Patch Notes: Keyboards, exploring, and caravan destinations!
Hey Riders!
Thanks for picking up Six Ages: Ride Like The Wind. :) We're thrilled a lot of you seem to be enjoying it so far. We've got some handy patch notes ready for you, and will have more fixes in the works.
For version 1.0.10:
Fixed a documentation glitch
Clan chosen from map is actually the caravan destination
Be sure concerns update promptly in the dashboard
Ritual dialog shows the correct list of eligible questers
Added keyboard equivalent for Help
Better keyboard support for navigating manual and lore
You can double-click to choose list items in interactive scenes
You can explore the east edge of the map
Have a bug to report? Send it to bugz[at]a-sharp.com so that we can track it properly. And if you'd like some cool reading material, David Dunham did an AMA over at r/Games yesterday and talked about Six Ages (of course) and game design.
Don't forget to write a Steam review by the way! It helps us indies out a lot. :)
Alright, that's it for now. See you over on Discord or Twitter in the meantime.
Chieftain Victoria
đ Six Ages is OUT NOW đ
Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind has finally released!
Design your clan, visit the gods, become respected, raid your neighbors' cows. This is life between myths. The spiritual successor to King of Dragon Pass is here.
[previewyoutube="Vw6xbWZ1Yos;full"]
Hundreds of choices will unfurl into a multi-generational tale of your clan. Uncover the secrets of Glorantha, battle ancient monsters, befriend spirits, please the gods, trade cows, and make incredibly intricate decisions that may ultimately lead your clan to legend⌠or ruin.
Want to chat about the game with the developer? David Dunham is on Twitter or Discord for all clan discussions!
Want to help us out? You can help us retweet the announcement, tell your friends, and most of all leave a review! Seriously, Steam algorithms loooove reviews.
Have fun, chieftains!
Victoria
Six Ages Release Date - Oct 17, 2019!
Hey riders!
That's right, we've got big news for you today. Six Ages will officially release on Oct 17, 2019!
That's less than a month away! *Sweats nervously*
But finally, you can immerse yourself in a place of old gods and magic in this storybook strategy game. Make hundreds of decisions and watch it build into an epic, multi-generational tale of survival... or ruin.
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Make sure you wishlist the game on Steam so the algorithm spirits are appeased! And if you want to chatter amongst other clans, feel free to hop onto our Discord or Twitter.
Cheers, Victoria
Sign Up to Playtest Six Ages!
We're in the last stages of development and ready for fresh eyes to find fresh bugs!
If you're interested, you can sign up now. Just join the Kitfox Discord and check the pinned note in the Six Ages channel to get started. We'll contact you in the coming days or weeks if you're selected (randomly).
With your help, we hope we can finally settle on a launch date.
Thanks in advance!
Play Six Ages at PAX West⌠and meet the creator!
Hey chieftains!
Progress rides like the wind~
Weâve started beta-testing the game, and our players (picked from the Discord) have found some great bugs. With their help, things are starting to feel pretty solid in terms of being able to play the game. Itâs still going to take more time to polish everything and try to optimize for low-end machines, but weâre getting there.
PAX West & Demo
If youâd like to meet David, creator of King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages, *in real life*, youâll be able to catch him at PAX West! On Sunday and Monday, heâll be hanging around Booth 6120 (the Kitfox Booth) with⌠A PLAYABLE PC DEMO OF SIX AGES! For the first time ever! Yesss, youâll be able to get your hands on it in real life, provided youâre at the con, of course.
You can also catch him and a bunch of other friendly designers (from Bay 12, Brace Yourself Games, Bungie, Subset Games) on a panel called âSystem Design, on Fire, All the Time: Controlling Chaosâ. Itâll be happening on Monday, September 2nd, 11:30am.
That's it for now. Hope to see some of you around the show floor!
Cheers,
Victoria
Dev Blog: Achievement Support and Porting Notes
Hi everyone,
Many games can be brought to new platforms with some careful attention to the user interface on the new device. You may need new art assets, and certainly a bit of new coding. But most of the game code is identical.
Back when I started working on Six Ages, this was my plan. Basic development was on iOS, in part because the tools were more reliable. I had experimented with two different solutions to bring that code to other platforms, and was optimistic that Iâd be able to just rebuild the game. Then Iâd be able to polish it, add support for platform-specific achievements, and start a new testing cycle.
Things didnât work out as Iâd planned. Both of the porting libraries I had expected to use were discontinued (one formally, one not formally abandoned but clearly not viable).
So instead of just recompiling, we were faced with rewriting. Thatâs a way bigger hurdle. And thatâs why itâs taken longer than our original plan.
Iâll discuss this in more detail in the future, but weâre pretty much at the point of adding support for platform-specific achievements. QA has been testing the port, and we hope to bring in outside beta testers soon. Our publisher has suggested that people interested in testing the game join us on Discord. If youâd rather wait until the last bugs are out, wishlist the game.
- David Dunham, Six Ages Director and Designer
SIx Ages Rides Closer to Release
Today we hit an important milestone: âRide Like the Windâ for macOS and Windows is far enough along to be declared âAlpha.â Different studios use that term differently, but for us it means itâs essentially feature complete. The various tutorial elements are not implemented yet, and there are a number of known bugs and things to polish. But the interface is all there, and the game is playable. Rusto Games has done a great job adapting to a very different game engine.
Our QA team has started taking a more thorough look at the port. Their available Windows machine had a smaller screen than I thought we could support, but it seemed to run well enough. Thatâs a good sign. It can also run on a 5120 x 2880 Retina display connected to a Mac.
Once itâs had more testing, and the Guide and Tutorial are in, we plan on doing some beta testing with a small number of players. Weâre still planning the particulars with our publisher, Kitfox Games. (Kitfox mentions: If you're interested in maybe taking a stab at it, the best thing to do is drop by the Discord.)
Once we have beta feedback, weâll be in a better position to know a release date. One reason this is hard to know in advance is that it can depend on other games. With a couple hundred games coming out each week, you obviously canât avoid all conflicts, but there can be games you donât want to release simultaneously with.
Meanwhile, weâve been working on the next game in the saga, âLights Going Out.â The art style is defined and a reasonable amount is complete. Itâs hard to know how much writing weâll need until you can play the game from start to finish, but I think weâre close to having half the necessary scenes written and coded.
âLights Going Outâ lets you continue a game of âRide Like the Wind,â so you can determine the next chapter in your clanâs saga. As a practical matter, you might want to save any games youâve completed.
- David Dunham, Six Ages Director and Designer
Announcing: Lucifer Within Us!
Last night, we revealed our newest title: Lucifer Within Us, from the creator of the Shrouded Isle.
As a digital exorcist in Lucifer Within Us, youâre asked to solve murders, purify the possessed, and purge their daemons.
Question your suspects. Watch their movements and testimonies closely, as the reconstruction may be based on lies. Use contradictions and clues to form your own hypothesis. Who is lying and why? Who is possessed? You must decide what is the truth for yourself, based on the evidence presented.
Real mystery-solving.
No hidden plot twists, no QTEs, no random puzzles or mini-games, just you and the information. Donât just act like a detective -- BE a detective. Finding the murderer will require true understanding of the case, not just following the story.
Banish daemonic A.I.
Enter the minds of citizens to gain insight into what they donât want you to know. Dig through their subconscious and accuse the guilty in order to cast out their daemons, for the good of the Inquisition. Any damage done to a citizenâs psyche as a result of quarantine, exorcism, or rehabilitation is a consequence of their own immorality.
Expose the False Utopia.
Through centuries of indoctrination, humanity is taught to think pure thoughts and speak true words, untainted by falsehoods and delusions. Yet beneath this facade of purity, you find dark desires stir deep within peopleâs hearts, yearning for release.
Just a quick update to let everyone know how the Steam release has been going. Other than gathering enough cows for our next offering to the gods, weâve also put all our warriors into progressing on the PC build. Weâre happy to say itâs been chugging along nicely - the game content is on schedule, but thereâs A LOT of interface to complete and polish.
Fingers crossed, weâre hoping to have Six Ages ready around the end of spring of this year!
David at GDC
Meanwhile, if anyone is going to be at GDC (Game Developers Conference) in mid-March, David Dunham himself will be giving a talk about the distinctive design elements of Six Ages!
An excerpt from the description: âHe'll show how the pieces fit together to create a re-playable emergent narrative with an overall story arc, interesting and helpful advisors, and a strategic simulation of politics.â
Plus, heâll touch on how a text-based game achieves immersion, and describe the tools that let him and his small team create a game with as much text as the first four Harry Potter novels. (Wow!) You can grab all the info here.
Six Ages is more than a myth or a legend -- it's going to be playable on Steam (hopefully)... but not as quickly as we'd initially planned.
Unfortunately, the original programmer we contracted in the summer didn't work out, and although he had to visit the emergency room a couple of times, he's thankfully recovering now. But we have had to re-start the porting process with a new porting partner.
We're happy to be working with Rusto Games, a small outfit in Finland (three cheers for Finland!) who are big fans of King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages, which makes us big fans of them in turn.
We aren't sure exactly what the new release date is, but we're hoping to hit desktops (PC and Mac) spring or summer 2019. You'll be the first to know when we have more details. In the meantime, David and the team has been making lots of bugfixes, so it will be the most polished release of the game it can be.
