Hello folks, have we got a treat for you today! We find ourselves in an usual position this Saturday, we are ahead of schedule... the things we had planned for next Saturday came together so quickly, that just said "Hey why not, do it this week?" So, if you have not already guessed, that means, AST Party 3!
Here are instructions on how the game will work from here on out, after today, we will very rarely have to post new updates onto the blog. Today you will download the AST launcher, running the launcher will automatically download and start the game for you. If there are updates it will automatically download them, and if the updater is updated, the updater will be automatically updated! The only work left up to you is to play A Shapians Tale.
The updater, to bind all updaters
More features are packed into the game as well, so AST Party 3 will be the best one yet! Party begins at 9pm EST, the server will be down until then. Hope to see you there!
Please, no photographs,
Allen Webster
P.S. as usual email me at yoyo4thdimention@gmail.com if you have any urgent issues.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Welcome to Shapia!
Once again we find ourselves on the blog, second time in under a month! From the looks of it, this is something you will surely see more often. By "From the looks of it" I am speaking about the hyper-speed development the team began after the last post we made.
Five days ago we posted an image of our first ever AST party, in this image was a bunch of Shapians of all different shapes and colors (pun intended) jumping up and down on some grass. Now the world is overgrown with flowers, trees, bushes, clouds, rocks, and our very own minigame! We stopped ourselves from adding more features that lay at our very finger tips so that we could finally, for once, meet the deadline we set. For real.
Although we would love to talk more about how awesome the game is, we would love to give thanks to the guy who invented links!
Obviously this is something important ...*whistles*...
The party starts at 9pm, EST!
Be there or be square.... you can be a square anyway, that's cool too.
- Connor & Allen
P.S. if you have any issues such as unable to start the client, errors, bugs, or anything that you may find important, you can contact: yoyo4thdimention@gmail.com The party doesn't start until 9pm EST if you can't play before then... its your fault for jumping the gun. See you there!
Five days ago we posted an image of our first ever AST party, in this image was a bunch of Shapians of all different shapes and colors (pun intended) jumping up and down on some grass. Now the world is overgrown with flowers, trees, bushes, clouds, rocks, and our very own minigame! We stopped ourselves from adding more features that lay at our very finger tips so that we could finally, for once, meet the deadline we set. For real.
Although we would love to talk more about how awesome the game is, we would love to give thanks to the guy who invented links!
Obviously this is something important ...*whistles*...
The party starts at 9pm, EST!
Be there or be square.... you can be a square anyway, that's cool too.
- Connor & Allen
P.S. if you have any issues such as unable to start the client, errors, bugs, or anything that you may find important, you can contact: yoyo4thdimention@gmail.com The party doesn't start until 9pm EST if you can't play before then... its your fault for jumping the gun. See you there!
Monday, March 12, 2012
That's one small step for man, and one giant leap for Shapekind!
Hello to the vastness of the interwebz!
And what sort of time is this!? Yeah I admit we're a bit late, but that's not the whole pie...
In 2009 I made my first drawing of the Shapians, and although the shakiness of my lines made them look seemingly different than the Shapians you see today, they are nothing shy of my dream. This past weekend, the words "It works!" would not stop spewing out of our mouths as we watch the black DOS window as if it was the newest addition to the Elder Scrolls series.
Of course, we knew that the bugs weren't that severe, but they still were quite frightening. Dealing with problems born from the combination of the simple and sweet but C based Lua scripting library, and the hard to learn but staggeringly powerful RakNet library, it seemed as if the project was swimming up stream. As a team, Connor and I and everyone from OverReact were determined to finish that swim. When we stopped looking at DOS screens and started writing scripts to load in sprites, we saw our several year fantasy become a fantastic reality.
Speaking of sprites, for a very long time we have been making new graphics as we waited for the code to finally work (no offense programming department) , but not until now did we finally see the combination of fully animated circles, triangles, and squares, running and jumping on top of grass and dirt. And surprisingly it is all meshing together as if our photoshop projects are screenshots of the future A Shapian's Tale.
So with the graphics finally reaching a presentable state (no offense graphics department) and the code being more powerful and expandable than ever, there was only one thing left to do: make the game. As you can see in the screen shot we recently had our first ever AST party. Ten people logged on to run across the world, jumping around in utter joy and madness, and as we like to call it "dance" (a secret move only discovered by those who walk back and forth very quickly.)
Ten people, that's nine more people than we have ever seen play ASTonline. Such a feat for the most indie of indie-developers. All sarcasm set aside, we must admit the amount of happiness experienced this weekend has blown away the frustration that has boiled up for the past 3 years. We spent all this time telling our fans (hopefully you guys) we were making an awesome game more unique than any of it's kind, and this was the first breaths of just that!
