Free 2 Play and the Four Currencies

One of my most popular articles was "Piracy and the Four Currencies", which explains the economics of piracy in terms of four "psychological currencies": money-dollars ($M), time-dollars ($T), pain-in-the-butt dollars ($P) and integrity-dollars ($I). Purchases don't just cost money; they also cost different amounts of time, pain-in-the butt, and (sometimes) moral integrity.

Quick Summary

In the article, I argue that piracy, though it costs 0 $M, has a non-zero $T, $P, and $I cost, because the pirate must know where to search, risk exposure to malware, and do something illegal (which has a variable $I cost depending on one's outlook). Developers can compete with piracy by removing invasive DRM and practicing good customer service, which lowers $T and $P costs.  How much weight an individual gives to each currency varies widely.  For example, a wealthy person may value convenience over money, a busy person may value time the most, and someone with strong convictions might refuse to compromise their beliefs ("spending" $I*) for money's sake alone.

*Exactly what $I represents varies with ideology.  For example, Richard Stallman would put a large $I cost on using proprietary software, whereas I do not, and strict vegetarians might assign an $I cost to fur coats.

Free 2 Play

Now, let's apply the  four currency model to Free 2 Play games.

F2P is clearly here to stay.  It's seen big success with Angry Birds, Team Fortress 2, and given a new lease on life to MMO's that aren't World of Warcraft.  However, we've also just witnessed the spectacular implosion of F2P standard-bearer Zynga, and seen article after article about popular, critically-acclaimed F2P games that garner little revenue.

The debate is heated, so let's step back, put down our pitchforks (on both sides), and see what's going on.

Analysis

First of all, F2P competes well with piracy, because the barrier to entry couldn't be any lower.  Downloading an F2P game costs no $M, little $T, no $P, and no $I (for those who feel guilty about piracy).

Though FTP has no $M cost, it inserts $T and $P costs throughout the game to encourage players to pay $M instead.  This is the opposite of a traditional game, where there is no extra $T, $P, or $M cost once you've bought the game (invasive DRM, DLC, and bad design notwithstanding).

According to some best practices of F2P design, developers should intentionally inject inconvenience into games, which players can remove in exchange for money.  This means barriers, time sinks, and "dual-currency" systems where players can pay real money for rewards, or grind for hours instead.

In this way, traditional games are like laser printers: expensive to buy, cheap and easy to operate.  F2P games are like ink jets: cheap to buy, but expensive and sometimes a pain to operate, especially if the company has questionable business tactics.

On the one hand, F2P gives players options. Lots of people have no money but plenty of time and/or plenty of pain-in-the-butt tolerance.  Furthermore, it enables players to purchase things "a-la-carte," in case there are only certain aspects of the game they really want.  These are good things.

On the other hand, F2P adds inconveniences and compromises the "magic circle" by constantly asking the player for money.  These practices are why some designers call F2P "evil," and not just because they're luddites* who are afraid of change, as some have implied.  If anything, F2P is a return to the past as much as it is a step towards the future.  We've been here before, and it's called The Arcade.

Despite my reservations and general grumpiness, I do think F2P can drive great things - you only have to look at Team Fortress 2, League of Legends, and Triple Town to see that.  But it still deserves a critical eye.

*As an aside, the historical Luddites have been grossly misrepresented by industrialist propaganda and (incorrect) associations with religious fundamentalism.  I highly recommend the book Rebels Against the Future by Kirkpatrick Sale for an alternative viewpoint.

When (and why) F2P Fails

Let's look at some F2P games that have failed and see if the four currencies can tell us why.

The developers of Punch Quest and MonkeyDrums have suggested that their games failed because they were too nice - i.e., they embraced F2P but still hung onto the idea that they could "delight" their customers into paying more for the experience.  I feel for these teams and applaud their willingness to be so open with such a painful experience, so let's see if we can learn from it.

As I mentioned in Pay What You Want and the Four Currencies, the simple act of making something free removes the $I cost of not paying.  This is why donationware doesn't work - nobody pays because you gave them permission not to.  By making too much content easily accessible or free, customers feel no obligation to pay.  If you ask for the sale, however, there's a good chance you'll get them to pay, especially if there's a free sample.

Traditional game design has trained us to maximize the value we are giving players for their money, charge them once for it, and call it a day.  F2P requires an entirely new perspective that doesn't focus on delivering all the goodies in one big package.  It seems these developers had a hard time choosing between F2P and traditional design.  So, let's take a quick look at tradition.

The Evolving "Traditional" Model

In the past, video games were sold in retail stores as packaged goods that you bought sight-unseen. Retail is certainly on the decline, but those who use this fact to decry up-front pricing* are attacking a straw man. "Progress" doesn't happen in only one direction, and the traditional model has been evolving right along with the others.

*In fairness to Dan, he's right that charging 99 cents for all of TripleTown would be insane, and I'm largely a fan of his approach to F2P design.  That said, I can think of more than just a few indie developers who use the up-front pricing model without relying on mega-hits to succeed.

Traditioooooon!

