I need your vote, yes yours. You have a few seconds to make a difference, simply click the image below and help an indie developer out by voting for Violent Sol Worlds for Indie of the Year. I’ve been personally working on this game for over a year and it would mean a ton. Your vote really matters and we need every one of them.
Ok there has been a lot of talk about good and bad parenting since the great Gorilla, Harambe, thing at the Cincinnati zoo. I’m not going to say anything about the lady who was watching the kid, I’m simply going to try and help parents understand tactically where you should try to be at all times when watching your children using tactical thinking and good old fashion game play.
First of all lets look at a scenario, you have four things you want to keep safe. They all at any moment could run crazy directions and do dumb things to attempt to murder themselves. There is only one of you, so where is the smartest place for you to be? Let’s look at some pictures.
See the green dots are the things you want to protect. The blue dot is you. If we take a look at the current scenario what do you notice? See how it would be impossible for you to pay attention to all the green dots at once? Why is that? Positioning! This is simple to explain, if you are the blue dot you have placed yourself in a tactically inferior position to fulfill your goal of keeping the four green dots safe. If you were looking at the three on the left the one on the right could easily crawling into someplace they shouldn’t.
Equally as bad if you watch the one on the right like a hawk the ones on the left could be creating a master plan to take over the world, or escape somewhere to a dangerous location. So where should you be? Or better yet, where shouldn’t you be?
See that picture? The red circle is where you should not be. To be 100% certain that you can keep track of all green dots at any given time you should be outside the red circle and facing the center of it. Yes, it sounds dumb, and almost sounds like you cannot have any fun at all, but to meet your goal of understanding what is going on and having all the green dots be safe and understood at all times this is the position you should take.
See how you are outside the circle that contains the things you want to keep safe? This allows you to see everything that happens as it happens. No surprises. Now you say, what if they are not all equal? What if one is prone to be crazy, or bad? Then you position yourself in a way to be closer to that one. Like this…
See how you are still outside that circle, but you are closer to the one that is prone to do wacky and crazy things? I colored the one in yellow that you wanted to be more ready to help when the time was needed. Oh but things go wrong, I know. What if one of the good ones starts fighting with another of the good ones?
How do you handle this? the trouble maker one you are nearest is being good, but only because you are by them and watching them intently. If you ran to stop the fight, that the two that are shaded in red are having, then you would be violating the rule of going in the circle and lose sight of the yellow one and something terrible might happen. Turns out to be tactically sound you have a couple options here that I see. Lets start by showing what you should not do.
You quickly run into the circle from your previous position. You arrive at the fight and stop it, but where are you? In the circle! Can you see all the green dots at one time from within the circle? No! No you cannot. You are not doing the correct thing and the yellow filled dot suddenly crawls into something and stuff goes bad. What can you do? Think tactics. What if you changed the circle? A few seconds is not going to hurt the two fighting. Let’s try to get to this situation now…
See you grab the Yellow filled green dot by the face and move them to the white filled green dot. This changes things up the circle gets smaller and you remain in a tactical position to see and remain informed about all the green dots situations. Now you grab both the Yellow filled and the white filled green dots by the face and advance at the fighting pair. This puts you in a position to keep all the green dots from being dumb and ending up somewhere they should not.
This makes your circle of no entry very small. You can start smacking green dots until they realize the errors of their ways like nobody’s business from this distance. And nobody lost a foot or anything in the process.
Oh, but what if there was no time to gather the other two before the others were going to start stabbing each other? Always remain calm and NEVER go into the red circle. If you believe that one of the green dots will die soon in that fight. You can always advance around the outside of the red circle to get close to the fighters and begin smacking away with extreme authority.
Move like that and you can keep your eyes on all of the green dots like a champ. You have successfully escorted your 4 green dots to safety without letting any of them get themselves into situations that cause anything to be killed. Tactical thinking gets a lot done in more than just video games and warfare. Keep these things in mind in your life and sometimes things work out better. There is always that time when you just let one go to save the three and complete the mission though.
Hope this makes sense and remember tactics win. Please do understand the humor and the factual awesomeness here. I understand situations can be more dynamic than these, but keep a tactical mind as a parent and everything turns out better.
I asked myself this question, if I cannot come up with 50 reasons to support Violent Sol Worlds then why would you? So here is my list…
The Art – It’s a top-down stylized survival experience that looks like a graphic novel in action.
The AI Overlord – Nothing will remain the same for long. If you get good at surviving in your current situation then the AI overlord will generate a special experience to mix things up for you.
The Cars – What good is a near infinite world you get to walk around? In this game you can walk or drive, gotta love that!
The Creatures – There are an absolute ton of creatures going in to the game. All I have to say is Rhino Turtle.
Crafting Cars – There have been plenty of games with crafting in them, how about crafting a car? Can anyone say tank?