So if you did miss out on our first party, don't worry, we've got many more coming, and they're only going to get better. We do not have anything to upload yet, but there are several parties coming up and we would like to invite everyone! Firstly look forward to *AST Tech 1.0* coming this weekend, party this Saturday. Finally, we don't have any details to give for this project yet - we don't know just how much we will end up including - but mark this date in your calender: 4/1/2012.
I know we have said this once, but only you can prevent forest fires. Stay frosty people,
-Connor
And as always, if your blood pressure gets too high, there are several cereals that treat that. Until next time,
-Allen
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Progress Is Contagious
As Connor mentioned in the previous blog post, a wave of productivity hit us across the face a few weeks ago. Now we are cooking through important work faster than I think we ever have. Sure we're still busy with school but just in the last two days of this weekend we've:
created a video
reorganized our kickstarter efforts
finalized a networking library interface
got the band back together
and started a lua testing minigame
A few other things have happened, but they don't count as the last two days, so they were left out. Now as I mentioned we created a video:
The Cat Traps Are Working
Progress has to be made on the minigame while the Networking library is developed by Ben, but hopefully we will be able to post a very entertaining minigame soon.
As mentioned in the video we are also going to have another indie(Function) interview coming up this February. We are looking forward to it and if you heard the last interview you probably are too. (Just sayin' those guys are really good at what they do). To follow indie function look for them on twitter and go to their site:
indie();
There's a lot more coming down the pipe, hats on and don't look up... some of the things coming down are going to be big!
-Allen
created a video
reorganized our kickstarter efforts
finalized a networking library interface
got the band back together
and started a lua testing minigame
A few other things have happened, but they don't count as the last two days, so they were left out. Now as I mentioned we created a video:
The Cat Traps Are Working
Progress has to be made on the minigame while the Networking library is developed by Ben, but hopefully we will be able to post a very entertaining minigame soon.
As mentioned in the video we are also going to have another indie(Function) interview coming up this February. We are looking forward to it and if you heard the last interview you probably are too. (Just sayin' those guys are really good at what they do). To follow indie function look for them on twitter and go to their site:
indie();
There's a lot more coming down the pipe, hats on and don't look up... some of the things coming down are going to be big!
-Allen
Thursday, January 12, 2012
One Year Later, One Year Left?
Hello and happy end of days!
As we all begin the last year of humanity, A Shapian's Tale has reached it's first full year of development! What does this mean for you guys? Well you might see AST out of beta and into release just in time for the apocalypse! I know that doesn't sound all too great, but maybe I can soften the blow with some good news eh?
Well for starters, the ball is finally rolling, and boy is it rolling fast! We are finally geting things setup in Lua, and finishing up the bulk of the C++. So within the coming months you will be playing AST on a frequently updated client. This will not be the Alpha however, we will keep adding features until we are almost ready for Alpha, and then do some closed testing for a little while. Once the closed testing is up, we will release Public Alpha, and you will all start the official story of A Shapian's Tale! In addition to this we are expecting the avatars to be done by the next month according to our Graphic Designer Ed Kulb. Hopefully this meets its deadline and we have the Kickstarter project ready for launch early this year.
Digging a little deeper into the depths of the OverReact game making cave, there has been some recent prototyping for features in AST, one being scroll crafting. Scroll crafting is a type of crafting in which the player places a series of attributes onto a scroll and connects them correctly to make magical scrolls. Below you can see some screenshots of the prototype of the very promising feature in AST.
Many more prototypes will be made as we move on in development (each - including scroll crafting - will have a vlog for an in depth overview), by the time we are ready to actually implement these features we will have a complete understanding of how the mechanics should work. Some of these upcoming prototypes will include mercantile, blacksmithing, carpentry, and also food and recipe crafting. Each of these will be shown in a vlog like what you see above for scroll crafting.
Well I hope this all shined some light on the dreadful fate of humanity, until next time this is your neighborhood friendly game designer,
-Connor Hart
As we all begin the last year of humanity, A Shapian's Tale has reached it's first full year of development! What does this mean for you guys? Well you might see AST out of beta and into release just in time for the apocalypse! I know that doesn't sound all too great, but maybe I can soften the blow with some good news eh?
Well for starters, the ball is finally rolling, and boy is it rolling fast! We are finally geting things setup in Lua, and finishing up the bulk of the C++. So within the coming months you will be playing AST on a frequently updated client. This will not be the Alpha however, we will keep adding features until we are almost ready for Alpha, and then do some closed testing for a little while. Once the closed testing is up, we will release Public Alpha, and you will all start the official story of A Shapian's Tale! In addition to this we are expecting the avatars to be done by the next month according to our Graphic Designer Ed Kulb. Hopefully this meets its deadline and we have the Kickstarter project ready for launch early this year.
