Reasons to Support Indie RPGs, Pt. 4

May 16th, 2012

Diablo 3 has been pulling a Darkspore since its release yesterday, thanks to Blizzard’s bizarre decision to prevent people from playing the game in single player mode without a constant internet connection. Even those who were able to get through to a server, like John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun, had the delightful experience of lagging. Lag in a single player game.

I won’t get into Blizzard’s purported reasons for forcing people to play online in single player mode, mostly because I think those alleged reasons are disingenuous. What this really comes down to is the auction house. Blizzard has put a marketplace into Diablo III where players can sell gear to each other, with Blizzard taking a cut of each sale. If players could play offline, they could easily cheat and spawn an endless supply of top tier equipment to sell. This would depress the auction house market, killing a source of revenue for Blizzard. Thus, in goes the massively intrusive DRM.

There are a large and growing number of good, indie alternatives to Diablo III out there right now. Soldak Entertainment, Runic Games, Crate Entertainment; these guys don’t hobble your ability to play the game that you paid for in the name of milking you for yet more cash. These are guys that deserve your money. Blizzard, frankly, does not.

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Posted in Developer Rants | 8 Comments »

Telepath RPG: Servants of God v. 1.816 Patch

April 25th, 2012

Telepath RPG: Servants of God has been patched to version 1.816. This patch balances out characters builds a little, giving unique perks to players who start out with a 12 in either Psy Power or Psy Defense. It also fixes a few bugs, makes it so block-pushing occurs without having to navigate a dialog box, and adds a new interaction to Rubat. The changelog includes all of the following:

–perks have been added to the game to make certain builds more viable: characters with a natural 12 in Psy Power can now get elemental attacks much earlier in the game, and characters with a natural 12 in Psy Defense now get a significant, permanent health bonus that lasts through the game.
–pushing blocks in dungeons now occurs immediately upon clicking the block.
–fixed a bug where the trainer would never agree to train you unless you used him before finishing the spirit cellar mission.
–it is now possible to manipulate Golan to get at his chest.
–sound channels now reset whenever entering a new area.
–fixed the wrong music playing during one of the prison break battles.
–main character health cap raised to 199.
To get the patch, just download the game again and run the installer, then click Replace when it prompts you to do so. It won’t affect your saved games.

If you haven’t done so yet, you can get extra voice-overs from a separate zip file, available here. Just unzip it into the game’s install folder to get whatever voice-overs weren’t installed automatically by AIR.

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Posted in Game Updates | 1 Comment »

Telepath RPG: Servants of God v. 1.815 Patch

April 17th, 2012

Due to popular demand, Telepath RPG: Servants of God has been patched to version 1.815. This patch speeds up the early game, making it possible to go off and explore sooner. It also fixes a few minor bugs and typos. The changelog includes all of the following:

–removed the second prison battle and made the third prison battle skippable.

–when starting a new game, the player may now choose to auto-skip all in-game tutorials. (This replaces the old method, which always skipped all in-game tutorials on Hard or Brutal game difficulty and always showed them on Normal and Easy difficulty.)

–training is now available immediately after escaping the prison; it is no longer necessary to complete the ghost cellar mission to begin training your characters.

–fixed some typos.

–fixed a bug where upgrading Psy Power or Psy Defense as a level up bonus wouldn’t increase the player’s maximum PsP or maximum Health.

To get the patch, just download the game again and run the installer, then click Replace when it prompts you to do so. It won’t affect your saved games.

If you haven’t done so yet, you can get extra voice-overs from a separate zip file, available here. Just unzip it into the game’s install folder to get whatever voice-overs weren’t installed automatically by AIR.

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Posted in Game Updates | 2 Comments »

New game in development: Telepath Tactics

April 16th, 2012

All right, I can’t keep this a secret any longer. I’ve been working on a new game, and I just have to tell you guys about it. First: it’s awesome. Second: it’s multiplayer. Third: it’s based on Telepath RPG.

The new game is called Telepath Tactics. I’ve been listening to all the feedback I received after releasing Telepath RPG: Servants of God, and used it to create a brand new engine that features even deeper and more interesting tactics for pitched battles with friends.

  1. New graphics. No more looking at the tops of characters’ heads! TT features beautiful pixel art using classic oblique projection.
  2. Better UI. The user interface is mouse-based now; no need to alternate between mouse and keyboard.
  3. Click-to-move. The game now features Fire Emblem-style movement; click a character to see all possible destinations, then click a tile to move there.
  4. Deeper mechanics. There are tons of new mechanics in the game: bridge building, barricades, explosives, elevation effects, status effects, pushing and throwing of other characters and destructible objects, random item drops, environmental hazards, and much more!
  5. Unit variety. There are 22 unique classes of units in the game, each with its own suite of attacks, stats, and elemental strengths and weaknesses.
  6. Better AI. The game is meant to be played with friends, but you can play against up to 5 computer opponents if you want. I’ve taken the core heuristics from Telepath RPG: Servants of God and improved them for challenging single player matches that will test your tactical mettle.
  7. Map editor. The game features an advanced map editor that allows you to create new battlefields whenever you like. The editor features multiple layers, support for custom tiles, and unlimited undo/redo. Save your maps as XML files to share with others, and grab others’ maps to use with your own copy of TT.

