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(http://www.pioneersgame.com/images/title_2x.png)
Every journey begins with a single step.
Official Website (http://www.pioneersgame.com)
Pioneers is a turn-based exploration/adventure RPG where you lead a party of travellers in search of treasure-rich temples, new tribes and ways to go down in history - ways to go beyond the horizon. To achieve all that you complete quests building up your reputation to become a sought out explorer by kings and commoners alike.
You set out promising your father to become someone, to make him proud but not all goes like planned in life, does it? On the way you'll meet many interesting characters, solve challenging puzzles and face all that nature has to offer, be it finding and collecting food and building a shelter to survive harsh winters or facing against a pack of wolves in the densest of forests.
The game is currently very much in progress but check below for playable builds. The game uses only 4 colors. Different seasons have different palettes with different set of colors. As to why, read here (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=25699.msg815247#msg815247).
M e d i a
(http://www.pioneersgame.com/screenshots/137_t.png) (http://pioneersgame.com/screenshots/Pioneers_1_1080p.png) (http://www.pioneersgame.com/screenshots/140_t.png) (http://pioneersgame.com/screenshots/Pioneers_2_1080p.png)
(http://www.pioneersgame.com/screenshots/143_t.png) (http://pioneersgame.com/screenshots/Pioneers_4_1080p.png) (http://www.pioneersgame.com/screenshots/19042014_t.png) (http://pioneersgame.com/screenshots/Pioneers_6_1080p.png)
(http://www.pioneersgame.com/screenshots/146_t.png) (http://pioneersgame.com/screenshots/Pioneers_3_1080p.png) (http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/screenshots/cave_t.png) (http://pioneersgame.com/screenshots/Pioneers_5_1080p.png)
(http://img.youtube.com/vi/OHzaIj1mdzA/maxresdefault.jpg) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHzaIj1mdzA)
D o w n l o a d
Latest build (Build 7, February 13 2015)
Download from itch.io (http://eigen.itch.io/pioneers)
Previous versions:
For older builds see the game's website (http://www.pioneersgame.com/#download).
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I haven't played the game yet, I'll download it when I got home, but damn this looks GOOD!
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Wow, that looks indeed pretty cool. Will download and try it later.
[edit]
Tested it for some minutes. Two things that don't look too good.
- Your character already knows if he can pass something or not while the area is still unexplored. If there is a forest (on a black area) it just won't move. I'd suggest moving it either till you see the forest your you're standing in front of it.
- You can move without using your available steps or energy by simply building a small camp directly onto your character, entering it, and leaving it again putting your character right next to it. Building the camps doesn't seem to cost anything (not even energy). Doing so you can basically explore everything on the day you arrived on the island, just prepare for building lots of those darn camps. ;D
I don't need to say that all I did was moving around, so if there's anything else to do in this stage, I didn't see it. Hope this helps.
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Thanks! :)
- Your character already knows if he can pass something or not while the area is still unexplored. If there is a forest (on a black area) it just won't move. I'd suggest moving it either till you see the forest your you're standing in front of it.
Yes, makes sense. I've been meaning to add that simple check to the pathfinder but never got around to it. Fixing as soon as possible.
You can move without using your available steps or energy by simply building a small camp directly onto your character, entering it, and leaving it again putting your character right next to it. Building the camps doesn't seem to cost anything (not even energy). Doing so you can basically explore everything on the day you arrived on the island, just prepare for building lots of those darn camps
Good grief! Thanks for reporting that :D
In fact, there is nothing else to do. As I said, this is just a tech-demo but I felt like releasing it, because I wanted to see if people like the interface (eg. how actions are given) and the ways things are done overall. I will be making more game content from now on.
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Dang!
I'd suggest moving it either till you see the forest your you're standing in front of it.
Should ofc be:
I'd suggest moving it either till you see the forest or you're standing in front of it.
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I shall bring you some great news!
