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The Captain Is Dead - Demo Version Now Available on Steam!

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The Game Crafter
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The Captain is Dead - Now on Kickstarter!

At long last, The Captain Is Dead video game's free demo version is now available on Steam. It let's you play 3 full rounds of the game and the tutorial so you can see if it's something you're gonna like. The board game was originally designed in The Game Crafter community, so it's awesome to see it as a video game!

Available at https://store.steampowered.com/app/1126580/The_Captain_is_Dead/

Remember, once you turn that idea into a tangible, playable game, you never know what can happen! Maybe it's just a game you can play with your friends. Or maybe it will eventually be published and even become a video game. Anything is possible. So turn those ideas into real games! The Game Crafter does this every day for people around the world. Visit www.thegamecrafter.com/start to get started! :)

questccg
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It says Turn-Based Game

Is this like those RPGs that are Turn-Based like Final Fantasy Tactics???

Too bad it's only on Steam... I mean I hate Steam it updates and slows my computer when it checks randomly for updates... It basically has a mind of its own. But I like Valve... They collaborated with Sierra to produce Half-Life (the original game). Was an amazing 3D FPS ... And then Team Fortress which was an amazing Multiplayer Game you could connect to the Internet and play.

(I honestly don't think it was an MMO... Not sure).

Anyways what I wanted to say is if you could get a PC version without the need for Steam... That would be interesting for sure. Best of luck with the Video Game... I'm certain a lot of fans will buy into the game.

tikey
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I played the tutorial. It's

I played the tutorial. It's great, I really liked the playfulness of the dialogue. And visually stunning too!
It really got me thinking about if it's possible to translate such a good interactive tutorial to a boardgame.

larienna
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I guess it could be played

I guess it could be played solo? ( you play all characters)

Quote:
I mean I hate Steam it updates and slows my computer when it checks randomly for updates

Really! I have steam on both Windows and Linux and have none of those issues.

I hate updates too. Yes, it tries to update it's self frequently, but for me it does it only when I launch Steam. Maybe there is a way to configure it to make it behave this way.

Sure if you put Steam in your startup it will start at every boot. But there is no reason to really do this.

Personally, I think steam is the best thing to happen to PC gaming. It avoids all the issue of configuring games and making them work on your PC.

questccg
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larienna wrote:I guess it

larienna wrote:
I guess it could be played solo? ( you play all characters)

If it's a Turn-Based Strategy Game ... Of course you would control the entire party. And the game can shift from one location on the spaceship to another and it would feel like seamless game play.

larienna wrote:
Quote:
I mean I hate Steam it updates and slows my computer when it checks randomly for updates

Really! I have steam on both Windows and Linux and have none of those issues.

I hate updates too. Yes, it tries to update it's self frequently, but for me it does it only when I launch Steam. Maybe there is a way to configure it to make it behave this way.

Sure if you put Steam in your startup it will start at every boot. But there is no reason to really do this.

Yes I don't have it on startup ... But in the background it tends to run itself and update software (whether it's the Steam stuff or patches to games... IDK)

larienna wrote:
Personally, I think steam is the best thing to happen to PC gaming. It avoids all the issue of configuring games and making them work on your PC.

Never had any problems "configuring" games before. This was like 15 years ago when I still played video games. But I've never experienced problems installing stuff like "Warcraft I, II, III" or "Age of Empires" or "StarCraft I" and another TON of other games. Heck I never even had problems with MS-DOS games like "Ultima IV and V", etc.

The only thing I like is that you can browse a CATALOG of games and not need to search on separate websites (for each game).

larienna
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Quote: Heck I never even had

Quote:
Heck I never even had problems with MS-DOS games like "Ultima IV and V", etc.

It seems we have been living on a different planet. The MS-DOS is actually the era I was refering to. I had various issues like:

* Sound card driver missing, not recognised or partially supported (music, no sound).

* Joystick that get's detected or not. Or certain button or axis are ignored, inverted, etc.

* Video modes not working. VGA, SVGA, etc.

* Lacking of real or extended memory, or configure the type of memory XMS, EMS, etc.

