Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Strategy, Indie
AI War: Fleet Command
AI War 2 has left early access!
Chris here! By any sane metric I can think of, AI War 2 shouldn't exist. And yet it's more than I ever imagined it could be.
When we first set out to make this game three years ago, it was far less ambitious. Even that was going to be really hard. Somehow, in the process of falling down the stairs over and over again during this period, we wound up with a game that seems to be superior to the original.
This game shouldn't exist, but it does, and I'm both proud and stunned.
The Secret? Community
The intro to this post runs the risk of sounding like I'm tooting my own horn, but it's not actually about me. I'm not capable of making -- even just designing -- this game on my own. I don't think anyone is, really.
The fact that this game exists isn't a testament to me having some brilliant insight or a singular vision that I doggedly pursued. The reviews of the game are lovely, but give me entirely too much personal credit.
The state of this game is thanks to dozens of people critically thinking about this game -- what this one and the original means to them and to others -- and then a process of relentless, continuous, arduous iteration and improvement.
MVP Award: BadgerBadger
This section is long, and in some ways tangential, but if you read it you'll understand why I've put it here so prominently. You have this guy to thank as much as me or Keith for this game existing.
Badger has been involved since the kickstarter, with questions and comments and key insights. For a lot of the first year, he was responsible for something like 80% of the bug reports and feature ideas on our idea tracker. When a lot of other people were just bouncing off the game and waiting around for Keith LaMothe and I to figure things out on our own -- understandable, really -- Badger was there providing really key insight and ideas.
But that was barely the start for him. After a while I was essentially like "so, do you just want source code access, given how much you're doing here?" Because he had started doing some mods -- nanocaust and macrophage, at the time, IIRC -- and it was clear he would be less hand-tied if he had more access.
What happened next was essentially us getting a developer -- volunteer, no less -- who contributed as much to the design of the game as I did, in my opinion. Not only did he single-handedly conceive of and implement the nanocaust and macrophage, but he also did the dark spire and marauder impelementations, among many, many other things.
Some of the most brilliant and devious things that the AI has in this game compared to the first one? Badger. Some of your favorite UI detail screens, like metal flows? Badger.
Not to mention all the bugfixes, balance tweaks, and... just oodles more. This game wouldn't exist in anything like the state it does now without Badger. Any credit for my "singular vision" on the game is doing him a major disservice, but he's a quiet sort of guy when it comes to taking credit, so I wanted to take this chance to call him out in particular.
Growing Volunteer Developer Corps
So, Badger is not remotely the only person I need to call out as being absolutely indispensable.
RocketAssistedPuffin has also been involved heavily for the last year plus, and has taken over huge numbers of things that I never would have had time for. After I implemented the new tech system one way, he's the one who figured out how to make it substantially more balanced. Most of the voluminous "balance change" sections on the release notes are from him working with other players or just reasoning things out himself.
Puffin has also had a ton of ideas on how to make things better in all sorts of sections of the game, and there was a period of about three months late last year where he and Badger were basically doing ALL the development on the game and I just pushed out releases of what they were doing. I was going through a really painful divorce and had a ton of anxiety and couldn't face work, and these two kept things alive and improving.
But it never stopped there. Those new tutorials you like? Puffin. I wrote the bulk of the "How To Play" in-game wiki sections, but the most basic and understandable ones for new players were... again, Puffin. I'm excellent at writing encyclopedic entries that fill you in on huge numbers of details, but he's the one who distilled "what's the most central stuff you need to know, as briefly as possible" so that people can actually get into the game in any reasonable timeframe. Compare his work here to the tutorials I did in the original game, and it's night and day.
And I'm still selling Puffin short, frankly, because he's done so many things over such a long period that I can't remember it all now.
More recently, we've had folks like WeaponMaster and Asteroid joining in and adding lots of bugfixes and quality of life improvements that I never would have had the time to do myself. Things like hovering over galaxy map links to see information on them were Asteroid. Endless tricky bugfixes were WeaponMaster. I'm selling them both short, but the release notes are filled with things that they either implemented or suggested or both.