Crafting Guns – you don’t just buy guns, you can make them. Put the coolest laser rifle together to match your game play. Heck just make a laser chainsaw.
The Corporations – The universe is being colonized with massive help from companies. Here are a few – Mal-Atomic, Avrio, The RTA
Is that enough yet? Come see our Greenlight and give us a quick vote.
The Biomes – the planet will be diverse and varied. There will be a ton of biomes for all he creatures to live in, from forests, to deserts and every other thing you can think of.
Building – You don’t just survive on a distant planet, you survive by building and adapting. Construction of buildings is a huge part of the game.
The Universe – Trust me the universe has a level of backstory that a sandbox survival game has not touched. Each corporation, each faction, came from somewhere. Nothing just exists, it all has purpose and evolution.
Farming – A man has to eat. You will be able to plant crops and grow your own food for survival or profit.
The Maker – A key part of your survival in Violent Sol Worlds is the Maker. It is the technology that allows for you to store molecular configurations of object and essentially print them from raw matter for use in your daily activities. Need a gun, make it. Need a car, make it.
The Technology – There is a huge mix of technology to be used. Anything from an automatic miner to some old-time cars. You will be shooting laser rifles, and conventional weapons. You might even see some sort of hover bike, or laser chainsaws.
The History – How did a recycling company go from Earth to helping people light years away reconfigure molecules to form a lase pistol? Well the history of Renew tells you that. Nothing in Violent Sol Worlds is just thrown in, it all makes sense in the history of the universe.
Laser Weapons – Who does not love the idea of some top-down action with lasers? I’m in.
Is that enough yet? Come see our Greenlight and give us a quick vote.
Aircraft – So you can drive cars, why not fly? So there are aircraft, and you can craft them.
Car Physics – Each car is simulated in a physics engine. This allows for different terrain to change how a car handles as well as tires blown from gun shots.
Lighting – It’s not enough to have a cool comic book feel. How about true lighting and shadows to help with the feeling of explosions and lasers flying around?
Conventional Weapons – Not everything is high tech. Sometimes a nice shotgun does that job well and cheaply.
Top-down – Survival is awesome. How about survival from a tactical top down view with action combat?
The Mal-Atomic Device – You get to use a scifi device called the Mal-Atomic to help with your crafting. It’s like an iPhone but more scifi and can help rearrange molecules.
Pets – You can have a pet cat, dog, or whatever. Yes this is a thing.
Turrets – The game might just be cruel to you, so build some turrets for defense. Laser turrets to help ward off attackers, expensive but effective.
Wild West Scifi – We landed on a wild west settler vibe for the game. So it is scifi, but there are some wonderful wild west feels to the world as you attempt to settle the wilds of the Rim.
Is that enough yet? Come see our Greenlight and give us a quick vote.
Living World – You are a settler on a planet that will not stop trying to kill you. Much like the old west on Earth it will keep throwing events at you that change up how you need to play to survive.
The Team – I like to call our team a dream team of game development. Not one with super stars on it but one that is truly a team built for an unforeseen victory. Meet the Team
Weather – There will be sun and there will be rain. Each weather event can help or hurt you.
Open Development – Join our development by giving suggestions and feedback starting now. You can also just watch us on Twitter and our website and see the progress of nearly everything we do.
Modding – The game is being built from the ground up for you to mod. This game will be able to live longer than most because of the new content you can produce for it at its core.
The Music – The music is composed purely for this game. You will not hear the music anywhere else.
Don’t Walk Drive Mentality – This is a huge world you are settling on. Don’t just walk for miles, drive. We want you to be able to see a lot of places so cars are vital to this survival game and will be in from the early stages.
The Dream – The idea of the Violent Sol Universe is huge. There are plans for many things beyond Violent Sol Worlds. Supporting us early keeps this dream alive. See the dream here
Is that enough yet? Come see our Greenlight and give us a quick vote.
Play With Friends – Surviving with friends is often times harder than alone, but oh so much more fun.
Play Alone – See if you can make it alone in a world that is harsh and unforgiving.
Run your own server – Take control of a server for your own gaming community. Don’t like most people, just your friends? start up a server and only let those who you want in.
Continuous Development – Our team is a special one. We move fast and get things done. We will not stop this game and plan on a very long haul here. We often times talk about the potential for ten years of development for content. We will develop new and fresh things for this game as long as people keep supporting it.
Create a Colony – Why are you surviving on a planet 4 light years away from Earth if not to create something larger. Work toward building a complete settlement to support more and more NPCs and players.
News Ticker – The universe is not dead while you are settling the planet. Keep track of the news as things happen. If Pirates start pestering Rim settlements yours might be next.
Is that enough yet? Come see our Greenlight and give us a quick vote.