While on the other hand, the console game, you put the cardridge in the console, pushed power and it worked.

Steam, makes it like that. You push run play button, and it just work.

questccg
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Hmm... I remember Scream Tracker

Was using digital wav samples of instruments to make music sound more REALISTIC ... This was better than MIDI or AdLib at that time. As far as VGA, SVGA ... I started with a CGA which support 5 colors (4 + Background). The only music we had was PC Speaker and was not as cool as the Tandy 3 Voice system a friend had.

While there were growing pains ... Most of the time, I had no problems. Heck I remember my first computer with 2 Floppy Drives, CGA and PC Speaker. No mouse.

Now where I DO REMEMBER A LOT OF PROBLEMS of compatibility like you talk about is UNDER WINDOWS! Windows was a struggle from Win 3.1 to NT and beyond. That was a real b!tch to find the right drivers for all your devices. Plug & Play (Vista, 7.0 and above) resolved much of the issues... But devices of today are NOT backward compatible. My Google Pixel won't recognize CORRECTLY on Windows XP. Granted it finds the device ... But it can't download any files from the device. Probably because XP is older than the Google Pixel Android Phone.

But for games, never had a real problems. Sure I had sh!tty computers that didn't have 16 Colors like the Tandy ... There was no VGA or SVGA at that time... yet. So games like Ultima were in 4 colors. Pretty crappy. But hey I had a computer ... who's to complain!

I even got Dr. Halo and my first mouse that worked in a MS-DOS paint program... Mouse never came with MS-DOS based computers... You had to buy the paint program to get a mouse. Only with the invention of Win 3.1 did you require a mouse...

Before I got my University Bachelor in Computer Science, I remember one course that was focused on Assembly Language. Was amazing, I learned about the DOS Interrupt System which was used to have EXTENDED features that things like Basic could not support. TSRs (Terminate and Stay Resident) could activate with a clicking of certain keys... Bunch of neat stuff ... That used to be the core of software (under MS-DOS).

Anyhow ... Games always ran. No problems with them. Sure sometime had to buy more memory (RAM) and use the DOS-Extender (DOS4GW) to use EMM or XMS, etc. But I cherish those days...

They actually say that apparently IF you play some of the OLDER games on different platforms, there is so much Video Game Content that could keep you gaming until you die (older software) which some say there are classic games you should experience first and then the popular games of today.

In any event many people get that and that's why there are simulators for all the older platforms Nintendo DS, Gameboy, Nintendo Cube, Playstation, etc.

I still can't beat ROGUE (make it to Level 25 and back!) It's a MS-DOS game with tunnels and rooms and you need to find an amulet and escape with it... I remember it because I got the floppy from an Uncle who prematurely died of Cancer. It was a long time ago, he died in his early 40s. So very tragic.

So much nostalgia. TBH most of troubles that I remember were with Windows and having fast enough 3D Video Cards. Like Matrox, NVIDEA GeForce, 3DFX Voodoo, etc. For all those FPS games like Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, Wolfenstein 3D, etc.

Anyhow sorry for making this an "irrelevant" post. Just remembering my younger years... Cheers!

larienna
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I used to have a tandy 1000

I used to have a tandy 1000 and it was 3 colors, but 2 choice of palette.

Quote:
They actually say that apparently IF you play some of the OLDER games on different platforms, there is so much Video Game Content that could keep you gaming until you die (older software).

It's actually a problem for me, the new consoles are comming out, and I still have many dozens of game to play on XBone and Steam.

Some games did not age well, or could get replaced/reimplemented with something better. While other games will always remain interesting.

When I see so many game out there, I sometimes ask myself if it's worth spending time designing more games.

questccg
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I believe the Tandy 1000 had a TGA and supported 16 colors.

Also Wii had so many FREAKEN games ... But most were pure CR@P. The MS-DOS games were better in MANY instances. All you needed to do is go to Comptant.com and visit one of their location to search through ALL the CR@P Wii video games. It's really terrible...

The Wii went exponential in games. And so much of it all worthless.

