It’s no secret that I wasn’t the biggest fan of Arcen Games‘ procedurally generated platform-RPG A Valley Without Wind. While I could go into great detail as to what gameplay elements I had issues with, my main problem was the same as most other reviewers; the game was not pleasant to look at. Being unable to hire a dedicated artist at the time, Arcen Games effectively made the game out of 3D modelling clip-art and photoshop filters. To this day, it’s the only game – 2D, 3D or otherwise – to give me motion sickness.

Still, they’re a very reactive studio. They kept working on AI War until it was a shockingly good and original piece of RTS design, where it was previously rather lackluster. With AVWW, they’ve decided to try to fund a graphical redesign of the game via Kickstarter, and are auditioning a range of different artists or art-teams to see which would be the best for the job. The results so far are very heartening. The top image above is an environmental mock-up from ‘Studio G’. Beneath that, some character concept art from ‘Studio H’. To ensure fairness, they’ve keeping the contributors anonymous for now. You can see more art from the various teams over on this official forum thread, in particular pages 18 and onwards.

In other, related news, a major update has rolled out for the game. Version 1.2 brings another wave of major tweaks and changes to the core gameplay, including the first phases of re-implementing the strategic city-building elements that seemed to interesting during the Alpha/Beta phases of development, but were cut out late in development. While I’m still not a fan of the game, there’s potential here for greatness. It’ll be interesting seeing how it develops over the coming months.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘A Valley Without Wind’ Art-Auditions Bear Fruit. Also, Updates

Let me get this out of the way right now: previewing A Valley Without Wind was difficult. Not for any negative reasons, mind you, but simply because accurately describing the game within a reasonable amount of words was a very daunting task. While the game mirrors some high level genres (like the platforming genre, for instance) the over all game itself is whole heartedly unique. I’ve also not been able to fully explore the title in all its grandness. As such think of this as merely “part 1″ in a series of beta previews I plan on doing as I play the game more.

A Valley Without Wind is based around a world called Environ which was destroyed by an unknown cataclysm with only small mini-civilizations left in the aftermath. Essentially you’re playing in a world that’s very rudimentary in technology and civilization scale, but where burned out and destroyed husks of towering buildings from the civilization prior.

You start out the game by selecting one of a few different characters with varying looks and minor attribute changes. Some have more health, some have more magic points, etc. Really it all depends on your style of play. I ended up choosing a more magic based class because I typically prefer to do high amounts of damage very fast rather than worrying about survival.

After a brief tutorial the game just sort of sets you loose. No real direction, or quests other than to get experience, find better books to learn spells, and scout for ingredients to make said spells. Sounds simple right? That’s what I thought…

What ultimately makes the game so unique and complicated is a few things:

First, the entire game is procedurally generated similar to Minecraft but obviously in a completely different sort of gameplay. I only use the comparison because “procedurally generated” and Minecraft seem to be synonymous at this point. But what this ultimately means is that each time you start up a new world there will be different places to explore, different dungeons to loot, etc. No two games will ever be alike.

Second, while the game does have a crafting system it isn’t for buildings or structures as with a game like Terraria (which also happens to be a side scrolling patformer) but for spells. Throw in a raw saphirre and a walnut, for example, and you can create a spell called Tidal Pulse which does exactly what you sound like. Exploring caves, dwellings and going after bosses around the world will lend you better ingredients and books which will allow you to craft bigger and better spells. Oh and the spells are pretty freaking awesome…

Finally there’s the whole civilization expansion and building aspect of the game. As if the game couldn’t already be enough, Arcen Games decided to take on an almost strategic type level to the game where you’re charged with scouting out potential resources and defending your village from invaders. This is all done in an overhead world map that’s turn based. Incredibly, it all works! Despite being a departure from what you’d expect out of the game upon first jumping in, the turn based strategic part of it works incredibly well and brings a whole new level of depth to an already deep game.

So now you can kind of understand what I was getting at with my first paragraph. It’s almost left me guffawed at the thought of previewing, let alone reviewing, the title.

But really, at the heart of what A Valley Without Wind is about, at least for me, is exploration and it does it phenomenally. There is so much to do and see in this game that I’d be surprised if 100 hours allowed you to explore even half of it and I’m quite uncertain on just how large the map is itself. All I can tell you is that I’ve spent about an hour on each individual tile exploring all the buildings and killing whatever bosses lie within.

That’s not to say the game is perfect. In fact, I can definitely see how the title could scare away more than a few gamers just by being too much and too complicated. There’s a lot to learn about the game within the first few minutes you start it up. But those who have the patience can expect one incredibly deep journey.

A Valley Without Wind is currently in public beta which you can be apart of if you pre-order the title. The full version isn’t expected to be released until Q1 2012.

This preview is just a glimpse at a small fraction of the game which I’ll continue playing on a regular basis and bringing updated previews as I explore more of the game. Think of this preview as more of an introduction to what awaits.

[A Valley Without Wind]

Arcen Games’, developers of the fantastic A.I. War, next “big thing” hits public beta this morning. I am, of course, talking about the very unique adventure platformer (for lack of a better description) A Valley Without Wind. Those of you who have pre-ordered the game will start access within a matter of hours.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, or have never heard of A Valley Without Wind allow me to blow your mind…

Essentially what Arcen Games has created here is a procedurally generated platformer with a world map to explore. It’s essentially the platformer to end all platformers. Here’s the official description:

Environ has been shattered in the wake of an unknown cataclysm, with only small pockets of humanity left in its wake… What will you do in this strange new world?

