AI War 2

Games
403

This has been a very long trend for Arcen. I like them a lot, but they haven’t found a sustainable niche. It started after AI War, when they had a glut of money and spent too long developing A Valley Without Wind and not getting anywhere. Then they released AVWW to middling reviews, and proceeded to develop AVWW2 and give it for free to all AVWW owners (which was insane). Then they proceeded to release a bunch of games every half year or so, few of which did very well. All had interesting ideas, but not long enough to bake in the oven, and since they were reaching out to all sorts of diverse genres (turn-based strategy, action, rogue-lite, rogue-like), their lack of experience in the respective genres, lack of time, and the limited art quality showed. And now Chris has fired everyone out of necessity and went back to AI War, which was the original success. I feel really bad for him, but I think it’s quite clear he never found the following he needed to sustain his company: the original AI War emerged when Steam started out, and was one of those Indies that benefitted from the new, empty store, as well as being one of the first games to be bundled in humble bundles (remember when those were a thing?). Additionally, Arcen was never happy with perfecting the one sub-niche, and kept trying all sorts of genres where they lacked competitive advantage. This simply isn’t something small Indie studios can afford to do.

Might be worthwhile trying to start a patreon and seeing what he can muster there, because there’s no upward trend here. The Indie games of today are far higher quality, in terms of polish, art and music, than they were 10 years ago, and niche realtime strategy (which is what AI War is) is never going to be a massive genre.

404

Acren has always been a kind of critical niche in the indie gaming scene. Very similar to
Soldak.

For a while though in years past they rapidly pumped out a ton of games in such a short amount of time and they were all really quirky with low production values. Not good from a fiscal/brand perspective.

405

AI War 2 is probably the best Arcen game ever. And if that isn’t enough to make this sustainable for Chris on the business side, then yes, it is a grim situation. :(

406

The Arcen guy needs to figure out a business model that will work for him. Maybe it’s starting a patreon with a $1,000/month tier so he can keep designing games for the 8 people who don’t care about graphics AND also have more money than they know what to do with. I actually have known artists (though not game designers) that live this way. It’s possible.

Watch the combat in Starsector, another game released by an indy developer who had to contract out artwork, and then watch combat in AI War 2. Starsector is satisfying and visceral and fun. AI War is watching two blobs of icons go PEW PEW PEW with little MS Paint particles at each other. One of these is fun, the other is not.

Anyway, the Arcen guy clearly has some re-evaluating to do with how he views game development if he can’t make ends meet doing it the way he has been. My suggestion is that he understand people look at screenshots and video before they buy a game, and just because it is low budget, doesn’t mean it has to look like garbage. Good luck to him, I do enjoy the idea of AI War 2, just not the actual playing of it.

407

AI War 2 and Starsector are two very different games, operating on entirely different scopes, and as such that comparison you just made makes no sense. It’s like complaining that XCOM isn’t fun because it doesn’t have the gunplay of Prey.

Unless, of course, it’s all about looking good. In which you might have a point, though for me AI War 2 looks more than good enough for its purposes. In fact, it’s the best-looking game from Arcen by far, with the possible exception of the little known Tidalis.

408

The point is that in looking at the two games, they are both made by indy guys who have a similar situation in that they need to contract out their artwork and I don’t really feel like the two are in completely different ballparks budget wise. I could be wrong there. Maybe the Starsector guy is a trust fund kid and spent three times as much on art.

But ultimately they are both games where the gameplay loop is building up a fleet, fighting with that fleet to receive upgrades, so you can improve your fleet and take on a greater challenge. I realize it isn’t an apples to apples comparison, but ultimately it is about the core gameplay loop feeling satisfying.

Watching the combat resolve in AI War 2 is about as fun as watching two stacks clash in EU4. As in, not really fun. But EU4’s gameplay loop is a diplomatic one, not a combat one. The combat is incidental.

409

Sucks to hear he is struggling. I still wish he would have focused on Stars Beyond Reach, I am sure a lot of people still have it on their wishlist hoping for news.