Build 2 has just been released which looks a lot more like an actual game when compared to the early tech-demo. Of course it is still very much work in progress and most of the things have not implemented but some of the good stuff is there. So don't go in hoping to get full gaming experience but more of an glimpse of things to come :)
There is no wildlife or any tribes to encounter, just you and the vast landscapes.
(http://eigen.pri.ee/windows_logo.png) Download for Windows (http://eigen.pri.ee/download.php?file=pioneers_20120619_win32.zip)
(http://eigen.pri.ee/macosx_logo.png) Download for Mac (http://eigen.pri.ee/download.php?file=pioneers_20120620_mac.zip)
(http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/screenshots/33.png)
(http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/screenshots/34.png)
Latest gameplay video (which is actually a bit out of date because I made a lot of changes prior to this release):
(http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/videothumb3.png) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtUVtrvdceM)
Looking forward to any comments, questions, critique and so on.
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Things are still going strong. I've been working on the town where the game begins and where you can go back between expeditions. You can find men to hire from the tavern, buy stuff you need from the supply store, get quests and so on.
I had drawn the tavern previously, but yesterday I drew the supply store you can see in the screenshot below. I also did the sidebar but the buttons need some work. And a quest button needs adding.
From the map you will be able to choose an area of the world where you want to go. The world will consist of something like 10-15 'levels' which are different in size and terrain type, so the random map generator still applies. The further away areas are larger and take longer to get there for which you need more men, ships and supplies which means you have to adventure trough the smaller areas to get some wealth before.
The travel time will be measured in seasons. When you sail out during spring, you will reach the nearest areas by summer. Or by next spring if it's far away. That forces you to think when and where to go. You can advance seasons by boozing around in the tavern but that will cost you.
It's all starting to come together and when I squint my brain it's almost starting to look like a game. Really exciting!
(http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/screenshots/44.png)
(http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/screenshots/45.png)
I'd also like to remind you all that the game can be found on the IndieDB (http://www.indiedb.com/games/pioneers) site and if you're a user there, make sure you click 'Track this game' button because that way you are always up to date with screenshots, videos, music and new builds. I've gotten some pretty decent feedback there and the news of the release of the last build was featured on the main page for a while.
Thanks!
P.S. - I'm still very much in love with SFML. If one day I get the game done, I'm thinking of separating and cleaning up the 'engine' part of the game and release that separately. Maybe it would be useful to someone.
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This is absolutely gorgeous! You've got some pixel skillz for sure.
Are you writing this using a pre-existing framework/recycling or all from scratch?
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Thank you! I'm still learning all this pixel madness.
It's all done from scratch (including GUI) but I'm planning to keep using SFML so I'm making it so I'd have a solid foundation for the future.
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Your art is really cool, I love the look of the tavern. I like the idea of limiting the game to 4 colours as well, it's forced you to develop a really iconic art style!
This game looks like it'll be pretty fun too. :D
Also, since you're on indieDB anyway, why not list the engine as SFML (http://www.indiedb.com/engines/sfml)?
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Thanks, I appreciate it. :)
Also, since you're on indieDB anyway, why not list the engine as SFML (http://www.indiedb.com/engines/sfml)?
Yes, SFML draws all the graphics on screen and plays all the sounds but everything else from that layer up is my own. So in that sense, the engine is custom. If you would simply use OpenGL (or SDL), would you list that as the engine?. Don't worry, SFML is mentioned in the about screen in the game and always will be.
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Also, since you're on indieDB anyway, why not list the engine as SFML (http://www.indiedb.com/engines/sfml)?
Yes, SFML draws all the graphics on screen and plays all the sounds but everything else from that layer up is my own. So in that sense, the engine is custom. If you would simply use OpenGL (or SDL), would you list that as the engine?. Don't worry, SFML is mentioned in the about screen in the game and always will be.
Does indieDB support listing multiple engines? I was thinking it'd be good, since then Pioneers would appear on the SFML page as well(as a game using SFML).
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It'd be cool if the site supported derivatives but oh well, I changed the engine to SFML. Going to check out what good stuff is there.
