means I can run around doing all the little fixes that Michal doesn’t have time for.
NOTE: this doesn’t mean bug me about every tiny thing you want changed any more than you guys do already!
Geti
Bye bye Disqus!
As good as Disqus is for quick blog comments, we’ve decided to detach it from the devlog.
We’ve decided that we want to cut down on the number of accounts that you guys need to maintain, therefore we’ll be moving discussion of the devlog posts to the forum announcements section from now on.
We’ll be setting up a bot to crosspost from tumblr to the forums soon and...
Help out on the Wiki!
Are you an experienced KAG player with a bunch of free time and a drive to help new players learn the game?
kagwiki.com needs more love!
Hit up this thread for pages that need updating and to learn the system that everyone’s using, then either click here (or join quakenet’s #kag.wiki if you’re IRC savvy) to get organised and start putting together some quality knowledge!
The...
Main Menus overhaul
This has been something that I have been postponing for a long time and there never is a good time to do it. Well now it is because I think the benefits are worth it. I am completely redoing the main menus as well as the auto-update launcher.
Players on Linux and Mac OSX don’t see the autoupdate in the black console that’s why the next version will have a nice graphical interface....
Some Changes to run by the Community regarding...
So you know that point in the game where you’ve just got your tower repaired from the last wave of enemies, cleared away any mess and you’re back inside? I can’t think of anything that ruins that more than spammy enemy builders.
I’ve just come out of a game where we spent 40 minutes or so repeatedly clearing drawbridges and ladders from our base, only to have an enemy...