We'll use ourselves as an example of the "neo-traditional*" model. With Defender's Quest, we relied on a lengthy, compelling, browser-based demo to drive sales. This allowed us to make good revenue without the benefit of major portals like GOG and Steam, although we were eventually able to attract their attention. We  survived by selling directly from our own site and free Flash portals like Kongregate, where we leveraged their microtransaction engine to sell an online version of the game.

*We seriously need a better name than that.

Furthermore, although the price is up-front, it's by no means "fixed." We started at $6.99 when we launched in January but made so many coupons available that anyone paying attention could nab it for $4.99.  Meanwhile, we handed out free promotional codes left and right.

We eventually raised the price to $14.99 for the gold edition launch but started with a "launch sale" of $9.99 through the first week on Steam.  And as everybody knows, Steam and GOG are fond of periodic sales with deep discounts, and we will be participating in every event they invite us to. Furthermore, we have some crazy plans of our own, so stick around for our one-year anniversary next October 30th.  Because players know that games often go on sale, they can exchange $M for $T by waiting for a price drop.

The ability to sell a game year-round, at variable prices, while keeping the majority of the revenue is a far cry from the old days of having a one-month shelf-life in a retail store and collecting a few percentage points in royalties - if you were lucky. That's the old traditional model, and I'm happy it's dying.

However, the advantage of the new traditional model is that it gets the financial exchange out of the way up front, which lets developers focus solely on game play rather than a string of tiny sales pitches. Furthermore, it avoids fracturing the game's shared cultural experience into low and high-paying tiers.  I realize that the traditional model has the potential for a smaller player base and lost income from "true fans" and whales, but I have some ideas about that and, more importantly, have no doubt that the model will continue to evolve to meet these challenges.

Finally, and I think most importantly, the traditional model and F2P have much to learn from each other. They are points on a spectrum rather than fixed binary alternatives.  The "neo-traditional" model incorporates many aspects of both, but takes it in a different direction than a typical iPhone game or console title for sale at GameStop.

Summing up F2P

F2P brings with it new opportunities, audiences, and markets, but it's not magic. Simply put, instead of front-loading the $M cost, it sprinkles alternative $P and $T costs throughout the experience as inducements to make you pay $M.

F2P pros:

• Raises the ceiling on how much a single player can spend
• Lowers the barrier to entry almost entirely
• Opens up new genres and embraces new audiences

F2P cons:

• Not a good fit for many genres (especially those focused on narrative)
• Injects financial motivations directly into the game
• Annoys players
• Can corrupt the design (c.f. Zynga)
• 
  

Closing Thoughts

Furthermore, those obsessed with growth* as the sole metric of the industry's sector-by-sector health should be slapped with a large, wet trout.  Facebook, mobile, and other once-emerging trends are obviously here to stay, but reports about the traditional industry's decline have been greatly exaggerated, especially because NPD results are grossly misleading.  And contrary to popular wisdom, the explosive growth of mobile has not doomed Nintendo's handheld market, though I can't say the same for the PSVita.

Retail sales of console games do seem to be on the decline, but the slowdown in PC sales should not be taken as an indication that PC software developers are in trouble. For example, eventually you get to the point where everyone who wants a car has one, so although it's harder to sell new ones, more cars are being driven than ever before.  Similarly, sales of new PC's have peaked because they are powerful enough, and, with a little maintenance, a decent rig can last you the better part of a decade. This is bad news for people like Dell who need to push hardware, but for those of us who just make games that run on the dang things, times couldn't be better.

Mobile platforms will eventually reach their saturation point, too, and then the pundits will start shouting that mobile is dead, and eyePhones are the Next Big Thing.

So do yourself a favor; play a great Free2Play game or two. Then play some great traditional games by friendly indie developers. Then slap a pundit with a fish.

*Second side note: the single-minded focus on "growth" is a major fallacy of modern economic thought. See Tim Jackson's Prosperity Without Growth for an alternative viewpoint. 

Watch CNBC and take a shot every time a pundit says "growth."

Tourette's Quest

Ever since we launched Defender's Quest on Steam, GOG, and other fine stores two weeks ago, I've been doing nothing but support and patches. My brain is about to melt and if I don't carve out some time to do something different every once in a while, I'll explode.

So from now on, every Friday is my "do something else" time. My personal "20% time," if you will, to keep my creative muscles from getting burnt out.


So, I'm prototyping a new game idea. Let's talk about it.

I have Tourette's Syndrome, a fun little brain disease that was a major source of pain in my childhood but which I've since learned to deal with.  Although I'm no clinical expert on the syndrome, as a patient I have privileged access to the way the syndrome behaves.  I've often thought it could make a cool idea for a game mechanic.

Relax, relax. I'm still going to keep supporting Defender's Quest and we'll probably start working on either FreeLC or a sequel soon, this is just my new Friday hobby time project ;)

So here it is- a basic game idea based on my experiences with Tourette's Syndrome.

What is Tourette's Syndrome?

Simply put, Tourette's is a neurological disease that makes you do weird stuff against your own will.  These unintentional behaviors are called "tics" and range from simple "nervous tics" to strange, complex, obscene, or even violent physical and verbal outbursts.  There's no cure for TS, and I doubt there will be in my lifetime. Seeing as it's neither lethal nor degenerative, I can live with that.