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Just a little big update to say that this project is still going strong and even though these past few months have seen all sorts of ups and down, overall it's been really productive. Here's a new gameplay video to show the new developments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLeeaAHmMUs
A new build for your downloading pleasure is probably coming later today, or perhaps tomorrow. Stay tuned! :)
I also updated the first post with latest screenshots and stuff.
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I found myself playing with the first release you made for far too long...
The art style is just wow, the music is sweet, and if this game becomes half as good as its promise, I can see myself spending countless hours on it. Hours that I could be spending programming, so please stop now! ;)
Seriously though, I am very impressed.
If you release a new version soon, I'll give it another try, and then give you some feedback if I have anything to say.
Do you have any plans to make money on the game?
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Oh, wow, thanks! I really glad you like it. You're right, it could be played for hours because of the pacing. It's quite slow but that's something I enjoy about games myself. And to answer your last question, I'm hoping this could sell a few copies. That's the plan for the future. I'm not really thinking about that right now because the game needs to be made first and that's what I enjoy doing.
Anyway, here's the new build. It's only for Windows right now but I'll get the Mac version up when I get to work tomorrow.
(http://eigen.pri.ee/windows_logo.png) Download for Windows (http://eigen.pri.ee/download.php?file=pioneers_build_3_win32.zip)
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Were you at all inspired by Jagged Alliance?
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Were you at all inspired by Jagged Alliance?
I can't say that I have been. Why do you ask? Do you see similarities? :)
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Do you see similarities?
Both pioneers and mercs are in a team under player's control and have items, stats and skills(that are not always combat focused) that make every member useful for certain purpose(guessing that it's so in pioneers). Both games ask you to create first pioneer/merc at the beginning. In both games you explore big map with a very long term goal in mind, manage towns, deal/fight with locals and animals.
It really looks to me like JA2 few hundred years back and without so much violence.
In any case this is great, ja2 is extremely addictive because of these things.
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... I'm hoping this could sell a few copies. That's the plan for the future. I'm not really thinking about that right now because the game needs to be made first and that's what I enjoy doing.
Oh, I think it could sell more than a few copies, if it turns out as good as I think it could.
But you are right: This is not the time to think about that. Thinking about money is not going to produce a good game. Putting love, care, and hard work into making an enjoyable and coherent experience will. Or at least it should.
Anyway, I did some testing, and here are my notes:
Many places in the game, tool tips would be really handy.
It would also be nice if you could skip the intro by hitting space, enter, escape, mouse click, or all of the above.
In the town:
- It should be better indicated in the starting tutorial that the town is basically a menu. I spent some time wondering how I could move my character.
You could also think about making the town not a menu.
I was thinking that it would be fun if you could walk around and do stuff. It shouldn't be turn based, but work more like a single turn with endless moves. You should also keep the menu, so it would not slow the game down further. Exit the tavern after entering with the menu, and your character is now magically standing at the tavern entrance.
Then I had the thought that if you tried to cut down a tree or harvest someones crops, your movement would freeze, and the town guard would come running and warn you that it was illegal, and if you did it, say, 3 times in a row, he would kill you on the spot. Game over. Sort of a fun little gimmick, but one that would bring immersion.
You could even expand it further by adding the ability to buy property, once you have the status and resources to do so. Property could give small resource bonuses. - You should make it so that the first ship is paid for, and subtract the expense from the starting funds. On my first play, I went shopaholic in the supply store, thinking that I had plenty of funds, only to find out that I could not purchase a ship, and there was no way to progress.
- You could think about omitting the die roll on the character creation for the first character, since you always get the same total amount of skill points. Having predefined 'good' values for each character class would serve as extra documentation for new players.
I get that you probably have the randomness to encourage variation, but I think that limiting control over other party members stats would serve that purpose better. What if you had a limited selection of companions at the tavern, with little or no influence on stats? - I noticed that the item selection in the supply store menu sometimes acted strangely when switching between categories. Some times, but not always, a different item would be selected when switching category and then back again.
The easy fix would be to make sure nothing is selected when switching to a new category.