Yes the Wii was innovative. I will not argue about that. It's just that so much of the games that came out for the console were lousy. And Comptant.com can show you walls worth of Wii games ... All ones nobody wants to BUY.

larienna
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Quote:Comptant.com I remember

Quote:
Comptant.com

I remember scavenging pawn shops for video games when I was a teenager. It had a kind of charm.

I did not know the wii was that much a flop. I think it's success was it's wider non-gaming audiance.

Personally, my golden age of video game is the NES, followed by a mini golden age on XB360. From a game design point of view, the NES content is very rich and innovative. There are ton of good ideas to mine from that library. In fact most of my non-strategy video game ideas come from those game.

questccg
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That and more

larienna wrote:
...I did not know the wii was that much a flop. I think it's success was it's wider non-gaming audience...

Indeed the Wii was overall a success in terms of hardware and advancement but a lot of the games made for the Wii were less than stellar. You know all the things like Gyroscope, Motion Detection, 3D Movement, etc. All that made the Wii a huge success. But fundamentally, the real problem is that those innovations is what people remember most... Not the countless games that did make use of ANY of those.

So yeah, a huge and massive pool of poor games (5/10 or less) made the Wii catalog very "weak" in terms of what was available for it (in terms of games).

But the other thing is that many games were using Systems (or Frameworks) that were meant to run on ANY platform. Like Wii, Playstation 2 and XBox 360 ... For example. And the polygon count on the Wii was the lowest. So in terms of pure "quality", the Wii games looked the poorest in terms of visuals as compared to the other platforms which performed at a higher polygon count.

That was another issue of the Wii that nobody really talked about but most people knew about it: the Wii had the poorest polygon performance. And so visuals were not as nice as the other competitors in the same Video Game space (era/time-wise).

larienna
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But as I said over and over

But as I said over and over again, good graphic does not make better games. The same way as for board games, bigger boxes does not make better games.

I agree that if you want to make your game portable on all consoles at once, you had to downgrade your game for the wii, or make it wii level for everybody.

I also agree that there could have been more "software" or more minigames for the wii, which polluted the catalog from gamers game.

questccg
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Just to be clear ...

larienna wrote:
But as I said over and over again, good graphic does not make better games. The same way as for board games, bigger boxes does not make better games.

No I think you misunderstood me. What I meant is at that time (and currently), people are using Software Engines built for multiple platforms. And these engines allow the games designed with them to run on several of them without any "coding" impact. It basically means that you can design the game ONCE and DEPLOY to several platforms.

Furthermore the polygon count is PER GAME. What I mean is the SAME game built using a common Engine ... Looks LESS good on Wii than the PS2 or XBox360. And again it's got to do with HARDWARE. The Wii had less great 3D Acceleration and processing power than the PS2 and XBox360. So the games made for Wii ... Were less "attractive" due to lower polygon counts.

larienna wrote:
I agree that if you want to make your game portable on all consoles at once, you had to downgrade your game for the wii, or make it wii level for everybody...

It doesn't downgrade it for the other consoles. It just means the Wii VERSION looks CRAPPIER than the PS2 or XBox360 version. Because both of those two (2) consoles are faster and have BETTER 3D acceleration. So when you COMPARE the Wii version to PS2 or XBox360 ... The Wii looks INFERIOR in terms of Graphics.

So you have hardware in the Wii unavailable to the other platforms which means the Wii are LIMITED to COMMON functionality by ALL consoles. And then the real issue just poor Wii games with nothing SPECIFIC to the Wii hardware and capabilities with a lower polygon count (and so poorer graphics SAME game on PS2 and XBox360)... That's what I mean.

larienna
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Quote:It doesn't downgrade it

Quote:
It doesn't downgrade it for the other consoles. It just means the Wii VERSION looks CRAPPIER than the PS2 or XBox360 version.

It's cool to know that engines can handle that downgrade of quality without any (or with little) intervention from the programmer.

I am currently using LibGDX which use that philosophy of code once, deploy anywhere. But the graphical output on both games will be the same. The input might change the playability (ex: phone touch vs computer mouse) but that's it.

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