Most people's experience with the condition is only through the sensationalized portrayal they see in television and movies. "Movie Tourette's," as I like to call it, obsessively focuses on one lurid and fairly rare symptom called coprolalia, or involuntary cursing.  It's a shame the media focuses so much on this one rare thing because it doesn't accurately represent the wide range of symptom "portfolios" that present in the Tourette's population, especially given how rare coprolalia is.

One of the most common Tourette's symptom  is compulsive coughing, which occurs despite any actual physical need to cough (such as allergies, cold, etc).  Other "mild" symptoms include compulsive eye blinking, muscle twitches, and making quick, short noises.  On the extreme physical end of things you have full-body tics, such as punching things, throwing oneself down a flight of stairs, and uncontrollable muscle jerks so severe the patient risks self-injury.  Extreme verbal tics can be just as bizarre - spontaneously bursting into song, rattling off paragraph-length chains of nonsense, and of course, obscenities.

Tics cannot be effectively "suppressed" through force of will alone. At best a patient can delay tics for a while, at the cost of making them worse later.  Beyond the physical challenges in living inside a body that constantly short-circuits, social spaces can be difficult to navigate, because Tourette's Syndrome turns you into a very annoying human being, and there's not always much you can do about it.

I could write a whole book on what it's like to live with the disease, but this is a game design blog, so let's talk about the prototype.

The game design is inspired by Spelunky, FTL, and The Binding of Isaac.  It's a procedurally generated zelda-like dungeon crawler where resource management is key. The central "resource" you have to manage is mental stress and Tourette's symptoms.  Your goal is to make it as far as you can in a dungeon without dying, and each floor unlocks a new Tourette's Symptom.  You start with mild symptoms and progress to more severe ones, all of which are chosen randomly, so over multiple play-throughs the player gets to experience the full range of Tourette's "symptom portfolios."

All sorts of things increase stress. Just walking into a room with more than few npc's or monsters in it is inherently stressful, for instance. This, and all other aspects of the game, are based on my life experiences - for instance, friends have noted that my tics sharply increase whenever there's more than three people in the room. Monsters can attack you, which makes you lose health and/or gain stress.

The more stress you have, the more likely you are to have tics. You usually get a little warning about this - you can see in the above screenshot that the character is about to cough.  He can try to suppress this by holding spacebar until the tic passes, but this will increase his stress level and make future tics more likely. Additionally, the little thought bubble overlay provides a tiny distraction and trying to juggle the knowledge that you're about to have a tic with second-to-second combat decisions is a pretty close analogue to my life, when I'm carrying on a conversation with someone and I just know I'm about to tell them "Your face reminds me of a watermelon carved into a bust of your face*"

*Actual tic. This is one of the milder ones.

Your goal for each floor is to make it to the stairwell at the end of the maze and advance to the next dungeon.  You start each dungeon with a fixed amount of keys**, which are like the "fuel" system in FTL - unlocking a room costs 1 key.  If you gun right for the exit, you'll have plenty of keys left over, which you can cash in for extra hours of sleep, clearing out your stress and giving you a leg up on your symptoms:

If you choose to burn the midnight oil, however, you can explore every nook and cranny of the current floor, and stock up on resources, items, and other useful loot, at the cost of diminished sleep and loads of symptoms to contend with on the next floor. If you run out of keys entirely, you can sacrifice a bomb to just blow the door up, or spend hearts to get through.

**The key mechanic is directly inspired by Christine Miserandino's "Spoon Theory" metaphor, which comes from her personal story about living with Lupus, and is a great way to explain the intangible "resource" costs of these kinds of diseases to outsiders.

The prototype is at a very early stage. There's only one dungeon floor, and the only tic I've implemented so far is coughing. Depending on the severity of your stress, the cough radius will be either small or large. Coughing wakes up sleeping monsters, so it's in your best interest to avoid it whenever possible. If you think your cough will be small, standing in the corner and letting it out is a good strategy because it doesn't increase stress. Otherwise, you might be better of suppressing it just to get you through the current room, as long as you can deal with the extra stress.

Coughing annoys people. Also monsters!

The real challenge in designing this prototype is that I'm modeling a system that takes away control, and a fundamental rule of game design is that you never take away control.

Rules are meant to be broken, of course, but they're there for a reason - if I'm going to yank control away with something as invasive as Tourette's Syndrome, I need to be very careful about how I do that so the player still has enough tools at their disposal so that winning or losing follows from how well they play the game.

What I'm aiming for is a play style where you don't have perfect control over your minute-to-minute actions, so you take that control back on a larger, zoomed-out scale. You have to carefully manage what situations you let yourself get into, think about what risks you want to take, and conserve your physical and mental resources.  Often, you'll have to sacrifice going after something you want if you're not prepared to deal with the symptomatic consequences.  This is exactly how I handle Tourette's symptoms in real life, and I think it could make a cool game.