The creators of AI War bring you a procedurally-generated 2D side-scrolling adventure of limitless proportions. Survive and explore a vast persistent world filled with dangerous creatures, powerful magic, and ancient technology. Do so while helping other survivors establish settlements, gathering resources to craft, fending off evil invaders, and more.

And feature set!

• Explore the beautiful and dangerous regions of Environ in a sprawling adventure. Travel through lush countryside, ruined towns, deep subterranean caves, and buildings of all shapes and sizes.
• Procedural-generation ensures no two worlds will ever be the same. Your planet unfolds as you discover it, and once you’ve discovered something it becomes part of your Environ for good.
• Take command of survivor settlements. Scout surrounding areas for rare crafting materials and fend off invaders in the turn-based strategic overlay. Improve resident productivity and quality of life through the city-building interface at each settlement.
• Bring to life an infinite amount of characters, settings and stories. You don’t just represent an individual, you represent an entire civilization and its indomitable will to survive in a shattered world.
• Everywhere has treasures to discover, people to help, and evils to confront. Craft a variety of spells, scrolls, and traps to help you on your way.
• During beta, there are new updates nearly every weekday — packed with additional content, improvements, and much more.

As stated the game is still in beta, but interested parties can play it today if they pre-order it for $9.99 (50% off!). Coming from somebody who was playing it quite a bit last night, I can tell you it’s definitely worth the money. I’ve not played a more unique platformer since the original Metroid came out.

The game’s final release isn’t due until Q1 2012. I’ll have an in depth preview later this week.

[Arcen Games]

Trailer

Arcen Games‘ A Valley Without Wind is looking positively heavy on the exploration side in its latest developer video. With 29 weeks into development, the team has gone under shifts in gameplay perspectives, from overhead to sidescrolling, and now has completely new models.

The dev log shows off some metroidvania action: a deep dungeon-esque Ice Age building and equally deep caves.  While some areas may look insurmountable, Arcen has given the playable character a way to create platforms at will. I don’t think pits will be a problem, in case you loathe such things.

The video highlights new heat and snowsuit armors and includes details on different time periods. Arcen encourages users to watch A Valley Without Wind on 1080p to see the level of detail. Also, for those that want some overhead dungeon crawling, it looks like Arcen has met your needs, as well (check the 5:00 mark).

A Valley Without Wind is still on target for a playable beta release for PC and Mac in September, with instant access to those who pre-order the official version coming later this year. We’ll let you know when that beta becomes available.

The team aims for a summer Beta release for A Valley Without Wind and an official release in October 2011. For the sake of progress, I wanted to compare the first and latest alpha build videos. I really like the watercolor painting effects here, but I think the retro audio doesn’t quite fit the visual theme in the team’s first video.

Now check out the changes the team has made in the past few months. The audio seems to have been slightly improved in the most recent video. However, the graphics have changed, and a lot of gameplay has been implemented. Enemies, battles, maps, and user interface are shown. The main sprites still need a little finessing to fit well with the background for me, unless the idea from the developers is to present a visual representation of a contrast of eras. There was an ice-age, after all. Check out the new trailer:

The end of this new trailer seems ironic. For a valley “without wind,”  there sure is a lot of windy noise! Those five seconds are surely worth a good Q&A. Visually, I suppose the characters seem to fit more with other objects on screen. The cars from the first trailer were abstract/watercolor, but now look more defined like the playable character. Regarding the music, the more I listen to it in the latter trailer, the more I feel like it creates that isolationism that accompanied the large and eerily empty worlds of NES-era games. The trailer also shows a new playable character; it seems one can control robot creatures in addition to humans at some point. These “enclaves of skeletal robots” are mentioned in Arcen’s dev blog along with monsters and tyrants as enemies.

More difficult to discern from than audio and visuals and more important overall is the gameplay. The interesting gameplay elements are listed in the blog, which states there will be tons of exploring, scavenging time-shards to find materials needed, and enlisting other survivors to help rebuild civilization. My aesthetic critique may be picky, but now is the time for everyone to help Arcen shape the game into a polished Beta and further final product. I look forward to hearing more about A Valley Without Wind as summer approaches.  What are your thoughts on the game so far?

So here are eight new images (including the one above) to show off some of the tweaks they’ve implemented in just a week.

Here’s the latest alpha gameplay in action:

If you’re curious, you can also check out the most recent blog post by composer Pablo Vega over at the game’s official website.

A Valley Without Wind is a complete departure from the AI War series and the puzzle title Tidalis, but with all it has going for it in the ambition and features department it sounds like a worthy addition to the Arcen Games catalog.

Simply described by its creators, A Valley Without Wind is an adventure game “focusing on exploration in a post-ice-age world.” Each world is procedurally generated, meaning that upon each restart the entire landscape and layout will be different. But the intriguing element that the developers describe is that the game is “designed such that you’ll never have an incentive to create more than one world — ever.  Once you start your first world, that’s hopefully also your last, for as long as you play the game.  As new features and content are added, you can simply explore further afield to find them.”

In addition, death is a permanent part of the game. If your character dies, he doesn’t come back. But for the player that just means that you’ll assume to role of another survivor in the wasteland and have access to whatever items the recently deceased had collected along the way. In addition, the game is also built so that characters the dead player had encountered will eventually catch word of their death and reflect and react to it.

Arcen Games anticipates a March public alpha and and at that time players can also preorder and get a demo of the title. You can read more about this title on Arcen’s official site.

Here’s the pre-alpha trailer: