Author Topic: Updates from the Forge 20: December 2017  (Read 2254 times)

Jubal

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Updates from the Forge 20: December 2017
« on: December 31, 2017, 12:17:03 PM »
Issue 20: December 2017

EDITORIAL

It's the end of another year, and our twentieth issue, and Updates from the Forge continues to have plenty of great stuff to showcase. We've just finished our Imperators of the Undergrowth competition and seen progress on many fantastic projects, and we've had a continuing stream of great articles. Special congratulations also go to Silverspook for his game Neofeud reaching one of the top three point and click adventures in the IndieDB game of the year contest!

In staff news, we've welcomed Lizard back to staff as our new Technikos (chief tech officer), which is a welcome addition to our core Exilian team. We've got an election going on and some changes to how Exilian is being run in the pipeline, and we'll update you on those as they happen - Exilian is democratically run & staffed by its voting members, and we're happy to accept applications for voting membership from anyone who's part of the site, so please let us know if that's of interest. One particularly special thing to flag up for the coming months alongside everything else is that on March 18, Exilian will be TEN YEARS OLD, which is a fantastic achievement for a small web community like ours. We'll be announcing what we're doing for the event closer to the time, but please get in touch if you have any specific ideas for things you'd like to see from us!

That's all the general news - onto the showcase, where we close the year out with a final five great projects for you to jump into, discover more about and take a look at, ranging across all sorts of creative geeky arts...

CONTENTS:

  • Blades, Bombs, and Bigosaur: more from Son of a Witch!
  • A Whovian Update: it's LIFE and Death!
  • The Economics of Epicinium!
  • Exilian Poetry: Verses and Memories
  • Cogito Colonisation Continues


Blades, Bombs, and Bigosaur: more from Son of a Witch!


Ur'talsh the Ice Mage realised he should've known there was something up when his health insurance only covered dentistry...

There have been some great new additions to Bigosaur's Son of a Witch, including a huge expansion in the range of weapons and bonus items throughout the game. Chain-reacting bombs, protection from missile attacks, powerful cursed swords, new multishot bows, and more are now available. Not only that, but as you can see above, you can now literally RIDE DRAGONS into battle, which as everybody who's ever ridden a dragon can confirm is pretty much the best thing ever.




A Whovian Update: it's LIFE and Death!


Jubal has been working on some more updates for the Doctor Who fan-game LIFE, with hopes of a public release in the first quarter of 2018. Recent improvements include a tutorial level to help new players learn & play the game, where Commander Blue will guide you through the basic steps of a text adventure and help you escape from a spaceship (along with a helpful robot). There's also an optional "invasion mode" being added where you'll need to complete the game within a certain number of turns, and many minor smoothing updates to general gameplay to make key plot moments easier to navigate for the player. There's still beta testing actively going on, so please do jump in if you're interested!



The Economics of Epicinium


If I've got twenty acres, and you've got forty-three...

The Epicinium team have reworked the economic rules of the game, adding new features including farms which can significantly boost your income but at the expense of endgame points. This also brings the humidity and temperature rules more closely into focus, as the crops require particular conditions to grow effectively and maximise their potential use. Newly expanded & clearer hygrometer and temperature visuals make it easier to work out what's going on and take account of the environmental conditions, a key part of any path to victory in this turn-based strategy game. Other changes include easier capturing of areas, and rubble being left after buildings get destroyed, which it is hoped will make the game faster and more tactical.



Exilian Poetry: Verses and Memories

As well as game development of many sorts, Exilian also supports creative writing by hobbyists and independent authors. Our megadux, Jubal, has recently been adding to our poetry section, including this verse from a tribute poem for Carrie Fisher, who died around a year ago and whose last film was of couse recently released:

Quote
Remember not with silence
Those who taught you to sing,
Remember not with weeping those who hope could always bring,
And somewhere in the stardust,
In moonlight there may lie,
A soul whose hope still fires us up to fly.

Everyone's welcome to visit, read, and post stories and poems for discussion and feedback in our writing section. Whether you're an author, or just getting started and want to improve your skills, it's a great place to post pieces and get feedback on your writing style. Head over to the Storytellers' Hall and check it out if you're interested, or if you just want to read our awesome archive of stories and poems!



Cogito Colonisation Continues

Thalanor's great "Cogito Colony", a cyberpunk sidescroller, is continuing to take shape. It's not just looking better, either  - it's sounding amazing, including this recently updated version of the main theme music, "Ego Cogito", which promises high drama for the game as a whole... have a listen:



On the visual side, recent gameplay shots released (and which you can find via the link below) include improved room transitions and stress-testing of the engine for those massed epic battle moments. All in all, the colony is taking shape, and shaping up to be just the sort of creepy cyberpunk dystopia that every gamer wants to head to for the holidays! Game creator Thalanor is often around and happy to chat, so do check out his thread on the forum.




That's the last of our updates for 2017 - it's been a heck of a year, with twelve issues of this newsletter covering games, art, monsters, myths, insects, images, puzzles, poems, and more. A special final thanks to every creator we've featured over the last 52 weeks; it's always a pleasure working with all of you and sharing your work. With that, farewell, dear readers - and see you in 2018 for the next issue of Updates from the Forge!
The duke, the wanderer, the philosopher, the mariner, the warrior, the strategist, the storyteller, the wizard, the wayfarer...