If you'd like to see more Tourette's quest, then do me a favor and buy a copy of Defender's Quest for yourself or a friend so I can afford to pursue crazy side projects like this one!

Prototype version #0.0.dinky.crap

You can download the current, super terrible prototype right here. 

Update: all prototype versions are listed here:
Version 0.0.0 - November 09, 2012
Version 0.0.1 - November 12, 2012

It's windows only for now and thrown together in Game Maker. You move with the arrow keys, attack with X, and suppress tics with SPACE. If you run out of hearts, you die.

Stress is currently measured in both positive and negative units - so just like in my own life, doing things that make you happy and excited, such as getting loot, actually increase your symptoms. Stress (both positive and negative) goes down whenever you enter a new room, but goes up if there's a lot of monsters in it. Rooms are "labeled" so you can anticipate what's in there before venturing forth, which is key to risk management.  The stress system is likely to go through a lot of iterations before the end.

There's only two monster types right now - goblins and "nostriloks."  Nostriloks increase your stress but are otherwise harmless, and goblins can hurt you, but start off asleep until awoken by an attack or a cough.  The idea behind the nostrils is that the word "Nostrils!" is my most frequent verbal tic. One idea I had is that this could be a magical world where magic is done by incantation - so being a wizard with Tourette's is a severe liability. Every time you have the "Nostrils!" tic you'll say the word and summon a Nostrilok. Normally this isn't a problem, but if you have a lot of stress you could fill up the room with minor enemies and get yourself into a bad situation pretty quickly. This, along with a million other ideas, isn't implemented yet.

You can collect money, but it doesn't do anything just yet, nor can you use bombs, or magic, or anything other than your sword for right now. So, let me know what you think and if you have any feedback. I have no idea where I'm going to take this thing or even if it's going to turn into a full-fledged game or not, but I felt like sharing.

Also, graphics, sound, and visual glitches will intentionally remain terrible throughout the entire prototyping phase. I find whenever I try to polish the assets up I start getting needlessly attached and it interferes with just finding a good central design.

Enjoy.

Steam Launch Date: October 30th

Quick blog post because I haven't done one in a while.

Defender's Quest STEAM launch date:

October 30th, 2012

That's pretty soon. We will also be launching on Desura, Impulse, GamersGate, and GOG.  We will launch at $9.99 USD and equivalent conversions in local currencies. This will be a 33% off sale for the first week, and the final price will be $14.99 USD. 

I am 99.99% sure I have confirmation from Steam that we will be able to give Steam keys to anyone who has purchased the game from our store (www.defendersquest.com). We unfortunately will not be able to deliver Steam keys to our Kongregate customers, but we are 99% sure we will be able to give them a regular, DRM-free, downloadable copy of the game.  This will be identical to the Steam version in every practical respect.

We've also decided to start bundling the soundtrack with every purchase of the game after October 30th. Currently we're selling it as a $2 add-on to the regular game, but if we're going to eventually raise the price we want to give everyone a little more for their money. I haven't decided yet whether we'll retroactively give the soundtrack to everyone who's purchased the game at the lower price so far - I'll talk to Anthony about that. 

For the launch, we are desperately trying to finish a feature that got cut from the 1.0 launch - Azra's Journal. This may or may not make it in for the launch, but will be available as a free update soon.  Another feature we're working on is integrating the Steamworks SDK with the game so we can support things like achievements, which everybody's been asking for. It is possible to integrate the Steamworks SDK with AS3, but it's tricky, so again, this will probably happen eventually, and we want to do it before launch, but we'll just have to see how it goes. 

Also, we are working on a solution for our Linux customers. Adobe AIR is a pain, and it's an even bigger pain on Linux, so we're looking into a way to package all the AIR dependencies up and bundle that with a fancy installer script so that it just auto-magically takes care of everything without anyone having to manually go through this nonsense just to get the game working on Linux.  I'm not sure if that will bear fruit, but I'll let you know.

I think that's all the news. Thanks for playing!

In completely unrelated news, you should all be playing NEO Scavenger because it is awesome!!!!!!

Defender's Quest GOLD launches on Kongregate

The Kongregate version of Defender's Quest GOLD edition is now live.  If you are a registered Kongregate user, we've expanded the demo to give you access through all of Act III and most of Act IV.

The full version includes all the content that we've released in the downloadable version, with the exception of mod support (which won't work in a browser environment). The price has gone up to 110 kreds, but we've more than doubled the content, and anyone who's already bought the game on Kong back when it only cost 50 kreds will get this new update for free :)

A lot of people have asked if they can also get a downloadable copy if they originally bought the game on Kongregate. Previously, we've handed out discount coupons for this sort of thing manually, but that's gotten out of hand. Either we need to find an automated solution, or give up on the idea entirely. Ideally, I'll find an automated solution :)

I'm looking into one possible way that would let people who buy the game on Kongregate gain access to a downloadable copy as well, but I'm still working on it.  No promises for now! I'll keep you guys updated on my progress.

Defender's Quest GOLD launch

Hey everyone! Time for an official blog post announcing the launch of Defender's Quest version 1.0, or "gold" edition. I've finished the deployment, and the new version of the game is live. If you've already bought it, just run the old version of the game to auto-update.  When we said free updates, we meant it!

First, here's our sexy new trailer:

The new version of the game comes with massively improved graphics, courtesy of Tyvon Thomas, Karen Petrasko, and Zhi Jiang.

Here's a thorough list of new features:
-Amazing New Graphics
-New Game+ mode
  (huge update, doubles the game's content)
-7 bonus battle maps,
  (each has a New Game+ variant, so 14 bonus challenges total)
-7 new sidequests, with new story and new battles
-Crazy new enemy types
-New boss battles
-Upgradeable loot with special powers
-Magic books for Azra that change the rules of battle
-2 new music tracks
-New advanced targeting system
-Better auto-update security
-MOD SUPPORT!!!
-Loads of bugfixes
-Tons of balance tweaks

You can read more details here on an earlier post.

The updated version of the game will be coming to Steam/Desura/GamersGate/Impulse, etc, as well as to Kongregate, soon, but for now it's just available for sale on our own site. The game is cross-platform on Mac/Win/Linux, and we have a big free demo here, which you can play right in your browser (and if you prefer, you can get a standalone download version).

You can get the full version here.

The latest version is 1.0.1. This fixes a couple of small bugs that early adopters reported late last night, so this build should be pretty stable. If you have any issues, go to our support page. James will cover customer support while Anthony and I are at PAX this weekend, but I return to work on Tuesday to help answer emails.

Thanks for all your support!

Defender's Quest gold launches today

Hey everyone, a quick heads up - barring unforeseen insanity, Defender's Quest GOLD will launch today!

I wanted to make sure the new version of the game would be public before Anthony and I head to PAX tomorrow.  James will be manning the customer service account while we're gone.

Mac and Linux users, be sure to read the whole post, there's some important notes at the bottom for you.

Here's the basic plan:
-Push the new game binaries to the update server TODAY
-Update the game website and store TODAY
-Update the demos on our website TODAY
-Update the kongregate/newgrounds versions AFTER WE GET BACK
-Update the compatibility mode versions AFTER WE GET BACK
-Launch on Desura/Impulse/GamersGate/Steam SOON BUT EXACT TIME = TBD

Kongregate is by far our biggest audience, and although it might be counter-intuitive at first, that's why we're waiting to update the kong version of the game. This is because that version of the game is the most complicated, and we want to be absolutely sure we get it 100% right. The last thing we want is to update to the new version of the game, only to have people lose their save files, or any other problems. We know the download version is ready, so we can push that out now. We'll do that, catch any issues and fix them, and when everything's ready and we're back from PAX, give kong our full attention.

Also, we're not launching on our various store portals just yet, either, because we need to get special media kits ready for them and we're still signing some paperwork here and there. That will be coming soon.

Finally, we have special "compatibility mode" builds, standalone executables for people who have trouble with Adobe AIR, but these will have to wait until we get back from PAX, as there's some extra fiddling I have to do to get these to work.

I'll follow up with a proper launch post with trailer video and a public newsletter release soon, but this is just a quick public "heads up" so you know what's going on.

I will be turning things on in "reverse order" today, so I start by flipping the switches that affect the least people, so I can catch any errors early and fix them before it hits the biggest audiences.

So, this means I will upload the linux builds first, then the mac builds, then windows.  I'll update the update server first, then update the store binaries, then update the demos, then update the website itself, and if nothing's broken yet, embed the new video trailer and presskit and update the full website.

This will likely take all day. Please pardon our dust as we go through this delicate operation. We have been doing some vigorous testing, but I'm SURE something will go wrong that we won't be able to address immediately - hopefully that will just be small stuff, though. We will put out patches for anything severe as soon as we get back from PAX.

TWO IMPORTANT NOTES:

Mac users:If you have the newest version of Mac OS X (Lion), Apple in their infinite wisdom has put up a scare-screen that implicitly labels all software apple hasn't personally vetted as malware.  We're currently going through the process of being approved by Apple, but they're not done giving us a full anal probe just yet, so you might see a "DONT INSTALL DEFENDERS QUEST OR IT WILL EET YORE COmPY! ZOMG!" screen. Unfortunately, you literally won't be able to install Defender's Quest if you don't change your default security settings. See this page for details.

Linux users:
There is a known issue in the game for dual-monitor setups. If you use the in-game resolution utility to change the fullscreen resolution, it might not correctly revert to your original dual-screen setup when you exit the game. It seems to work well for just one monitor, but you should be aware of this issue. We intend to fix it soon, but it's a quick heads-up. Just run the game in windowed mode, or fullscreen it without changing the resolution. To my knowledge this bug only happens on Linux.

Thanks for your support!

Defender's Quest coming to Steam!

Before I give you guys the big announcement I've been promising, first thing's first - yes, we've heard all about Steam Greenlight, in fact you've all been emailing us pretty much non-stop about it :)

Now for the announcement.

Turns out, we won't be submitting Defender's Quest to greenlight this August, because we just heard back from Steam and their decision has rendered the issue moot.