Expand-ability – Violent Sol Worlds concentrates on planetary explorations. We are making sure we can expand into space when we want to.
Laser Chainsaw – Yes, a laser chainsaw. You gotta get wood somehow and swinging it at creatures sounds like a blast too.
Calling Home For Population – Need a mechanic? Call home and request one. They probably will need a facility, and place to live though so be prepared to have some requirements met.
The World hates you – Yes, being one of the first people to land on a planet is going to be difficult. The environment will not enjoy you and the AI overlord will make sure you have a challenge.
Equipment – It’s about the equipment. Pick up resources. Craft an awesome laser pistol. Build a car with a turret. Construct better armor.
Everything is a Resource – Kill a creature, use its horns for a new hood ornament.
Is that enough yet? Come see our Greenlight and give us a quick vote.
Action Combat – This is a top-down game so the action is going to be both tactical and fast paced.
Car Combat – Sometimes while driving things happen. Sometimes those things require a high powered laser turret. Sometimes they require missiles. All I know is be prepared to drive and shoot.
The Crystals – We are in love with the crystals. They have many properties and are the dynamic element in the universe that allows for many awesome crafting opportunities. Read a story about them here.
Your Colony Ship – You we placed on the planet by an elaborate process. Like the rest of the universe we figured it all out. About your colony ship
Simulation – We not only have action we also have simulation elements to the game as well. Many systems work under the hood of this game to make the world feel alive
Your Crate – You get dropped off on the planet on day one in your crate. Much like a train car, but this one is your home. Don’t worry in no time you will modify it and make it a lot less terrible and a little more like home.
Support Violent Sol Worlds Today by checking out our KickStarter, our Greenlight and our website. With your help and support we can make all of this a reality.
We are proudly announcing Violent Sol Worlds has been launched on Kickstarter. Now everyone can see the top-down scifi survival shooter where you can craft cars, weapons, and buildings. You can help us increase the awareness of Violent Sol Worlds and help create the momentum it needs to become an amazing reality. If you find the game to be of interest please help us promote it by telling the world about it. Take a look and discover what we are so passionate about.
Violent Sol Worlds on Kickstarter – we need your support
Violent Sol Worlds on Steam Greenlight – we need your yes vote to get into the store
Violent Sol Homepage – keep informed about the Violent Sol Universe
I personally am so excited, freaked out, and a bit nervous all at the same time. It is by far one of the most interesting feelings to work on something this hard and then finally launch it to the public. For those who follow me on Twitter you already know that this process has taken a long time for our team. We have put a ton of work in to get to this point. We really look forward to the next phase of the project which is very exciting for me.
We have already began to design the final game so it can be expanded greatly over the next few years. This is truly a dream project to work on and I hope you will join me in my journey to bring it to the world. We are creating something magical here that I love and hope you will too. If you are a scifi fan and love a good survival game I am sure you will be pleased with what we are putting together.
Thank all of you who follow my blog and everything else I do. You are the best and I am truly grateful for each and every one of you.
There is a good quote that always strikes me and I believe it is a good call to action for POCs.
-Sid Meier
If you just start coding your game from idea and start throwing stuff in you are not necessarily finding the fun first. What I like to do is to figure out a cool concept, as few neat sounding game-play elements and code up some quick little programs to show off those game-play elements.
The key here is speed. Do not spend time designing an awesome architecture. Do not spend time making sure it is pretty. Get the game-play in to your own hands and see if you still think it is fun. For example, for Violent Sol Worlds we started off with the idea we wanted a top-down shooter. So I started to create a POC of a guy shooting
.
This POC at first looked terrible, with borrowed graphics but I could walk around and shoot one immobile cow. It turned out that it was fun to shoot an walk around, but the addition of blood from the cow made it more fun. The feedback was the true start of fun. At that point I thought the cow was detracting from the fun because it was an innocent cow. What would it be like to shoot something that moved, and shoot stuff like a building etc?
So I quickly threw in a wall and animated a bug creature I had been drawing. It was a lot more fun to shoot something moving. But the feedback was 
all wrong now for the bugs. They would need to die. So I coded in hit points and had them disappear when it hit 0. This still broke the experience and the fun.
When I added blood and body parts from the bugs being shot and killed it changed the world. It turned from something that I would launch and stop in seconds to something I found myself playing for minutes and it was just a POC.
You see without the POC I would not have noticed so many subtle things that make the action game-play fun. It is about moving around and shooting, but it was more about what you were shooting and how it felt to shoot them than anything else. This process did not take weeks, it took hours and the learning experience it was, was worth every minute. It changes designs, it effects decisions, and best of all it’s a quick process and adds value.