And it doesn't stop there. Quinn stepped in an made a bunch of additions. Keith laid the original groundwork for the entire game simulation and multithreading (he was the main programmer and designer for the first year and a half, and actually on staff during that time).
And there were so, so many others. And more each month!
Volunteers Beat Modders, I Think
I'm pretty free with the source code access, because I'd rather have a consolidated community of people helping rather than a bunch of mods that you have to hunt down and find.
So a lot of the folks that have turned into volunteers are what would have been modders on most other games. They would have made their own thing that you had to install and then wonder about the cross-compatibility of.
This game does have a ton of moddability, and for anyone who wants to "just" be a modder, that's absolutely fine with me. But for a lot of the mods that are getting the most love, I'm happy to share source code access with those folks so that they're in no way hobbled, and so that their work can go out as additional content that every player can find via in-game options without having to hunt through Steam Workshop or whatever else.
It's an unorthodox approach, but a lot more team-oriented and lets us do quality control on each others' stuff, "mods" included, which is a big win. If someone wants to steal the source code for this game, they can just decompile it like any other game for the most part. I'd rather put my trust in people and see things flourish rather than retain a stranglehold out of fear or pride.
What Did I Actually Do, Then?
All of this help from others let me focus on some of the really tricky architectural and design problems, which led to things like us even being able to HAVE a simulation of this size, and to have it perform as smoothly as it does.
I got to build lots of mechanics that other people then actually turned into specific units. It also gave me time to focus on some really nagging problems that just made the early versions of the game... unpleasant.
If I hadn't had the time to think and talk to people about all those things, we never would have seen all the game evolve this way; I would have been mired in content development and other items just to get the basics out for the game.
The original design for this was something that Keith and I put together as a pair, but it only worked out so well. It was a good foundation, but needed... a lot of help. We both pushed that forward a lot, until the money situation got to the point where he (and all the other staff, eventually) had to step away, and I carried on "alone" (but with all those volunteers).
There came a couple of major turning points where I was reflecting on why I was so unhappy with this game as it existed, and listening to the various gripes that playtesters had, and then I was able to spend a month or three implementing something drastically new.
Fleets are the most notable of those, and they were initially met with a lot of mixed feelings and distaste because only part of my idea was there on the first public launch of those. Only in the last month or so has that feature completely come into its own, and that also had a lot to do with continuous feedback from people in early access telling me what they needed and what they did and didn't like.
We also had a number of points during development where we just couldn't escape certain performance problems, because there were suddenly battles that were an order of magnitude larger than the first game (which was itself the largest strategy game simulation of individual units that I'm aware of on the market until this sequel). So I got to focus on a whole bunch of crazy improvements and data structure inventions and even GPU shader tricks in order to make all this stuff work.
Without the rest of the community helping, there's no way I could have had time to work on all that sort of thing, even in three years of development. A game of this scope shouldn't run this well -- it shouldn't be possible -- but it is because I was given the gift of time by so many others.
A Decade In The Making
It has been 10 years to the day since the first AI War came to Steam, and it's been 3 years of developing this sequel.
We didn't do any work on any AI War games from late 2014 through late 2016, but the rest of that time has been spent at least partly working on the original game or this sequel.
From version 5.0 of the original game through version 8.0, Keith was pretty much the sole developer on that while I focused on other things. He built out a ton of creative and clever things that made a return in this game, and also pushed the concept of what the AI could be -- adding in some traditional decision-tree style logic in places in addition to the more decentralized-style AI that I had come up with back in 2009. That one that originally made waves on slashdot and reddit and hackernews and so on.
I've worked as the producer and design lead on this sequel, among my many other roles, and so the fact that there seems to be a "singular vision" is hopefully a sign that I did a good job in that role. But the degree to which this is a product of dozens of people's work, over an extremely long period of time, really can't be understated.
That's what I meant all the way back at the start. This sort of thing shouldn't have happened. It's just so... unlikely. A ton of people came together over a decade and helped make something unlike anything else on the market.