410

The combat is incidental in AI War 2 as well. It’s all about how you compose your fleets and where you send them, not about how good individual combat looks. In fact, if you’re not playing AI War 2 totally zoomed out 90% of the time, you’re playing it wrong. ;)

411

It’s at least somewhat like comparing how combat looks in Hearts of Iron to Steel Division. They’re just doing two very different things despite both being WW2 strategy games.

412

I guess my issue is that AI War 2 doesn’t deliver what I personally want from a game about building space armadas. I want to see the laser lightshow as a reward for my work.

Anyways, I’m also sad to hear the guy is struggling and I’m just throwing it out there that I think many gamers who might be potential customers of this game would probably feel similarly underwhelmed. But who knows, I haven’t done a study and my evidence is entirely anecdotal. I do wish him well.

413

That seems correct, yes. And nothing wrong with that whatsoever! In fact, the kind of gameplay AI War 2 delivers is a niche within a niche, and I guess there aren’t many people around for which AI War 2 delivers. Which complicates things for Arcen, of course.

414

One frustration I’ve had with AI War 2 is that the thing I liked most about the original was the co-op. I backed AI War 2 but I’m still waiting for that feature. I know it’s finally progressing in development but the game shipped quite some time ago and has been missing what to me is a very core component. It’s like having an ARPG for a couple years or more and still waiting for them to introduce loot.

Really sucks they’re struggling but as great as Chris is at interesting game design he seems to absolutely suck on the business end of things and that’s really unfortunate.

415

Which is why I felt the transition to a 3d engine was weird. If anything I kind of wish it was just icons and would run on a toaster.

416

There is a very realistic possibility I might have liked the game more if it was just icons with bars and numbers because then I wouldn’t have been teased with the dream of a web of laser beams and exploding starships.

417

I think it was probably a misguided attempt to appeal to the sensibilities of folks like you! Doomed to failure, it seems.

418

IIRC one of the drivers of moving to a 3D engine was because performance was better.

419

There is an icons-only mode.

420

So hi! I do the art in Starsector. I’ve also worked the art side of an awful lot of small indie projects, a few that went well, most that didn’t.

I think the issue with Arcen is not uncommon. Some indie devs never quite connect with someone who has an artistic eye, so their games are forever stuck in this artistically naive space. This isn’t to say they’re bad people, not at all; I just think these guys have a way they work and aren’t comfortable changing it for a variety of reasons, generally rational, occasionally not.

I’ll admit that it’s professionally frustrating to me in a sort of vague way that there are devs who, essentially, won’t trust an artist to take over their visuals even though they should. Actually, I suppose I have been specifically frustrated when I’ve been that artist, and I have for a number of clients (especially if it’s within one’s own company, but that’s a bit of an aside). Anyway, for those sorts of jobs you just have to take the paycheck and move along.

This all recalls to me a blog post from Spiderweb Software, “Why All Of Our Games Look Like Crap”. I disagree with Jeff’s conclusions - his problem, and Arcen’s, is that they’ve never connected with someone who can provide a cohesive, coherent, and appealing visual direction. They’re not an art director and they have never hired someone to direct their art. That’s it.

Money helps do this, it helps a LOT, but is not absolutely required. If you can find a young, hungry artist and feed them, it can pay off. That was what happened with Starsector - I think I first did some work for Alex (aka Fractal Softworks) in 2008, a year after I graduated, then started on Starsector in 2009. This may be exceptional however, because often enough, junior artists will flake on you. My success rate as a developer hiring junior-level art contractors is something like 25-30% for making work that’s actually good and useful. I found it helped to approach hiring with the attitude that it will absolutely cost a few hundred dollars to find out if someone is able to produce useful work for a project.

Anyway, as someone who’s done the slowly sinking indie game company deathmarch into a shipwreck, I really do feel for Arcen. But because one thing ends doesn’t mean you’re over!

421

That’s very interesting to hear, thanks for sharing it. For what it’s worth I think Starsector is a great looking game so I’m a fan of your work. There’s just something viscerally satisfying about it.

Edit: And I hope it was gratifying to read a random game thread where someone used your art as an example of how to do something right!

422

Interesting read. And another +1 on your work with Starsector.