Got it? Now, take all of that and add to it the fact that you can play hotseat games with up to 5 other people on any Windows, Mac or Linux computer. (You can also play asynchronously with friends over email, in case your pals aren’t available to swing by for a match.)

Expect to see Telepath Tactics out for Windows, Mac and Linux by the end of the year. If there’s enough demand, I’ll port the game to Android and iOS as well. In the meantime, follow Sinister Design on Twitter and subscribe to our RSS feed to be kept up to date about the game’s progress!

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Posted in Game Updates, Sinister Design News | 14 Comments »

Interview with Vinesauce Vidya

April 11th, 2012

DeadlyHabit of Vinesauce Vidya interviewed me for roughly 1 hour and 45 minutes yesterday. In the interview, we talk about game development, RPGs in general, indie RPGs in particular, and Telepath RPG: Servants of God.

http://www.vinesaucevidya.com/blog/interview-with-sinister-design-developer-craig-stern/

Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »

Game immaturity and the journalism that can fix it

April 3rd, 2012

I was all ready to post a new Developer Rant about skill-based character creation systems. I was ready, but then John Walker changed my mind. (The writer, not the whiskey—that would be a whole ‘nother article.)

Mr. Walker, for those of you who don’t know of him, is one of the founding fathers of the preeminent PC gaming blog Rock Paper Shotgun. Presently, he’s a bit like the site’s combination beat reporter/resident bomb-thrower. Sometimes he writes really excellent pieces digging into consumer rights issues and junk science concerning video game violence. Other times, he posts rants on various subjects. Sometimes I agree with the rants; sometimes I don’t. Today’s rant is fundamentally agreeable to me, but I feel like it misses an important point. Here’s the gist of what Mr. Walker had to say:

“Where is our commentary? Where is our criticism? Where is our subversion? Where is the game that questions governments, challenges society, hell, asks a bloody question? Let alone issues. Good heavens, imagine a game that dealt with issues!”

Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Developer Rants | 11 Comments »

The State of Sinister Design

April 1st, 2012

Note: what follows is an April Fool’s Day prank post. I’m leaving it here for posterity.

Hey there, folks! In the spirit of the presidential state of the union address, I thought it might be a good idea to have a frank discussion with you all about where Sinister Design stands today, and where I plan to take it in the future.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Sinister Design News | 10 Comments »

Telepath RPG: Servants of God Soundtrack out

February 27th, 2012

I spent this weekend remixing and arranging all of the music contained in Telepath RPG: Servants of God into an album. The soundtrack tops out at 30 tracks, with a play time of just over an hour and ten minutes. That surprised me a little. I wrote all these tracks bit by bit over the course of several years, so it wasn’t until I put it all together that I realized just how much of it there was.

The sound quality of these versions is actually higher than what you hear in the game, and a few of them feature special arrangements. I’ve decided to make the album pay-what-you-want (the minimum is $2.99). Feel free to contribute however much it’s worth to you.

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Posted in Miscellaneous, New Releases | 4 Comments »

Telepath RPG: Servants of God v. 1.814 Patch

February 26th, 2012

Telepath RPG: Servants of God has been patched to version 1.814, introducing some minor bug fixes. This newest patch does all of the following:

–added a new variation to the game’s endings.
–fixed a bug where a “buy now” splash would show up on the game over screen even after the full game had been unlocked.
–fixed some typos.
–fixed a display error in part of the Advanced Combat tutorial.
–fixed a bug where Festus and Duvalier were juxtaposed in a certain late-game conversation.
–fixed a bug that occurred when you asked Griffin about someone without typing in a name.
–fixed a bug where enemy Impale attacks would bypass physical resistance.
–the Barrier’s Shock attack no longer deals backstab damage.
–renamed White Spriggats to Frost Spriggats.

To get the patch, just download the game again and run the installer, then click Replace when it prompts you to do so. It won’t affect your saved games.

If you haven’t done so yet, you can get extra voice-overs from a separate zip file, available here. Just unzip it into the game’s install folder to get whatever voice-overs weren’t installed automatically by AIR.

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Posted in Game Updates | No Comments »

Telepath RPG: Servants of God v. 1.813 Patch

February 21st, 2012

Telepath RPG: Servants of God has been patched to version 1.813, introducing some new content and a handful of minor bug fixes. This newest patch does all of the following:

–added a new Nightmare difficulty mode. (Accessible only via New Game+ after beating the game on Brutal, or using a cheat code.)
–visiting the Mechanic Base now produces randomly generated battles against the mechanics.
–it is now possible to learn the location of the Mechanic Base by scanning a mechanic during the labor site rescue mission.
–added three new tiles for the Stone Dungeon tileset to the map editor.
–improved Griffin’s responses when asking about certain characters.
–fixed a bug in one branch of Arman’s optional dialog.
–fixed a small bug in Helena’s dialog when declining to hire mercenaries.
–fixed an issue with the final boss music not playing.
–fixed the game not remembering it if you manage to kill D’Kah midway through the game.
–fixed Naj and La’Man showing up in a cut scene near the end of the game even if you haven’t recruited them.

To get the patch, just download the game again and run the installer, then click Replace when it prompts you to do so. It won’t affect your saved games.

As before, certain voice-overs remain in a separate zip file, available here. Just unzip it into the game’s install folder to get whatever voice-overs aren’t installed automatically by AIR.

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Posted in Game Updates | 2 Comments »

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