*Ahem.*

Our review team has taken a look at the information provided, and we would love to offer your game on Steam.  Please provide your full, official company name and mailing address, and we'll get the process started.  Let me know if you have any questions.

(Emphasis mine).

We've actually known for a while now, in fact, we got the email a few days before they announced greenlight, so we have just been holding this back until the contracts were signed making it official.

We're in touch with Steam representatives now, and though we haven't signed the final paperwork just yet someone on our forums did some snooping and outed us already, so we'll just go ahead and make this public now :)

The only real thing that would prevent us from getting on Steam at this point is us deciding we're not happy with their contract terms (and from what others have told me they're supposed to be quite reasonable).

Now that Steam is really happening, I'd like to update everyone on where we're at with Gold Edition.

1. Where are My Updates?

First off - people have been emailing us about the latest updates, wondering if their game updater is broken.

Do not fear!  If you're running version 0.9.01, you have the latest public version of the game. We temporarily halted incremental updates while we were working on Gold version because it involved some major surgery to the guts of the game, and we have to finish sticking all the organs back inside the patient before we can wheel him out of the hospital :) The next update will be gold edition, when we skip ahead to version 1.0.0

Our latest private test build is up to version 0.9.52 - if you want to be a tester, just PM me on our forums.

2. Is Gold Version a Free Update?

We keep getting this question, even though we've answered it a bunch of times in a bunch of places, but I just want to be absolutely clear - YES! Gold Version will absolutely be a free update to all current owners of the game. Free updates means free updates!  :) 

The price will be going up to $9.99, but that's only for new purchasers. So if you want to get in early, now's your chance to buy the game while it's still only $6.99!

3. Will we get Steam Keys? 

We don't know. We'd like to give existing owners of the game a free steam key, but that depends on two things:

1) If Steam will let us - we haven't heard back on this issue just yet.
2) Technical Feasability

To date, nearly 16,000 people have bought Defender's Quest. Our team consists of one full-time worker (me), two part-timers (Anthony and James), a musician (Kevin), and a handful of external contractors.

So, I want to give everyone Steam keys if they'll let us, but I'd have to figure out some way that doesn't involve manually answering thousands of emails. We'll keep you posted.

4. Show me the SEXY NEW ARTS!

Okay, I've been enough of a tease! Let's show you some before/after pics comparing Gold vs. Old.  Art is very near final - only minor tweaks at this point.

First of, let's take a look at the new battle graphics. We have new sprite art for all the characters and enemies, as well as new tiles.  Sprite art comes courtesy of Tyvon Thomas, and the tiles were done by Zhi Jiang.

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All the characters have new animations and everything looks a lot more fluid and lifelike than before. I should really post some video clips.

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As you can see, the overworld's been given a major overhaul. The new Azra sprite was done by Tyvon, and the tile art is all Zhi's work.  Azra is animated now too - her cape and hair blow in the wind while she's standing on the map.  Also, I've done my best to simplify the interface, removing the ugly chrome and just replacing it with black, and toning down the candy-coloredness of the buttons.

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Obviously, the cutscenes have been given a massive overhaul. The amazing Karen Petrasko illustrated all of our new backgrounds, team member James Cavin is responsible for the character art, and I've been handling the new shading/lighting overlays for the characters.  We initially considered redoing all the characters in a completely new style, but given that we have over 200 unique poses (not including mouth open/closed frames), that would have been prohibitively expensive in terms of both time and money.

The town and party interface have gotten new paint jobs, too.

5. Show me the SEXY NEW FEATURES!

Okay, so a while back we made a bunch of flimsy promises about what we're going to offer in Gold edition. I'm proud to say we were able to deliver on most of them, and even throw in a few more!

Here's a quick list:

• New Game+ mode!
• 7 new sidequests!
• Lots of new cutscenes! (for the sidequests)
• 8 bonus battles! 
• 8 magic books for Azra!
• Unique item upgrades, with special powers!
• Re-balanced spells that grow with Azra's level!
• Advanced targeting logic for defenders!
• New enemy types!
• New bosses!
• Mod support!
• Tons of bugfixes!
• Tons of balance tweaks!
• Preview enemy stats before battle!
• Detailed enemy and status effect info in battle!

One feature that didn't make the cut was Azra's journal.  Unfortunately, James injured his writing hand, so we weren't able to get that content ready in time. We'll do our best to release this feature as a free update in the near future, and any journal entries you would have unlocked through play will just appear retroactively.

So, let's talk a little bit about some of these features and how they improve the game experience.

New Battle Stuff

There's a lot of new little things in battles I want to talk about. First of all, when you mouse-over enemies in the battle preview, it will show you what level (or levels) they will appear at in battle, and what their stats and abilities are. Previously, the only information you got was the enemy graphic and level ranges, so it was kind of hard to mentally prepare for a battle. 

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The version on the left is from the old game, and the version on the right is from the New Game+ version of the same battle, which features buffed-up Snake Ghouls that have a 70% chance of dodging physical ranged attacks (like arrows).  

Let's look at some changes in the battles themselves.

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First, we're now using icons for stats instead of text, we've got a new targeting bar with advanced options, and you can now toggle individual skills on and off. 

I changed the color of the recall button to blue so it stands out better against the health meter. I also removed unnecessary words to reduce clutter, etc.

New Targeting Logic

I shrunk the target buttons and replaced words with icons to indicate first/last/strong/weak/fast. There's also tooltips that explain exactly what each one does.  
There's  four new "options" that can be enabled  independently of your main target option - you can have all, some, or none of them active. Finally, there's a save button to make the current settings the default for this character. Very convenient!

The four new targeting options are "cheap", "effect," "chance," and "bulldog mode", respectively.  

CHEAP:  If the current target can be killed outright with a cheaper attack, use that instead of the best one. This lets you avoid overkill.

EFFECT: Optimizes attacks that use status effects. This makes your defender avoid enemies with incompatible effects (don't use fire on ice, etc), as well as enemies that are immune to or strong against your attacks.  Finally, it makes you favor enemies that have the least (amount*time) of your current attack's status effect.  

Example:
Wrenna's logic is "Last+Effect" - she hits the last enemy in range, inflicting chill. Next, she hits the second-to-last enemy (has no chill yet), and inflicts chill. Then the third-to-last, etc, until chill runs out on the original target, which she hits again.

CHANCE: Makes a defender favor enemies with the least chance to dodge or resist their attack.  This takes into account darkness, as well as enemy strengths (more on this later).

Example:
Ketta's logic is "Last+Chance," and she has two lines of enemies in range, a group of vanilla revenant in front, and a group of dark worms behind.  Normally she would target the last dark worm, since her logic is "Last."  However, those have a 75% chance to dodge, so she targets the last vanilla revenant instead.

BULLDOG MODE:  When bulldog mode is on, a defender will stick with their current target until it dies, goes out of range, or the main target priority is switched.  This is for when certain enemies are likely to fall out of your target logic as their health changes or other mobs come into range, and you want to make sure to keep pounding on the same one. 

There's one final option that only appears on boss battles - ignore/don't ignore the boss. This covers the edge case where you want to do something like target the strongest enemy, but NOT the boss.

Stat Icons and Skill Toggling

The old interface was pretty wordy and cramped. Given that I was using obscure abbreviations like "EVA" anyway, I figured I'd move to icons that take up less space and don't visually compete with the actual stats. 

There's tooltips on everything, so you can figure out exactly what each thing means if something's unclear. 

You'll notice on the left that "Whirlwind" is red, indicating that the technique is unlocked and ready to use, but it's been darkened. This is because you can now click on techniques to disable them in case you want to "save" them for later.

Example:

Let's say Slak is about to face a mob of  15 slow-moving Revenant that will all clump up around a corner, but - oh no! - a single fast-moving worm is running ahead! Normally his whirlwind would be wasted on the worm. Instead, you switch off whirlwind and dispatch the worm with his other skills. Then, you wait for just the right moment with the huge mob, switch it back on, and take them all out.

This kind of micro-management shouldn't be necessary for most of the game, but I figure it's best to give people too much control rather than too little. Besides, some of the really nasty revenant in New Game+ have crazy new abilities that might need this kind of fine-tuned response.

Which brings me to...

New Enemy Abilities

Designing a whole new set of battles for NG+ would be an insane task - we'd basically be making a whole new game. However, it'd be a major letdown to just have higher-level monsters. So instead, we came up with special NG+ only variants of the old enemies that replace them in the new missions. 

So, everywhere you see a Snake Ghoul in the old game, you'll see a Snake Ghoul+ in NG+, etc. Not only do these enemies have pumped up stats, they also have new abilities. 

This is the new enemy panel. This shows the enemy's basic stats (speed, attack power, range, how much damage they'll do to Azra), as well as any special abilities - such as number of strengths (the bicep) and enemies spawned (the egg).

Mousing over the bicep explains what the specific strengths are, and mousing over the egg reveals what kinds of enemies are spawned.  The status panel to the right shows active status effects, and mousing over these shows the effect and remaining duration of each.

This Blood-Mad Revenant+ only has a few of the new abilities on offer, so let's take a look at the full range:

• Regeneration - enemy regains health over time
• Strength (resist) - enemy takes less damage against certain attack types
• Strength (evade) - enemy has a chance to dodge certain attack types
• Strength (immune) - enemy ignores certain status effects
• Porcupine - enemy deals damage to attacker when hit with melee
• Phasing - enemy phases in and out of existence, and is impossible to target when phased out
• Healer - enemy can heal other enemies
• Russian doll - spawns an enemy that spawns a different enemy that spawns a different enemy, etc...
• Spells - Zelemir and the final boss have always had spells, but now you can see what they are!

These all appear in various different combinations. For instance, most of the NG+ water enemies are immune to fire, most armored enemies are immune to cold, most attacking enemies have phasing, most vanilla revenant regenerate, and most fast enemies have a high dodge rate vs. physical ranged attacks (arrows, basically).  This is designed to mix up your strategies and force you to rely on different kinds of defenders in each battle.  Furthermore, most sidequests restrict which classes can participate, mixing things up even more. 

