Agent-based Sandbox Games

I did. Looking forward to seeing it too. Hopefully I'll actually look at this one. I backed Consortium at the level that gave me beta access, they've been sending me links for months and I installed it for the first time... last night.

Final release is this month.

Has anyone played Spacebase DF-9? It's currently on offer on the humble store for $14.99. How alpha is it currently? I'm very tempted to pick it up as the Steam sale has been kind to me, and my wallet.

Got 5 hours to decide.

Also, Stonehearth alpha 1 should be available later today, but by all accounts it's little more than gathering resources at the moment.

omnipherous wrote:

Has anyone played Spacebase DF-9? It's currently on offer on the humble store for $14.99. How alpha is it currently? I'm very tempted to pick it up as the Steam sale has been kind to me, and my wallet.

Got 5 hours to decide.

Also, Stonehearth alpha 1 should be available later today, but by all accounts it's little more than gathering resources at the moment.

It's pretty alpha. It works fine, mostly (i.e. I've only experienced a couple of bugs), but there is not a lot to do once you get a minimal base up. There are random things that happen (raiders, meteor storms, derelicts) but there's not a lot of variety in what you can build. You can see what it will hopefully become though.

So, I should pick it up at this price point, with a mind to what it will/could become? Or am I really only going to get an hour out of it and have to wait another year for it to bake? I've enjoyed watching Gnomoria grow with updates, so that side of it doesn't bother me.

omnipherous wrote:

So, I should pick it up at this price point, with a mind to what it will/could become? Or am I really only going to get an hour out of it and have to wait another year for it to bake? I've enjoyed watching Gnomoria grow with updates, so that side of it doesn't bother me.

Nah, you'll get more than an hour out of it in its current state. I think it is a decent deal at that price point, just be aware that it does not currently have "legs". I have about 6 hours into it currently and still go back in and dink around with it every so often.

omnipherous wrote:

Stonehearth have announced that the first Alpha release will be available to backers on Dec 30th. Their Humble Store entry is already up and going so you can ensure that you can claim your purchase (even though the actual download isn't there yet). Steam Keys will be available at a later date.

Anybody else back this? I think with the Alpha/Beta access tier ($30) you also get a gift key for the full game on final release that you can give to someone. Not sure what state the first alpha will be in, but their recent Graphics Tests that they released look pretty good. Looking forward to it.

Speaking of that: I've got a second key that's free to a goodjer home. Only caveat is that the key is only good for when the game's fully released (estimated to be September 2014), so it won't get you alpha/beta access.

Yeah, I also have a spare full release key. I was going to just wait until full release though, rather than getting someone's hopes up

So I went for Spacebase DF-9. I built 3 rooms - One airlock, one Life support and one residency. This used up all my materials and no sooner had the base started to fill with oxygen, than it started diminishing again. All 3 starting astronauts suffocated within minutes.

Me likey.

omnipherous wrote:

Has anyone played Spacebase DF-9? It's currently on offer on the humble store for $14.99. How alpha is it currently? I'm very tempted to pick it up as the Steam sale has been kind to me, and my wallet.

Got 5 hours to decide.

Also, Stonehearth alpha 1 should be available later today, but by all accounts it's little more than gathering resources at the moment.

Check out more thoughts in the thread: http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1...

omnipherous wrote:

Yeah, I also have a spare full release key. I was going to just wait until full release though, rather than getting someone's hopes up

So I went for Spacebase DF-9. I built 3 rooms - One airlock, one Life support and one residency. This used up all my materials and no sooner had the base started to fill with oxygen, than it started diminishing again. All 3 starting astronauts suffocated within minutes.

Me likey.

You need to build another oxygen recycler (or whatever they are called). 1 will *support* three people but will not add more O2, three people will use up all the O2.

Also, after you build and get the dudes inside in oxygen, start a-minin'.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Check out more thoughts in the thread: http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1...

Thanks, for some reason the search function on GWJ breaks for me and just returns 'Loading..' but never actually does.

tboon wrote:

You need to build another oxygen recycler (or whatever they are called). 1 will *support* three people but will not add more O2, three people will use up all the O2.

Also, after you build and get the dudes inside in oxygen, start a-minin'.

Yeah I gathered that 1 wasn't enough. Second time around appears to be going much better, though I get more and more requests to join my base. I'm guessing that eventually you just have to turn folks away, as they'll just end up needing more and more space that is (at least in the beginning) quite expensive to create.

Stonehearth Alpha 1 is live. Man, is it buggy. Nigh-unplayable for me, at least.

Yeah, I've had a fair few CTDs, a few instances of the workers just.... picking up and putting down the same object over and over. There's also all manner of UI issues if your resolution is less than 1080.

Hopefully they can get things sorted out quickly on the crashing front, and then concentrate on adding content. I do like what I see though, could have legs if they keep on top of things. I also like that they are adding mod support from the start, though.

tanstaafl wrote:

I have my Stonehearth alpha also, though I haven't done more than confirm it installs at this point. However, I backed at a higher level and I have a spare alpha/beta/release key that I can pass on. So if a non-coffee grinder wants to get in on it now (remember, alpha) let me know.

Humble Store wrote:

This gift key contains:

Alpha/Beta/Final Release access to Stonehearth
Pet Puppy AND Kitten (Coming Soon!)
Pet Mammoth (Coming Soon!)

PM'd you.

And PM'd you back. Have fun.

I have my Stonehearth alpha also, though I haven't done more than confirm it installs at this point. However, I backed at a higher level and I have a spare alpha/beta/release key that I can pass on. So if a non-coffee grinder wants to get in on it now (remember, alpha) let me know.

Claimed.

Humble Store wrote:

This gift key contains:

Alpha/Beta/Final Release access to Stonehearth
Pet Puppy AND Kitten (Coming Soon!)
Pet Mammoth (Coming Soon!)

tanstaafl wrote:

I have my Stonehearth alpha also, though I haven't done more than confirm it installs at this point. However, I backed at a higher level and I have a spare alpha/beta/release key that I can pass on. So if a non-coffee grinder wants to get in on it now (remember, alpha) let me know.

Claimed.

Humble Store wrote:

This gift key contains:

Alpha/Beta/Final Release access to Stonehearth
Pet Puppy AND Kitten (Coming Soon!)
Pet Mammoth (Coming Soon!)

You son of a Female Doggo. If you had said I would get a puppy, AND kitten, AND mammoth from the start I would have beat tboon to the punch!

Spoiler:

I kid, I kid, I totally don't want you two and your puppies AND kittens, AND mammoths to die in a fire.

Yonder wrote:
tanstaafl wrote:

I have my Stonehearth alpha also, though I haven't done more than confirm it installs at this point. However, I backed at a higher level and I have a spare alpha/beta/release key that I can pass on. So if a non-coffee grinder wants to get in on it now (remember, alpha) let me know.

Claimed.

Humble Store wrote:

This gift key contains:

Alpha/Beta/Final Release access to Stonehearth
Pet Puppy AND Kitten (Coming Soon!)
Pet Mammoth (Coming Soon!)

You son of a Female Doggo. If you had said I would get a puppy, AND kitten, AND mammoth from the start I would have beat tboon to the punch!

Spoiler:

I kid, I kid, I totally don't want you two and your puppies AND kittens, AND mammoths to die in a fire.

Can't hear you. Playing crashing Stonehearth

Well, there isn't much to see yet. It came up at full-screen windowed and there doesn't seem to be any way to change resolution or anything. There also doesn't seem to be any way to save or to exit other than closing the window.

I had one crash when I tried to place a building, and text has a habit of persisting on screen.

You can chop trees and harvest berries. You can build a carpenter's bench and that opens a few more build options but only a few things like beds or fences. There seems to be no way to hunt or mine yet. My minions kept complaining about being hungry and denuded my starting area of berries in no time.

So yeah, needs to bake a bit.

And Yonder, sorry.

IMAGE(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/199/7r7o.jpg)

IMAGE(http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/32/f0mp.jpg)

tanstaafl wrote:

And Yonder, sorry.

Lol, it's ok.even with kitties I probably wouldn't have pmed you. I just bought DF9, so one beta game is enough for now, and that really just needs to hold me off until my day 1 purchase of Banished, hopefully in January.

Some 'moving screenshots', as Dukus calls them, from Banished:

Suddenly, I've got a hankering to play The Guild again.

I can't believe that's been done by just one guy. He must be unbelievably intelligent.

That is a series (The Guild) I've never actually come across.. Maybe I'll add it to the 'pick up on the cheap' queue for future.

It's kind of buggy, but it's a lot of fun. There was the original, an expansion to that, and then a sequel.... I didn't like the sequel as much.

edit: looks like Steam only has The Guild II. That's still pretty good, but I remember the first as being a little better, though I don't remember why.

Malor wrote:

He must be unbelievably intelligent.

While he does sound quite intelligent in his blogs, in a product like this I think it's drive and self-discipline that he has a couple standard deviations above the rest of us. He's been working on this for three years, I know a few people who could accomplish something like this in three years of dedicated work (I work at a software company), heck, I may even be one of them. But I don't see any of them actually rolling the dice on quitting their job, or being able to stick with it for three years purely on their own will. I sure couldn't, not right now, maybe I'll be more mature in a decade or two.

omnipherous wrote:

That is a series (The Guild) I've never actually come across.. Maybe I'll add it to the 'pick up on the cheap' queue for future.

Malor wrote:

It's kind of buggy, but it's a lot of fun. There was the original, an expansion to that, and then a sequel.... I didn't like the sequel as much.

edit: looks like Steam only has The Guild II. That's still pretty good, but I remember the first as being a little better, though I don't remember why.

Getting into those games now might be a bit trying. That said, the games are pretty unique and GOG has the original.

Iubes was profiled on RPS yesterday. It's kind of a mixture of an agent-based base building game with an RTS. Different bits of it remind me of Darwinia, Supreme Commander, Minecraft, and Majesty. The meat of the game is on-line battling against another human opponent, but the free download offers a very generous skirmish mode for those of us who totally aren't into that kind of thing.

Nice! I'll add it to the opening post shortly.

polq37 wrote:

Iubes was profiled on RPS yesterday. It's kind of a mixture of an agent-based base building game with an RTS. Different bits of it remind me of Darwinia, Supreme Commander, Minecraft, and Majesty. The meat of the game is on-line battling against another human opponent, but the free download offers a very generous skirmish mode for those of us who totally aren't into that kind of thing.

Played a few hours of this today - really, REALLY enjoy the gameplay. I haven't pitched in the $15 for the online vs. mode, but am almost there. Anyone else given this one a shot?

I see RimWorld alpha 1 has been released. Anyone here tried it out?

Nope, but will be very interested to see the progress they make. I'm hoping to abstain from most Early Access/Alpha games for the forseeable future. I already have plenty of half-finished games I can play, and I find it can really detract from the enjoyable experience to be had at playing the same game at a more complete stage. Not saying things have to be 100% finished to be enjoyable, just my own pile-management choice to try not to jump in too early.