During the expedition:
- Are you sure it is wise to refer to the turns as days? It leaves a lot of questions that wouldn't come up if you simply call them turns. For me, it takes away from the immersion.
- I would like an easier way to select characters. It is a lot of clicking to get to the next guy.
- Next and previous item should be cyclic. It would also be nice with a list to select the item.
- The 'walk-to' marker is invisible when it is in the fog of war.
- When eating and drinking, it would be practical with 'eat/drink until full' buttons.
- When picking up things such as herbs and berries, it would be nice with 'take all' and 'take all I can carry' buttons.
- And then the game crashed when I was disembarking.
The style and coherency is still the strongest point of the game. It doesn't matter if it's pretty. That is a matter of taste, anyway. As long as it knows what it wants, it will have the ability to engage players. And with its distinct style, this game does so with abundance. I really wanted to explore that world further.
The interface is generally very fiddly, and a lot of my notes are about that. It is a lot of clickety-click, and it gets tiring fairly quickly.
This is probably the weakest area of the game, and what I think you should focus most on improving.
The games style is probably one of the things that makes it hard to get this just right, so be sure that you don't make any compromises here that takes away from that wonderfully coherent style.
You certainly made a lot of progress since that first release, and I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting and playing with the new features.
I hope you can use my notes! :)
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Thank you so much! That's exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. I'll work trough these this evening since I don't have much time right now. About the crash, is it reproducible? Sounds bad. How do you disembark? Do you choose the action from the sidebar or right-click the terrain? Would you mind help me debug this? I'd send you a couple of exes and see which one at which point crashes since I can't reproduce it on any of my systems.
I would like an easier way to select characters. It is a lot of clicking to get to the next guy.
You can actually switch between characters using the TAB key. This should be indicated somewhere other than the help window which usually gets little attention :)
Are you sure it is wise to refer to the turns as days? It leaves a lot of questions that wouldn't come up if you simply call them turns. For me, it takes away from the immersion.
They don't have to be days but since there are seasons (each of which lasts 90 days), time has to advance in rather measurable steps. Or do you mean simply replace 'day' with 'turn'?
About the town. Yes, it's basically just a menu right now. I would love to add more interactivity to it but I didn't want to take on any big developments as it would've postponed the release even more. It's definitely on my TODO list.
And you're right about the interface. There is a lot of clicking I'm hoping to get rid of. I have worked on it in some aspects. Trust me, it was worse in the beginning ;)
Thanks again for the super feedback. I'll work it trough once I get home.
edit: I fixed a couple of things uploaded again. Made the inventory selection cyclic, changed day/days to turn/turns, added the tip for changing between characters with TAB and made pressing escape skip intro to the point where you make your first character.
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About the crash, is it reproducible? Sounds bad. How do you disembark? Do you choose the action from the sidebar or right-click the terrain? Would you mind help me debug this? I'd send you a couple of exes and see which one at which point crashes since I can't reproduce it on any of my systems.
I haven't tried to reproduce it yet, but it seemed random. I had been disembarking a number of times in the same fashion.
I chose the action from the sidebar and left-clicked the terrain. That is when the crash happened.
This week is looking to be pretty hectic at the moment, but if you send me the files, I will see if I can make time.
You can actually switch between characters using the TAB key. This should be indicated somewhere other than the help window which usually gets little attention :)
There is a help window?! :)
They don't have to be days but since there are seasons (each of which lasts 90 days), time has to advance in rather measurable steps. Or do you mean simply replace 'day' with 'turn'?
I simply mean replace one word with the other. It removes questions like "Why did my guy just eat 3 kilos of dried meat and sleep for 5 days?"
But now I see that you already made that change. Nice!
About the town. Yes, it's basically just a menu right now. I would love to add more interactivity to it but I didn't want to take on any big developments as it would've postponed the release even more. It's definitely on my TODO list.
I didn't mean to say that you should focus on that right now. It was more of a narrative of what I was thinking while playing the game. I was simply having ideas pop up because I got inspired.
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this graphics looks very nice i love 8bit <3
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Haha, nice to see you on this forum too Eigen. :)
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this graphics looks very nice i love 8bit <3
Thanks! But in fact it's 4 bits graphics (4 sets with 4 colors each, 16 in total = 4 bits) ;D
Haha, nice to see you on this forum too Eigen. :)
You too. I've seen Moonman around. He's cool cause he likes SFML like I do.
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Congrats, I enjoy seeing a fun game develop.
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Congrats, I enjoy seeing a fun game develop.
Cheers, mate! Let's hope we see the fun game get completed eventually :)
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Looks really impressive, cant try it since im on linux. Can I have a go with porting it to linux? Contact me via PM/Mail if youre interested, I'm not new to neither C++, SFML nor maintaining crossplatform software.
If you are interested, I'm really interested in maintaining an ArchLinux AUR-package as well (a package in the arch user repository).
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Serious suggestion: Add this game to Steam Greenlight and Desura, even if it's meant to be freeware. :) Once done so, let us know to vote on it - or did you do it already? Haven't had a too close look yet.
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Serious suggestion: Add this game to Steam Greenlight and Desura, even if it's meant to be freeware. :) Once done so, let us know to vote on it - or did you do it already? Haven't had a too close look yet.
It already is on Greenlight. Though it's only in the concepts section, it's still good for a look in and vote. :D
link. (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=103545356)
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Yes, I recently posted it to the concepts section because I don't think it's developed far enough for the proper evaluation on there. So before I spend any money on it I wanted to see what the general reception and interest was. So far I gotta say it's been super awesome! Apart from a couple of comments early on saying they don't like the graphics (which I totally get and had prepared for) it has been very generous and positive. It's been in the top there pretty much since I posted it. This gives me good reason to hope that once I post it on proper Greenlight it won't crash and burn in an instant :) But it has to mature a bit before I can do that.
And I'm working towards that. Some days are less productive than others but it's going well overall. Currently working on the overworld of sorts. Basically the section where you sail around the oceans hoping to find land. You have wind direction to take into account so you have to play with the ship orientation to reach maximum speed. I read up on sailing a little so now I'm putting some of that into the game.
... even if it's meant to be freeware. :)
It's not meant to be freeware. It might be, eventually, if things don't work out as I hope but that's not the current plan.
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Wouldn't worry about those complaining due to its art style. It's clearly trying to mimic the style used in early NES/Gameboy games. Maybe add a more colorful mode later on, but as long as you limit yourself to a very specific spectrum I don't think it really hurts the game.
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May I ask where did you get the openal32.dll you ship in the package with pioneers?
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May I ask where did you get the openal32.dll you ship in the package with pioneers?
It's either from the 2.0RC or 1.6 release. I think there was an error with that on 2.0 where it caused a crash on exiting the game so I just plugged in the old dll and it worked. Why do you ask?
edit: No, wait, I'm thinking of the libsndfile-1.dll file.
I just checked, the filesize seems to match the one in the 2.0 release. So, I got it from there. Is there a problem with it?
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Haven't heard from you in a long while now, are you still interested?
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libsnd is same size and checksum, openal32 is different
There is no problem with it, quite the contrary, the openal32.dll in your package doesn't crash on exit(which is wonderful).
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There is no problem with it, quite the contrary, the openal32.dll in your package doesn't crash on exit(which is wonderful).
This is probably the latest version (1.14).
https://github.com/SFML/SFML/issues/30#issuecomment-5007939
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Okay, I may have downloaded it from somewhere else. I remember Googling some dll file at one point but I'm not sure if it was this openal thing or not. I guess it was.
Haven't heard from you in a long while now, are you still interested?
Sorry, I was busy with another project for a couple of weeks but now I'm back. I'll send you a PM :)
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I'm curious on how big this project is :P
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I'm curious on how big this project is :P
Big in which terms?
It's a one man project (afaik) but it has a very good chance of getting commercial. ;)
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I'm talking about how large the codebase is.
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I just counted each line of code by hand (not really) and the result is 27596 which is actually quite a lot but there's a bunch of bloated crappy code in there which should be cleaned up and re-used. And a lot of it is UI code (button click events etc.). Not happy with that.
I think I can manage it, though it's grown quite bit from the simple idea I had for it in the beginning. But I shall not give up!
Oh, and the new build is coming tomorrow or the day after that. There will be a bunch of sweet additions to the game :)
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Build 4 is now available. It adds an overworld where you can sail around to search for new lands to explore. I also implemented a simple sailing mechanic with different kinds of winds. Plus other features like a new inventory system. Grab the latest build!
(http://eigen.pri.ee/windows_logo.png) Download for Windows (http://eigen.pri.ee/download.php?file=pioneers_build_4_win.zip)
(http://eigen.pri.ee/macosx_logo.png) Download for OS X (http://eigen.pri.ee/download.php?file=pioneers_build_4_mac.zip)
There is an 2012 Indie of the Year award thing going on at IndieDB and if you like the game I would appreciate it very much if you voted for it. Just go here (http://www.indiedb.com/games/pioneers), scroll down a little and press "Vote for this game". Thanks :)
A couple of screenshots:
(http://eigen.pri.ee/images/overworld.png)
(http://eigen.pri.ee/images/ingame.png)
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Sorry, I was busy with another project for a couple of weeks but now I'm back. I'll send you a PM :)
Do so! It would be really fun to continue porting this to linux as it develops :) Also we should get some kind of instant communication (skype, irc etc)
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Yay, Pioneers made it's way into the Top 100 in the IndieDB award thingy. I now need your votes more than ever though I'd be totally happy even if I come last because of it's totla rad even making the cut.
Vote here (http://www.indiedb.com/events/2012-indie-of-the-year-awards/top100#vote17794) - scroll down a little until you see Pioneers in the Role Playing section.
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Bad news! There seems to be an issue for (some?) Ati users. One user reported a BSOD on launching the game and another one gave me screenshots with some odd texture rendering bugs. The BSOD leaves me stumped since I don't think it's my fault. I did however come across a similar issue with another SFML game, Air Forte, reported here (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=27534070).
(http://s18.postimage.org/t9ldy3g2x/screen1.jpg)
(http://s11.postimage.org/na62zdthf/screen2.jpg)
The thing is it's the same darn font used for all elements in there but the list one craps out. Plus the corners are white though they're supposed to be some small details. I first considered it'd might be some NPOT texture thing going on but wasn't that issed solved after, I dunno, Voodoo 1? The font error makes me think could there be an issue with the order in which stuff is rendered. A bad texture of some sorts messes up a consecutive draw call or whatever?
The font file is 512x8, but there are plenty of textures that are something like 40x20 and whatnot. Could that really crap out like that in 2012?
But I'll investigate this further with some small demos and annoying the victims but it's for the greater good. I really hoped these kinds of kinks had been worked out of SFML by now ... :( ... it's my game that gets the blame ...
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The font bug is a driver issue, which is solved with Catalyst beta drivers 12.11, if I remember correctly.
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Btw, this is custom font rendering with simply picking a correct texture rect from the texture and drawing that. Rinse and repeat for all letters. Also in the second screenshot above the "Spring, 1500" in the top-left corner is supposed to be a Pioneers logo, an image which is 86x13. That's not drawn at all whereas other NPOT textures are, like the face.
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The bug happens for sprites as well, it's not only text.
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Thanks! I'll ask them to update the video drivers and let you know how it goes.
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Hello again good sir.
I just tried the new build 4, and unfortunately, it crashed.
It happened after I clicked "go explore" after crashing into an island. I hadn't done anything, except moving the camera around with ASDW, and clicking around on the screen because I had forgotten how to play the game. The last click was on the ship, and that is when the crashed happened.
I am using Windows 7, and an nVidia graphics card.
Visual Studio 2010, Firefox, LibreOffice Writer, and Thunderbird were running at the time.
Also, I was running the game in full screen mode.
