This is exciting!
I enjoyed there games and always wanted to play Intercepter, but it needed online money, something I didn't have.

Hi,

Jeremy here.

We are currently in beta testing for Expanding Known Space.  This will be a strategy game set during the First Interstellar Wars period of our  Valiant Galaxy timeline.  The game uses a grid system similar to TKS, but is greatly expanded.  There's 40 planets on the map, and the game can be won in a number of ways on normal mode.  The most common ways will be a military victory wehre you eliminate all enemy planets and/or ships, a colonization victory where you colonize 60% or more of the galaxy, an economic victory where you control 60% or more of the galactic economy, or a capital control victory where you seize the enemy's capital.  Each condition must be completed for four turns of game time which equals a year of game play. 

There's six types of ships, intelligence gathering, and other things to make game play interesting. 

The game does not use a civilization style build a unit and wait for it to complete methodology like Time of Conflict or Sound RTS, but uses a purchase units to replace units expended in the current round model.  First there is a purchase phase, then a movement phase, a combat phase, then a placement phase. 

The game is probably going to be released in the summer.  We have a few major additions to make, and these will have to be tested. 

Price will probably be 19.99 and will be through Guidedog Games like our other titles. 

So far, the beta test team has liked it, and I'm enjoying testing it a lot.  This was actually our second game that went into development after Interceptor, but it got put on the back burner for a while.  Once we finished this, we have a couple of mini games in the offing which will depart from a strictly SF format.  Then we'll have to see.  The Traders of Known Space expansion is in process, but its very very complex.  We really like the interaction between map and menu drivien game play that we have with Expanding Known Space, and we've talked about possibly making an Interceptor expansion that would use some of the same ideas to take interceptor into a more dynamic and more difficult arena. 

I'll try and check this thread periodically to answer questions.

Jeremy

Sounds awesome, I always thought there was more in the format both in terms of what was done with yellow bonnet and traders of known space, and I've always wanted a single player space colonisation game myself.

While I do agree it would've been nice if other developers used the guidedog client as a distribution system, the fact that I was able to install all three vga titles with no hassle whatsoever, despite having changed my primary screen reader, operating system, computer, house, county and marital status since the last time I played them was definitely a bonus, and since my login details were remembered from game to game hitting alt l on the client window isn't such a trial, though of course that might not be the case if I was out with my laptop and wifi wasn't available.

In terms of self voicing, on the one hand I like that the VGA games do something different and its nice not to listen to Daniel etc, on the other hand, you might consider changing the quality and style of the voicing since some matters sounded a wee bit unclear, though I'm not going to quibble too much over this as  know how much work goes into adding voicing for a game (though if you wanted either myself or the now Mrs. Dark, who has worked as a professional actress to help with voicing we'd be glad to).

In terms of difficulty, I wouldn't say the games are too easy so much as they need a few more variable elements to change a player's actions. In traders the player is doing the same thing with 100 cargo space as with five, and having extra guns etc don't really make as much difference, while in interceptor only really the rockets and computer assisted neutrino cannon make sense to use, especially with how you can instantly close with an enemy ship.
Again though, none of these are major issues and just require a bit of rebalancing, for example changing the ap needed for commputer assisted shots or the max distance its possible to travel between ships, and maybe upping particle beam damage a bit, plus adding in more ship types, missions and different circumstances which require use of different tactics, EG enemies equipped with scramblers which make computer assisted shots impossible, or fights in different parts of space with different consequences (I always remember the fight in smugglers five hwere I took on a corvette class battleship in a region of electromagnetic instability, and won by negating their ability to withstand the emp's whilst dodging them myself and firing off the odd missile which they were unable to avoid).

All of this is just basic balancing though and matters we went into at the time, and is another reason I've loved the idea of extensions to the existing games and systems, actually as I said, I( was surprised how much fun interceptor was when I came back to it, and I'll probably be giving yellow bonnet and Tks another try in the next few days too.

Thanks for the words of encouragement.  As to the self-voicing and the GDG usage, that's been covered in other places, and I don't think addressing it here will really add a lot.

As to making the games more difficult.  Interceptor was a first game, and was, essentially, a port of a game I designed in high school.  As it stood, it had major flaws, but it was enough different from other offerings that we went ahead with it on the understanding that at some point we'd revisit it and change how it works.  Right now, the idea with it is to do something more in terms of missions, multiple fighter engagements at one time, and more tactical use of space.

TKS was never meant to be a huge or complex game either.  It was a free release meant to give a different view of the VGA universe.  It got a lot more feedback in that respect than either of us really expected.  Hence, why we're looking at expanding it.

Yellowbonnet was always meant as a mini game and thus fairly small scale.

Expanding Known Space is a much larger project.  We've been working on it off and on for 5 years, and it has a lot of customizable variables that make it less predictable.  It's not where I would like it in terms of the computer player's abilities on normal settings, but I like strategy games and play them often.  We're not going to strengthen this mode much more than it is now, as I find it fairly easy, but some of our beta test team had a lot of trouble with it.  I think it's a good balance currently.

However, that said, options are being added to give the computer a distinct advantage and make it a more difficult game in a number of ways. 

I don't want to project too much because ideas get changed as design notes come into contact with coding issues, but I am wanting to have several victory conditions or mission states that are more difficult.  Things such as games that last only a certain number of turns and require you to accomplish certain goals in that amount of time, or giving the computer a numerical and economic edge over the player.  I don't know how much of that will make it into the final product. 

When we do interceptor's expansion, I might come back to tapping the audio games.net community for voice acting abilities.  One thing I always wanted to add to the original game was radio chatter from other interceptors in the squadron as well as messages from the mother ship, as well as interception of alien messages.

Rerecording the entire voice over script would be a time consuming project.  I believe that it is currently close to 600 files at the moment if you include all games, and that could be fairly tedious. 

One last comment in response to Defender about GDG.  I don't think saying that GDG is dead in the water is necessarily true.  First and foremost, we are still helping Dennis to develop the client and make the platform better.  It is a work in progress, and since Dennis is working full time, programming for Stellar Aeon and Alter Aeon, and then occasionally working on GDG, it isn't a fast fix for issues.  However, that said, the system works well for what we wanted, and what he originally envisioned.  I think it's sad more developers haven't taken it on as a possibility, but I understand the reasons.  The big advantage to GDG over some other developer's systems of distributing games and keys though, and Dark touched on  this, is that Dennis keeps executables of the games we make so that they will still be available even if we go bye bye.  In that way, he's doing something similar to what John has done with the audio games archive.  However, since GDG is a living system, I think that does provide one advantage that developers might reconsider.  If a game might earn a little residual income years down the road, that might be another inducement.  I don't know how many times I've seen people ask here, or on Audyssey, for contact information or where to download a game, or access a commercial game that used keys, once the developers have disappeared. 

Thanks again for all the interest and the critiques.  Games do not develop without good feedback systems.  We appreciate it. 

Jeremy

@vga... will your games like interceptor and TKS be completely playable offline once you restructure them?