That's before even getting into other major (former) staff contributors like Daniette "Blue" Shinkle doing the vast majority of the art and coming up with the way-prettier style of ship that evolved AFTER the kickstarter, the awesome score by Pablo Vega, and 25 voice actors who did a fantastic job as various humans and the AI.
And good grief, I'd be remiss not to mention Erik and Craig and all the other folks at Indie Bros, who helped manage so many aspects of this game, as well as often doing work like helping clean up voice lines, etc.
I never wanted to make this game, because I didn't think I could. The original AI War seemed to be the high water mark of my career, and I spent a lot of time trying to make peace with that. But when the market shifted in 2015 and 2016 and finances started getting tight, it became clear that returning to the game that started it all was what made the most sense.
Thanks to all of the kickstarter backers for believing that we even COULD build this game. Keith and I felt like we could do something that would make you happy, but probably not something that would top the original. It took two extra years of development and an enormous village of people to make THAT a reality. So thanks to everyone for their patience and support during that time.
I also want to say a big thanks to everyone for their understanding during my divorce, which happened shortly after entering Early Access for this game. That made everything so much harder, and took me out of commission for a full three months or so where I just couldn't work much. I had to learn how to be me again, and come to terms with being a dad with shared custody rather than a full-time father, and all of that was incredibly hard.
But the good news is that, as has happened with this game itself, a lot of things in my personal life have turned out unexpectedly, improbably well in the last year. After deciding to date again (after 18 years off the market, wow), I wound up meeting the woman who is now my fiancée surprisingly quickly (all things considered). Kara and her daughter have made my entire world so much richer than I realized it could be, and my son finally has the sister he's wanted for so much of his life.
I feel incredibly fortunate, and a lot of my ability to get back to work and not crumble under the weight of anxiety and expectations for this game were thanks to Kara's support and presence. The reality of her life as a doctor and surgeon also helps to kind of put my own work into perspective, sometimes, in the best way.
However this turns out financially, and despite my anxieties about my future as a game developer, I'm incredibly proud of what we've all created together, and I feel surrounded by all the right people both at work and outside of work. This has been the hardest three year period of my life, but the end result has all been worth it.
Thanks to everyone, and I hope you enjoy the game -- both what it is now, and what's to come.
Very Best,
Chris
After Two Long Years, AI War 2 Hits Early Access!
It's been quite a saga, if you've followed along all this time. All that extra time paid off!
At this point we have what fans have nearly-universally hailed as a worthy successor to the original classic. We still have plenty more to do prior to 1.0 in Q2 of 2019, but the game is ready to play now and we hope you'll come enjoy it and give us further feedback.
Humanity has already lost the war, and now you command the last remnants in a desperate campaign to take back the galaxy.
More than most strategy games, your actions have consequences: taking every minor outpost you see is a surefire way to alert the enemy and spell your own doom.
Strike smart, capture new technology, and bring down a foe that overmatches you in every way.
What's New In 2?
The sequel improves the UI, the graphics, the audio, and many of the core mechanics. It's an across-the-board upgrade.
But even more than that, it brings in new friends and foes alike -- large factions are now possible, with their own sophisticated AI, economies, and rules.
Marauders are now able to conquer territory, and build up their own bases if left un-checked. The nanocaust feeds on the strength of those around it, while the macrophage happily grows in the background, sending out spores...
Enjoy the classic human vs AI cage match, or expand to a much wider living galaxy.
25% off Loyalty Coupon!
If you own the original AI War, or The Last Federation, or Bionic Dues -- check your inventory on Steam! You may need to restart it, or log out and back in. Inside, you'll find a coupon for 25% off on top of the launch 10% discount. Both are only valid this week, so hopefully this isn't sitting in your inbox too long!
You can read about the most recent update, plus a lot of planned upcoming updates, here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/573410/announcements/detail/1732082664630714967
Hopefully now you can see why we haven't pushed this game into Early Access yet. We're really wanting this to come out of the gate as something that we can be proud of and that you can be excited about, without us needing to go through a lot of revisions to basic mechanics after that point. It should be all content additions and bugfixing and refinement after we hit Early Access, hopefully.