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Thanks for letting me know. Some other people have reported the issuse as well but I thought I had sorted it out. Clearly not. You downloaded it from the link provided here in the forum, right?
So, you clicked "go explore", the screen transitioned into the other game mode where you could still move around and you then clicked on the ship? Oh joy, I just love bugs I can't reproduce ... :)
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You downloaded it from the link provided here in the forum, right?
That is correct.
So, you clicked "go explore", the screen transitioned into the other game mode where you could still move around and you then clicked on the ship? Oh joy, I just love bugs I can't reproduce ... :)
Pretty much.
If I can make time, I will try to play around with it later. Maybe there is some sort of method to the madness. ;)
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Long time no write, which means it's time for some dates that are up. A few days ago I released a new build, fifth one already. Oh, how time flies. The last one was quite buggy with many crashes here and there. All those issues should be resolved now. It also adds bit of new content and overall polish. There's now a new intro to get the storyball rolling. I've also added a simple tutorial mode to introduce the very basic gameplay features. Terrain now has height, there are new graphics assets, some new music and a bunch of behind-the-scenes tech improvements. For example, the quests are now implemented in Lua, which will mean eventually enthusiasts will be able to create their own quests. But enough with the blabbering. It's time to put on an adventurer's hat and go explore some frickin' world.
(http://eigen.pri.ee/windows_logo.png) Download for Windows (http://eigen.pri.ee/download.php?file=pioneers_build_5_win.zip)
(http://eigen.pri.ee/macosx_logo.png) Download for OS X (http://eigen.pri.ee/download.php?file=pioneers_build_5_mac.zip)
(http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/screenshots/107_t.png) (http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/screenshots/107.png) (http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/screenshots/106_t.png) (http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/screenshots/106.png)
(http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/screenshots/104_rain_t.png) (http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/screenshots/104_rain.png) (http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/screenshots/103_t.png) (http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/screenshots/103.png)
If you don't get a chance to try the build, at least watch the latest video and see what you're missing :)
(http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/dev5_thumb.jpg) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXedrm9UjTA)
SFML has been working great, only a slight issue to report. Sometimes, all of the sudden during active gameplay, the game gets a FocusLost event which I use to disable the game logic and only do the rendering and throttle down the CPU usage. It should not be fired because the window is most definitely focused. It even fires in full-screen mode. I don't get it much myself, but some players have reported sudden slowdowns which means the game has gone into the "unfocused" mode. Haven't been able to reliably reproduce it so I can't really report the bug with meaningful information yet. Other than that, SFML seems to be working pretty reliably.
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Very nice! I have played it for some time now, and I like the art style. It's very interesting what can be done with only 4 different colors!
The game is cool, even if it takes a while to get into it. I didn't understand how to disembark with unloading the cargo -- the backpack was empty, although I loaded everything in the harbor. I saw a bug: When I floated through the canals of the eastern island and clicked to the water near the coast (pretty far away), the brig traversed the land to another canal. How does the fog of war work? Old parts of the island I have already discovered disappear. And everything disappears when switching characters. Furthermore, I were not able to scroll again to the west of the island, where I arrived.
Can we navigate somehow on the sea? It's difficult to steer towards a destination, the sailing mechanism is rather annoying ;)
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Thank you for your reply.
Moving stuff in the harbour only puts the items onto the ship, not into any particular backback. When exploring you can take as much or as little items as you need, depending on how far you will trek from the ship. It doesn't make sense to assign items automatically.
Yeah, I think the patfinder does not skip undiscovered tiles under some circumstances. I'll look into it.
Each explorer has his own state of the map discovery. Previously this was all shared but I didn't like it. Over time they simply forget and areas are blacked out again. I have my reasons for that, I can elaborate if you wish. The rate of that depends on how high the Intellect attribute is. The mapping feature isn't built yet so it's rather easy to get lost. But that's why the markers/flags are for. Once the cartography side of things is implemented, you'll have the map to help you find your way.
