ID:93076
 
Keywords: techtree

Monday will be the third anniversary of Along The Tech Tree and the first anniversary of BYOND Strategy Tech Tree on my Gamasutra blog.  Not that the video collection for the 100th column was much fun, but I have little idea how to celebrate this year.

Perhaps a look at how Tech Tree is created will do.  Pretend there's a Schoolhouse Rock song in the background.

  1. I keep track of BYOND Member blogs and various posts in the Dream Makers forum throughout the week.
  2. I spend most of an evening writing up all of the items I tracked along with any updates.  This tends to be done on Gamasutra because their editor won't accept all of the style changes BYOND will.  (I really wish they'd let me upload a CSS file.)
  3. I spend the rest of the evening skimming the overviews, discussion sections, forums and blogs of every game in the guild's list. I then write up anything I missed.
  4. I try to come up with an introduction and post any miscellaneous links/videos I find interesting.
  5. I read the post over for final changes and then post.
  6. A few days later, I edit the post again with changes for the offsite version.

I've been asked by readers if I would consider writing something like Tech Tree that isn't limited to BYOND Strategy.  I would if I could monetize it, but I don't know how.  I can't complain since I started this column without being asked and there are volunteers on BYOND whose uncredited work doesn't get displayed on the front of a banner guild.  Just realize that minimum wage for the part time work this column takes could probably pay my internet bill (and keep me writing).  It would take me whole other evenings to write more.

EGUY has released multiple updates for his tile-laying game, Deus Rex.  Tiles were added, custom decks can now be created, and the interface has improved.  (The screenshot is outdated.)  I'd lose the borders in the deck creation grids, the window dimensions seem a bit wide for the map and I'm curious about how players react to the multitude of options on login.  However, I'm happy that the game spam appears to be gone. =)

EGUY also announced that he is working on a squad-based RTS.  A demo has been released.

Nickr5 updated his bot-scripting battle, Automata.  The focus appears to be on the interface.  I'd offer suggestions, but I have yet to write a script to try it out.  Offhand, the window menu seems useless.  I'd just shove a help button on the left.

Ganing updated his tower defense games, Seika SE and The Legend of Link.  Seika SE's update appears to focus on interface improvements.  I'd lose the redundant menu and I've been meaning to add another tip about removing borders, but I think it looks much better.  Meanwhile, The Legend of Link gained a couple maps and a lot of medals.

Vexonator stated that an update for the tactical fantasy, Surreal Dreams, should be expected by the end of the week.  Some form of turn timer might be added.  Hopefully, Vexonator managed to reimplement the changes made before he lost the source code as well.

In the comments of last week's Tech Tree, Squeegy announced that he's been contacted by someone who wants to take over his team-based god-worshipping game, Faith.  Who is it and what updates can be expected?

Geldonyetich's latest inspiration for Project Shock is Tegel's Mercenaries.  Players will control mercenary bands that work for various factions involved in a 4X struggle.  The world will be open-ended with randomized content and decisions that affect the universe.  Geldonyetich hopes to have something playable before the end of spring break.

Geldonyetich also released an update to his Easy AStar library with efficiency and accuracy improvements.

Hiding in a request for BYOND's map editor, Sonder announced that he is working on an RTS.  No details on the mechanics were presented, but I like the graphics.  It's as if smurfs and troll dolls bred a race of warmongers.

Gigimoi is investigating the possibility of a "free-roaming tower defence game".  Players would accept quests while wandering around an open world.  It sounds like an RPG with battles that involve building turrets.

Rhenishan (aka: Tag Youre Pregnant) has gone dark on the subject of his robotic action RTS, Mechanical.  A recent blog post concerning the project was deleted and the forum has been removed.  The game was previously announced in the guild's forum.

I've been working on my mutating boardgame, Genetic Fork.  I figured it was finally time to post some progress on my blog so I did.  Lately I've been redesigning the interface to deal with a bunch of actions at once.  I had tried limiting choices in an effort to explain them better, but I found using the menu to be tedious so I now have a simple tip button.

Fooldom Come: One subscription. Many games.

I imagine the theme of the game in this review from The Dice Tower could be changed to just about anything. With enough adjustments to make it unique, it might make a nice addition to BYOND.

Got news? Another World has a 15th anniversary release on Good Old Games... I should probably look into getting the GOG version of Gabriel Knight 3.

Hey ACWraith, the gamasutra links to some byond page that can't be found..
Thanks. Apparently part of the URL got cut off. Fixed. =)
Ugh another week where I haven't got Wargames updated.

I used to be quite reliable, I had an entry every tech tree, and now I'm dead.

I am in the middle of moving house, which is my excuse, but I'm still not spending enough time coding Wargames as I could be.
By the way, that update has coalesced.