At any rate, it's been a really fun ride recently with out kickstarter backers, who have their hands on the game already (they sure ought to -- it's been almost two years!). Despite the long road, this is really coming together.
Thanks for reading!
Chris
Massive update to AI War 2: "A Pivot And A Leap Forward"
You can read all about that here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/573410/announcements/detail/1699429118241526351
Be sure to pop by and wishlist the game, too!
AI War Classic Sale Celebrating AI War 2 Teaser Trailer & Coming Soon Page
There's a sequel on the way! You can wishlist it here to be notified when it arrives in Early Access in July.
We've uploaded a teaser trailer and listed a coming soon store page for AI War 2 (don't forget to wishlist)! To celebrate, all AI War classic products are on sale with deep discounts -- get AI War's base game or Collection bundle for 80% off, plus individual DLC for $1 each through May 5th.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iyi-ZEiPow
This project has been in the works since 2016, and thanks to a kickstarter and a ton of support from all those alpha and beta testers, we're finally closing in on that ever-elusive Early Access point. After we hit EA in July, we hope to have an even wider array of testers, and then we'll be ready for a highly-polished 1.0 in October of this year.
Be sure to go in and wishlist it (and get anyone you know to do the same) if you have any interest in this, because otherwise you might miss those two release notifications when they do arrive. We can't wait to see you in there -- and for now, the massive original game, which we now refer to as AI War Classic, has hundreds of hours waiting for you. :)
Starward Rogue Expansion Launch and AI War 2 News!
Chris here! Quick announcement about another title, but lots of AI War 2 notes further down, so read on! AI War 2 is coming together nicely to launch early this year, but we've also had a "volunteer brigade" working on something on the side: the first expansion pack for our rogue-lite shooter Starward Rogue -- Starward Rogue: AuGMENTED.
Developed by the "Arcen Extended" team, which is comprised of former contractors and modders from the community, the expansion has been nearly 2 years in the making, and adds a boatload of new content, including new mechs, new enemies, new items, new bosses and much more. These folks have absolutely been pouring time and love into this project, but it hasn't been a diversion from AI War 2 for Keith, Blue, or me.
It’s probably one of the biggest expansions we have ever released for any title, and something we are very proud of.
The AI War 2 project has been an excellent example of "no plan survives contact with the enemy." Visualization has required more engine work and re-work than we anticipated, and that’s one of a few factors that have slowed our schedule.
On the other hand, the actual game simulation is far more moddable than anticipated -- modders can create practically anything: new Units (with just a bit of XML); new Galaxy map types (with just a bit of C#); tweak existing factions, or create new factions that can completely change the gameplay; you can change the AI behaviour or add new AI types. All of that alongside more obvious things like adding new units or visuals or sounds or similar.
In any event, the game itself has come a long way and we're narrowing down the list of things that need to be done before beta. We’ve just released new builds with updated graphics, UI updates, balance tweaks, the first of the voice acting, and a whole lot more.
There’s more of that sort of thing to come, and we’re working on a “graduated beta release schedule” at the moment in preparation for an April 1.0 official release.
What’s a “graduated beta release schedule?”
One Last Note About Starward Rogue
We also wanted to make a special thanks to Windless Zephyr for inspiring the Zephyr mech, and also for providing us with so many episodes of your long-running Starward Rogue series! :)
AI War 2 Kickstarter re-launch hits goal in 22 hours! Plus new video.
Um... wow? Folks are absolutely amazing in their support, and I'm just agog at this. I'm going to be out most of the weekend, but I just wanted to say thanks in advance if we hit any stretch goals before Monday. At the moment we seem likely to hit the stretch goal for new music sooner than later.
So, other stuff -- first I'd like to share one new video with you:
So just what is this "AI War" thing, and why should you be excited about it?