Of course, it'd suck if only the enemies got new powers.  Although there aren't any new skills or abilities for defenders, we've made a huge improvement to the equipment system.

Equipment Upgrades

First of all, all the store shelves in NG+ are stocked with new equipment to spend your hard-earned scrap on.  These items are basically "enchanted" versions of the generic stuff from the normal game, so an enchanted metal shiv - thanks to the power of magic! - is more powerful (and expensive) than an iron sword from the regular game.  

More importantly, all your unique items are getting a new lease on life.  Remember how you couldn't sell any of your uniques, even after they became totally obsolete? That's because in NG+, you can find some friendly hermits to transform them into amazing super-weapons.

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NG+ battles will not give equipment as rewards, instead they will give skulls. These come in three varieties - stone, bronze, and obsidian. When you visit a hermit, you can trade in your skulls to upgrade an existing item - the above example shows swords. This always upgrades the item's stat bonus, but can also have additional effects.

For weapons:

1. Adds % stat bonus, so it "grows" with you. This can be attack/defense or any other stat.
2. Adds a new attack flavor (like burn, knockback, poison, etc).
3. Improves an existing attack flavor (2x chance of criticals, poison does 1.5x damage, etc)
4. Special bonus against a certain enemy type (2x damage vs worms, deals poison to spitters, etc)

For armor:

1. Adds % stat bonus
2. Resist vs. damage flavor (ex: 50% physical resist)
3. Dodge vs. damage flavor (ex:  25% chance to dodge ranged) 
4. Save vs. damage flavor (ex:  If HP > 5%, a fatal melee blow just reduces you to 1 HP)
5. Porcupine - deal damage and/or status effect to melee attacker

Since the only way to get the super items is to earn them from the normal game and then collect skulls from the NG+ challenges, this encourages you to go back and try every challenge in both game modes. Your party data is shared between the two games, so whatever you achieve in one is automatically carried over to the other. Think of it as one party that can visit two different "game worlds" - that of the original game, and the new-game+ one.

Bonus Missions

Finally, when you're done with all that, there's the new bonus missions. Most of these will be large, "epic" battles with something like 100 waves each, but a few will be "endless" modes.  The current plan is to include one endless mode without attacking enemies, and one with. 

Bonus Missions are now unlocked as soon as you've met the smallest star requirement, regardless of whether you've beaten the game.  Furthermore, there's one set of bonus missions for both Normal and NG+ modes, and it counts stars from both games, so you'll have to go for 100% completion if you want to try the hardest missions. 

Bonus missions will grant large XP rewards, as well as books. We've currently got over a dozen books that we're happy with in the game that change Azra's spells and the rules of battle. 

Mod Support

Finally, I'm pleased to announce that Defender's Quest gold will ship with rudimentary mod support. Now, this is only for people who aren't scared of XML and diving into my questionably designed data formats. If you're one of the many who have been routinely hacking your save files, then welcome aboard :)

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The way mod support works, is that you can export data from the game, change it, and then load it in as a mod. The game will then use your supplied data instead of the default stuff.  If you don't supply your own version of a file, it reverts to the default one.  So if you just change data files, it uses the default graphics. If you just change graphics, it uses the default data. Etc. 

This means you can do everything from simple data tweaks to enemies and defenders, to full-fledged "total conversions" with new art, new story, new overworld, and even new enemy types, character classes, and skills.  Anything we define through data (which is pretty much everything) you can change, too.  The only thing you can't do is add new fundamental logic to the engine, but we'll be in close touch with the mod community to add support for new things if we can.

Mod Support right now is still a bit buggy and I need to crank out some documentation for it, but for those of you who are brave enough, it should afford a lot of flexibility and creativity right out of the gate. There's also no tools (other than text editors and photoshop) to work with, and there's not a lot of useful error checking for bad data, so early modders are likely to break things in strange and beautiful ways without much feedback as to why. That's something I'll be working on post gold release.

I'll do my best to keep from breaking compatibility with old mods moving forward and try to continuously improve the experience. I can't WAIT to integrate Defender's Quest mod support with Steam Workshop. I'll be talking to the Steam techs about whether or not we can make that happen.

Summing Up

So, that's everything that's new in gold edition, I think. It's been a wild ride, and we are so grateful for all of your support.  There's loads of new content in gold edition, and hopefully mod support should give the game a lifespan long past just going for 100% completion.  I look forward to seeing what you all come up with :)

I suppose there's one last question - when's it coming out?

The answer is "very soon."  Right now the build is stable and we're just going through the final rounds of testing and balancing.  We could probably ship this Friday if someone put a gun to my head.  As I said before, we're still talking with Steam, so it'll probably be a while before that's ready.  More than likely, we'll ship gold edition on our own website (and push the update to existing players) and the other digital distribution portals (Desura, GamersGate, Impulse, etc) in the next week or so, and the game will be released on Steam some undetermined time after that.  I don't know how long it will take to get set up with all our partners, either, but my impression so far is that they've just been waiting on us at this point.

As soon as 1.0 goes out the door we will start working on 1.1 features, chiefly the journal. Depending on how things go, 1.1 might be the version that ships on Steam.