Digging a little deeper into the depths of the OverReact game making cave, there has been some recent prototyping for features in AST, one being scroll crafting. Scroll crafting is a type of crafting in which the player places a series of attributes onto a scroll and connects them correctly to make magical scrolls. Below you can see some screenshots of the prototype of the very promising feature in AST.
Many more prototypes will be made as we move on in development (each - including scroll crafting - will have a vlog for an in depth overview), by the time we are ready to actually implement these features we will have a complete understanding of how the mechanics should work. Some of these upcoming prototypes will include mercantile, blacksmithing, carpentry, and also food and recipe crafting. Each of these will be shown in a vlog like what you see above for scroll crafting.
Well I hope this all shined some light on the dreadful fate of humanity, until next time this is your neighborhood friendly game designer,
-Connor Hart
Thursday, November 24, 2011
On Thanksgiving Day
Hello our faithful fans!
Today is the American holiday Thanksgiving. Although I try to be well cultured, I do not really know anything about other countries on this matter. Do they have their own version of the holiday at some time of year? Do any celebrate thanksgiving on this same day? I am just unaware.
But the reason I brought up the holiday at all is because it got me thinking about... you guessed it A Shapian's Tale.
You see, on this kick starter project we are going to run, we are looking to raise thousands of dollars. It occurred to me that with that money, in some parts of the world, one hundred people could be fed for nearly a month. So, for me anyway, I have to have a pretty good reason to ask for money that I am going to spend a game.
Not that I don't love games, but at the end of the day they do fall in the luxury category. As in, completely unnecessary for survival, no matter how awesome they are.
So I have decided personally (I have not talked to anyone on the team for about a week because I have been busy with school work) that I will donate 80% of my income from the game to fighting starvation throughout the world. For this reason I will also be taking the job more seriously and scraping every bit of time I can get to focus on it.
Anyway, happy thanksgiving to anyone who's into that.
Allen Webster
Today is the American holiday Thanksgiving. Although I try to be well cultured, I do not really know anything about other countries on this matter. Do they have their own version of the holiday at some time of year? Do any celebrate thanksgiving on this same day? I am just unaware.
But the reason I brought up the holiday at all is because it got me thinking about... you guessed it A Shapian's Tale.
You see, on this kick starter project we are going to run, we are looking to raise thousands of dollars. It occurred to me that with that money, in some parts of the world, one hundred people could be fed for nearly a month. So, for me anyway, I have to have a pretty good reason to ask for money that I am going to spend a game.
Not that I don't love games, but at the end of the day they do fall in the luxury category. As in, completely unnecessary for survival, no matter how awesome they are.
So I have decided personally (I have not talked to anyone on the team for about a week because I have been busy with school work) that I will donate 80% of my income from the game to fighting starvation throughout the world. For this reason I will also be taking the job more seriously and scraping every bit of time I can get to focus on it.
Anyway, happy thanksgiving to anyone who's into that.
Allen Webster
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Humble News For AST.
Like times and times before, things have sort of died out for the team and the project. School has become a priority, and the programmers have become busy with school work. But now with thanksgiving break closing in, the team has had more time for development! Lua is working correctly, and we are working on interfacing it with what we have currently working.
Things are a bit behind schedule, like the kickstarter launch for instance. But we are still very close to getting those squared away. Right now our Graphic Designer Ed Kulb is looking to have all 13 avatars done before December. We hope to have the video finished with a soundtrack from Composer Patrick Moriarty by the first week of December. What does this mean for you guys? This means you will be able to follow are kickstarter project and possibly see an Alpha Demo just in time for the holidays! Now this all seems great, but we are still running a tight schedule, and look at this as merely a possibility.
Some other news, there is word of a possible "Humble AST Bundle", which will include a copy if the game, and various items exclusive to the "Humble Bundle". If this falls through, you guys will have a chance to buy the game just by "Naming it's Price". We are currently figuring all of this out, and will have a final decision once the Alpha releases. Some very exciting news for the game, but what about us? What about OverReact?
Well, there is currently some business going on with Founder Connor Hart and Law Firm Merritt & Merritt & Moulton. This means there is a very large chance OverReact will officially be known as OverReact inc. We hope that once this all happens OverReact will have a studio sometime next year or the year after. So OverReact is doing really good, and is only getting better! :D
Lastly I want to mention the last poll we put up, and its results. We are very pleased to only see 1 "No" result out of 20. We can't wait to have the project launch, and see the results! Also, I wanted to say that if you have any questions you can leave a comment below, or shoot me and email at: ronnoc614@gmail.com
Thanks guys, and stay tuned, more news very soon!
-Connor
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