2012-12-12 15:24:13

The following is an expanded version of the announcement Draconis has posted to their website with additional details.
Please keep in mind that we will not be going into great depth about unannounced future titles, as has always been our policy.

It has been a long time coming, but the dragon has awakened at last. Pull up a chair, and we'll fill you in on what we've been doing.

Draconis Entertainment has spent the last few years working on a next-generation game engine for audio gaming. We had several key goals in mind as we began working on this project.

* We wanted to future-proof our games. A game engine that could easily be maintained and kept current in-line with modern operating systems, eliminating the problems of incompatible or out-of-date dependencies was essential.
* We wanted cross-platform compatibility. We are Mac users ourselves, and only supporting Windows was no longer satisfactory. Our new game engine will work on Mac OS X, Windows, and iOS devices.
* We wanted a game engine so flexible that it would support any kind of game-style we chose to throw at it, and to build all future releases on top of the same core.
* We wanted to bring our prices down. If the game engine really was as capable as we designed it to be, this would mean more rapid development once the core of the engine was complete.

The enormity of this undertaking cannot be understated. The game engine will be continually enhanced and expanded as we release more and more titles. You will see our games grow in size and complexity with each release as we push the limits of what the engine is capable of.

To put this into perspective, the game engine itself, not counting any game specific code, currently spans over 130,000 lines of code.

The game engine has been under active testing by an incredible group of beta testers for the last two years, to whom we are enormously grateful. We could not have done this without them. Thank you all!

Looking ahead..

Our plan going forward is to begin releasing both new titles as well as expanded versions of old ones that have been rewritten from the ground up for the next-generation Draconis game engine.. As our focus has been on perfecting the engine, the first couple of titles will be new versions of some of our classic games with tons of new features, new audio, new modes of play, and so on. All-new titles will be coming very soon thereafter, with more classic titles staggered between new releases.

In general, we expect desktop titles to be released first for Mac OS X, followed soon after by Windows versions. Mobile games for iOS are also in development, as well as special mobile versions of games that have been traditionally meant for desktops.

Our desktop game development has been broken into two distinct fazes. Initial game design and development is now being done on Mac OS X with the primary coders and a team of beta testers, while a separate coder and set of Windows testers will work on the Windows release as the game's initial design and development wraps up.

It is with great excitement, that we are pleased to announce the immediate availability of our first Mac OS X title, which is expected to be available for Windows in the first quarter of 2013 as well.

ChangeReaction, Draconis Entertainment's classic audio puzzle game for the blind and visually impaired comes to OS X with new audio, three entirely different modes of game play, a host of new features, and a cheaper price tag!

Primarily intended for blind and visually impaired gamers, ChangeReaction is played via the keyboard and your ears. Navigate the game board with the arrow keys, dropping coins on the stacks to create chains of explosions and rack up higher and higher scores! Match three coins of the same denomination vertically or horizontally to trigger a chain reaction that blows up all adjacent coins of the same value! This game has no visual element. Use your fingers, ears, and wits to rack up the highest scores possible!

* Choose from three distinctly different variations of game play.
* All modes support three difficulty levels.
* In ChangeReaction Classic, clear the board of all coins before time runs out!
* In LooseChange, clearing the board just got a whole lot more difficult! Bombs explode on coin stacks and scatter their contents across the board for added challenge!
* In PayDay, try to keep the board from being cleared against all odds, and rack up overtime by clearing positions on the board which represent the hours of the work week.
* Bonus rounds provide a chance to rack up even higher scores!
* ChangeReaction 2.0 has been rewritten from the ground up using the next-generation Draconis game engine.
* Exciting new sounds and music.
* Audio hints to help newcomers navigate the game menus with their ears.
* In app instructions and keyboard reference.

ChangeReaction is available in the Mac App store for $9.99 USD. Anyone who purchases a copy of the legacy Windows version on or after 12/December/2012 will be eligible for a free upgrade to ChangeReaction 2.0 for Windows when it is released, expected to be in the first quarter of 2013. The Windows version will also be available for $9.99 USD. (Prices may vary for your country, based on current exchange rates.)

The direct link to ChangeReaction in the Mac App Store is:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/changer … 6731?mt=12

Thank you all for your patience and support. We look forward to a very bright future ahead.

2012-12-12 16:51:07

If this game runs under Mac, and Mac is based on Linux, then a logical guess would be that Linux fol can gain access to these games?

2012-12-12 17:01:35

Hi,
Oh my gosh, how did they get approval from apple! this is absalutely brilliant!

2012-12-12 18:54:09

Hi.
I am so excited. I'm looking so much forward to next year, which I'm sure is going to be the big gaming year for the blind community. Thanks much for this news.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2012-12-12 19:08:13

I was wondering if they were a done deal, or if they were going to resurface. It looks like we're back in business, with many games to come!

2012-12-13 03:44:17

King Gamer, Mac OS is not built on Linux. Mac OS is a variant of BSD, Berkley Software Distribution, which is a commercial version of Unix developed by Berkley. Linux on the other hand is a free and open source clone of Unix developed by volunteers and contributors around the world, and because the software is licensed under the GPL and LGPL licenses the source code can't be used by a commercial company such as Apple.

While Mac Os and Linux do share many similarities they are definitely not the same OS. There is still quite a bit of work that would have to be done in order to port a game like Change Reaction from Mac OS to Linux since each operating system has things specific to it that aren't 100% compatible with the other one.

Sincerely,
Thomas Ward
USA Games Interactive
http://www.usagamesinteractive.com

2012-12-13 11:29:47 (edited by aaron 2012-12-13 11:32:15)

Hi,
I'm still half surprised, yet can also understand, that Draconis don't seem to be on the audiogames forum. On one hand it's cool because we can communicate with the devs, but on the other hand, for them, it's another website to keep checking. Tom, I know it took you a while before you came here, and am just wondering what your stance is on this.

2012-12-13 12:27:44

Draconis should indeed be on this forum. I'll recommend that to Josh. smile

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2012-12-13 13:30:45

I contacted Josh with the direct link to this topic.
I think he is registered but probably does not check out the thousands of topics generated each year.
Any new traffic to the Draconis site does help me as I sell two games I've worked on from his site.

2012-12-13 15:02:48

ya! its very good. I can't wait the future game that draconis entertainment release!

2012-12-14 14:47:23

Thanks all for the support. We've been working very hard for a long time, and the warm reception we have received has been amazing. There is a lot of great stuff to come. Though the Chinese might agree, perhaps 2013 will be the year of the dragon.

Your support makes it possible for us to keep doing what we do. Thank you.

The dragon awakens...

2012-12-28 02:08:43

First, congratulations on finally bringing an audio game to the mac! I'm very excited to see what else comes of this.

Second, is there a free trial, or at least a walkthrough, available so perspective buyers can see (well, hear) what we are getting? From the description I can't tell if this is something I'd be interested in or if I'd be better served by waiting for more titles to be ported.

Third, do you have commercial plans for this engine? I doubt I'm alone when I say that having a way to make mac audio games would be wonderful. I've toyed with the idea of a CoreAudio wrapper for a while, but I don't know enough objective-c to make that a very likely prospect. Thanks.

2012-12-29 02:02:14

Hi,

There is an audio trailer available on our site. You can find it in our initial news post about the release, or from this link directly:
http://dracoent.com/audio/trailers/CRTrailer.mp3

We do not have plans to license our engine at this time.

Thanks for the support!

The dragon awakens...