Hopefully the kickstarter campaign page answers that question, in a general sense at least. ;) But prior to launching this campaign I was working on this video, and I finally finished editing it today (with Pablo's help cleaning up some unfortunately peaky audio because my mic gain was off), so I thought I'd share it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IluP7KEx0xk
If you're wanting to explain to someone first what this game is, then why it's frickin awesome, maybe this video will help. Or maybe I'm just longwinded -- 9 minutes is pretty concise for a game like this, though. :)
First Stretch Goal: Soundtrack!
So... right! We're funded. :) Now we're working on the first stretch goal off our list:
Up Next
Next week I expect to release a video actually showing combat, and some other cool visual effects, and we'll show you more of the GUI, and Pablo has a video for you, and Keith has some written updates...
Busy times, in the best sense. :)
I'm personally not going to be around much this weekend because I'm both trying to have a better work/life balance in general and also we're celebrating my mom's birthday, but I'll be back in force on Monday. I'll peek in some over the weekend, of course, and I imagine Keith will be around some Saturday off and on. But just so you don't wonder where we are if we're quieter than usual.
Thanks again for all your support!
Best,
Chris
AI War 2 Kickstarter re-launches... 50% funded in 4 hours!
Good grief! People are awesome. I didn't mean to update folks here "late," but the new campaign for AI War 2 has already reached half of its (admittedly much more modest) funding goal.
https://youtu.be/CPrhD-_SNpo
I've already written a first update post that has a large Q&A based on early questions. Apologies that the video above is just a teaser-style one, but one of the Q&A topics (way at the bottom) touches on the reasons for that. Basically perfectionism on my part, I guess.
This is a very different project from the one that we were pitching in the first kickstarter, but I'm really excited about it. Keith has written up a new design document that explains what is planned. There's another document that compares the new vision for the sequel to the original AI War, for those wanting to see that comparison.
One of the last updates to the original campaign does probably the most concise job of outlining the differences between the two campaigns, the changing roles of Keith and myself, and the current configuration (so to speak) of Arcen.
You might hate kickstarter, and I hate preorders, but I hope you'll love this project on its own merits. The original AI War is something that RPS called one of the best strategy games ever made, and which is widely regarded as having some of the best and most interesting AI ever seen in a game.
Why a sequel?
The original was designed in a different time, under completely different design goals. We're finally creating a sequel that is being rebuilt from the ground up using a whole bunch of new tricks and tech that we've acquired over the last few years.
The trickiest core technical improvements -- ranging from highly efficient 3D graphics to a multithreaded main-simulation to mod support -- are already complete.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLtDdZRq4Bk
Why trust us?
We’re not kidding around in our approach to this: we’ve made a massive 160+ page design document, because it was basically the only way we were comfortable doing a kickstarter campaign for this sequel.
We can't stand vague or overblown promises, so our goal has been to be as explicit and clear as possible. We did a massive AMA on reddit where we wrote more than 50 pages of responses, and we're happy to answer even more questions.
That said, this project is huge, and we've been having a rough time in the crowded New Steam Market (so to speak). Please consider backing the project if you can! It's very hard to reach customers nowadays, and we don't have a good way to fund this without your help. There are a few alternatives to kickstarter that we've worked out, but none of them give us the full creative freedom that working directly with our fans does.
Improvements at a glance:
GUI Clarity and usability!
Sane learning curve.
Better graphics.
Better performance.
Moddability.
More varied strategic landscape.
Streamlined out repetitive tasks.
Way, way more.
Even if you can't or don't want to back, please spread the word!
Whether or not you're able and willing to personally back the project, please consider forwarding this campaign's link to any friends (Steam or otherwise) that might have an interest in this sort of thing.
If you personally want to take a "wait and see" attitude toward this project, we totally respect that. But we are having trouble reaching our own existing customers, and so any help you can give us in spreading the word we would be incredibly grateful for.
Headtalker! Please sign up. Plus more "Reverse AI War" tidbits.
If you have not already, please consider signing up for the Headtalker campaign for AI War II. The true power of this thing has only really become apparent to me today, and it's pretty awesome.
Briefly:
If 500 people sign up -- and there are 71 on there as of the time of this writing, including myself -- then a big social media blast goes out. I guess kind of like a Thunderclap?