@magicrat_larry – Join me on Twitter
Facebook – join the conversation
I am so excited. Yes me, calm me. For those of you that know me I am always excited, but today more than others. We have started something awesome for our game Violent Sol Worlds. We have started releasing weekly content posts on our site ViolentSol.com
You are a galactic settler dropped off on a distant planet to help humanity with its overpopulation and lack of resources on the core worlds. In the game you will be playing in a top-down perspective and enjoy an awesome scifi theme. The neat thing about it is that you will be able to craft tons of things like other survival games, but we also include vehicles in the crafting. So you can not only drive a car but you can build them as well.
While you are surviving in the game you will also be enjoying the AI Overlord. It will make sure you are having an engaging time on your new planet. Gone are the days when you figure out survival and it is no longer part of the game-play. The Overlord will inject new events, missions, and general awesomeness into you game and keep it fresh and new for you.
OK, back to the content releases. Violent Sol Worlds is not only a scifi survival game, it has a huge, and rich, background story to it that you will experience in game. We are releasing this content via posts on ViolentSol.com every Friday starting now with the Avrio Corporation. We hope you enjoy the rich world we are building that you will be surviving in. Come read about the Avrio Corporation and keep up to date by following us on facebook.
Ok so I had this message come in from @ambemusic on twitter.
“If you could give a word about my game on your page that would be so amazing and appreciated! Please let me know!”
I ignored it at first. I know, what a selfish prick. Then I remembered it today and it stood out because she did not even give me a url. Interesting, usually people say, hey check out my awesome Youtube Channel and spam a url in there and I ignore it and move on. I looked through the many messages I get and found her. Looked up what she was making and said, oh why not. I already worked enought to find her and her product so, like Leroy Jenkins said, LET’S DO THIS! 🙂
I watched the short trailer both on Youtube and iphone, the game is called Droppy Up. I thought it was a unique looking game and was not like anything I have seen on a mobile device. I did not buy it, it’s 99 cents and I am a cheep dude. So I cannot give it a proper review, but I will give it this much, it looks hypnotic, which is better than most things on a phone. The music seemed to lull me into the short trailer and the game-play seems simple and possibly challenging.
It seems like something you might want to play if you feel like you are about to strangle somebody. It’ll help calm you down and maybe slightly creep you out with the eyes. Go check it out on your mobile device, and visit it’s creator on Twitter here. Also you can go to the DroppyUp Twitter page too.
Again, I have no clue if this is a good game or not, just figured it looked different enough to write about. I mean really, if you are about to rage, just look at the Twitter page for droppy sake, it’ll calm you down alone. 🙂
What do you write about when you do the same thing for days in a row? It is hard to figure out what to say. I’ve been just writing up descriptions of creatures that have the potential to make it in to Violent Sol Worlds. It is a fun task, but I find myself not wanting to just write about specific animals in this blog because the games website will do that.
It is fun though, I tend to just type in something like “Swamp Creatures” in google and flip to images and see what shows up. Usually something in there is inspiring for a creature to describe. Plus it is not just a description, it has to do with do they travel in groups, what do they eat, and how is their temperament.
For instance we have a rat-like creature that travels in groups, but only attacks wounded animals or characters. In the end I am hoping we have a good spread of unique animals that populate the world you are settling and makes it feel alive. We want you to enjoy the world and make it feel full and living.
If you have not checked out my current project…
Facebook – join the conversation
You know those people that say I am so busy? We all do. Most of the time you look at them and smile and say, I know you watch reruns of “That Seventy Show” every day. Well I am here to day to tell you I am so busy. I truly am. I am exhausted, and pushing even harder today than before.
I am really making things happen. Right now, I am not sure how well, or if they are good, or great things, but things none the less. I really have no time to write this out because I feel like I should be working. So here I go off into the sunset with all those other busy people that don’t really exist.
If you have not seen the game I am a part of here are a few links…
Facebook – Like us on facebook 🙂
ViolentSol.com – Homepage
IndieDB – Indie Games Community with news, screenshots, and video
I used to get up as an indie game developer and start coding my game. Now I get up and start marketing my game. When did that happen? When did marketing win as the leading task of the day? Seems like it was a smooth transition because I did not notice it until now. I think the community might have fueled the move though.
Let me explain. I get some awesome responses from people about our game that is in development – Violent Sol Worlds. I think that feeds the want for my brain to get more, so I have slowly turned into a marketer first and a programmer second. Never in a million years would I have seen that coming. It is wonderful though.
Before now, my interactions with people over the internet has been basically them yelling at me about my mother. You know, the XBOX live crowd. But now that we are building a community around a title we all love and want to see built the interactions are much more loving. I truly hope we keep this up and you all keep motivation high for me to keep engaging on this level.
All your praises, follows, and general encouragement have been amazing. You all blow me away, and make me feel like I can do anything, even knock out a shark.
If you have not seen our game – Violent Sol Worlds check it out.