It tracks the amount of reach that we have on social media based on this, and basically it can be a way to get in front of a LOT of people. Out of just 71 people signed up so far, that gives us a potential reach of 960 thousand people.
Bearing in mind that a ton of those people will have zero interest in this, it's still a lot more targeted than advertising in some ways, and it's also not costing us anything (or you much time).
Given our current backer counts, less than a third of you would need to help out with this for a big blast to go out.
And actually you can recruit other people as well if you like who are not backers of the project -- you never know if your friend's friends are strategy enthusiasts, even if that friend is not.
As with this kickstarter campaign itself, if the target is not hit, nothing happens. So if we don't get 500 people signed up, then the whole thing doesn't happen. Even if you have a small twitter following or just a few facebook friends or a small group on linkedin or whatever else, that still is valuable in that it helps us reach that count of 500 people.
Thank you for reading!
That was annoying, and I apologize for that. To make it up to you, I'll give a few more tidbits about Reverse AI War, which I teased in update #8.
Basically:
It's a much smaller and shorter game, and made for serial replayability. Ideally games are 5-25 minutes long, depending on the complexity of the scenario you set up. I'd estimate 15 or 20 minutes on average.
I doubt it would be multiplayer, but who knows. Probably that would just be irritating to play with others, though, to be honest.
The game is set in the Arcenverse, in the timeline after Bionic Dues and Release Raptor, but long before AI War, The Last Federation, Stars Beyond Reach, or Starward Rogue.
You play as the AI at the end of Earth's history in this game. You may remember from the lore of Raptor that basically some humans got left behind on Earth while the rich and the upper classes fled to the stars.
The AI eventually chases the humans out into the galaxy, as we clearly see in the first AI War. However, before it can comfortably do that, it needs to take care of the planet that we both came from.
The overall idea here is thus that you're trying to kill the last of the humans remaining on earth. It really gives you a perspective of the sort of vaguely Risk-like experience that the AI has in AI War, but on territories on earth instead of planets and solar systems in space.
As with AI War, the AI (you, this time) have vastly superior resources to your foes, but also some weak spots. This game is also a David and Goliath simulator... but this time you're Goliath tasked with destroying David?
If that sounds easy, then you're forgetting the core weakness of the AI: blindness. You don't know WHERE all those pesky humans are. You thus want to do various things to draw them out, including letting them take some territory from you in order to expose themselves. Mwa ha ha, they think they're so sneaky...
...of course, the more you do that, the more you actually do risk that they pop up in surprising force and destroy your quantum computer, thus ending you. The other risk is that they escape into space, meaning that you've failed in your chief objective.
Overall I think it's a really fun concept, and it's simple and short and yet has good strategy to it. As I mentioned before, I hope to have a WebGL online demo you can play by the end of November.
Depending on how things progress with this kickstarter, I might be convinced to give out copies of this to all backers above some certain tier... ;)
That's all for now! Sorry for being annoying about the Headtalker thing, but if you can help out with it it is definitely appreciated. And hopefully the Reverse AI War details make up for it.
Cheers!
Chris
Addendum!
There have been a number of objections to the Reverse AI War thing being talked about on our forums, and I felt like those are things that I wanted to address here, too. Here's the original thread: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,19276.msg209980.html#msg209980
The TLDR is that basically, no, that doesn't mean that we're giving up on this campaign. It doesn't indicate a lack of interest on my part in AI War II, either. It is an attempt to be honest and clear with you despite the fact that it may be mildly stupid from a PR standpoint, but I think that honesty tends to beat "smooth talking" in situations like this.
If you still have reservations, the post there is worth a read. I suppose the other biggest point is that we're neither just sitting here and hoping things improve (we're both making contingencies and actively trying to improve things at the same time). A lot of kickstarters do this thing where they seem to just be blindly trucking along, and anyone who looks at them goes "that's not going to fund," but they seem oblivious. I hate that so much. I doubt the people are oblivious, but I guess they don't want to show a lack of confidence and so they sure seem oblivious. I'd rather tell you as much as I can about what we're trying to do to make things better, instead.