Indeed, the sailing mechanism may take some time to get used to and when the wind just isn't favorable it can be a pain. But I feel it's an important part of it and not too difficult once you get used to it. In reality, many expeditions were either cancelled or postponed because the wind conditions just weren't right. You should be happy the wind in the game doesn't have strength which could mean the wind dies just as you're in the middle of the ocean ;)
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I didn't understand how to disembark with unloading the cargo -- the backpack was empty, although I loaded everything in the harbor.
How does the fog of war work? Old parts of the island I have already discovered disappear. And everything disappears when switching characters. Furthermore, I were not able to scroll again to the west of the island, where I arrived.
Can we navigate somehow on the sea? It's difficult to steer towards a destination, the sailing mechanism is rather annoying ;)
( Shop <-> Town stash ) ( Town stash <-> Ship ) ( Ship <-> Crew )
Each unit has its own (Oh, i explored this), also press (M) for map while on island.
There is no way to share ( Island information / Explored parts ) around the members or anything like that, what unit explored, that he know.
Also unit forgets old parts of the terrain during course of turns.
That is the skill part. W towards ( Head wind ) or ( Tail wind ) then release ( W ) to not lose speed rapidly and steer towards destination and pray for good wind direction.
I personally like this, it adds more depth to sailing instead of just sitting there for 5-15 min holding ( W ) and waiting a island to pop out, instead fight the wind direction all the time!!!
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(http://pioneersgame.com/images/title_2x.png)
http://www.pioneersgame.com (http://www.pioneersgame.com)
It's been a long time since I last posted in this thread but I just wanted to let you know everything is still coming along, if a bit slowly. But that's life. Anyway, a new shiny build is out which packs quite a few new features and great many tweaks. The release of the latest build was mainly motivated by IndieCade East 2015 where Chris Dwyer from Junklatch showed the game among others. That one week before that was a crazy crunch mode pulling 14-hour days to get stuff working again. I completely broke the game after the last build when I started rewriting bits in Lua so I had to pull all the loose ends together.
Here are some screenshots to hint towards what's new:
(http://www.pioneersgame.com/screenshots/137_t.png) (http://pioneersgame.com/screenshots/Pioneers_1_1080p.png) (http://www.pioneersgame.com/screenshots/140_t.png) (http://pioneersgame.com/screenshots/Pioneers_2_1080p.png)
(http://www.pioneersgame.com/screenshots/143_t.png) (http://pioneersgame.com/screenshots/Pioneers_4_1080p.png) (http://www.pioneersgame.com/screenshots/19042014_t.png) (http://pioneersgame.com/screenshots/Pioneers_6_1080p.png)
(http://www.pioneersgame.com/screenshots/146_t.png) (http://pioneersgame.com/screenshots/Pioneers_3_1080p.png) (http://eigen.pri.ee/pioneers/screenshots/cave_t.png) (http://pioneersgame.com/screenshots/Pioneers_5_1080p.png)
You can get the latest alpha from itch.io (http://eigen.itch.io/pioneers). You may download it for free but I would greatly appreciate it if you would include a little support. I think this is the last build to be completely free, so starting with next releases there would be a small minimum price. I feel the game has developed far enough over these 3 years to warrant this.
Download here (http://eigen.itch.io/pioneers)
I hope you enjoy this! :)
I upgraded to SFML 2.2 a few weeks ago and it's been working fine, most of the time. There is an issue with C++ libraries when using Code::Blocks and GCC. It runs fine on Windows 7 but I needed to include the DLLs to make it work on Windows 8. I saw a thread on the subject around here somewhere but I wanted to let you know it's in fact quite a serious issue. Other than that I think it's been working well. Props to the developers :)
I'm yet to try out the new iOS and Android support but I'm looking forward to getting something up and running some time.
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It runs fine on Windows 7 but I needed to include the DLLs to make it work on Windows 8. I saw a thread on the subject around here somewhere but I wanted to let you know it's in fact quite a serious issue.
Can you be a bit more specifr and/or link the mentioned thread? I've been using SFML 2.2 on Windows 8.1 without any issues.
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I think it was this: http://en.sfml-dev.org/forums/index.php?topic=17084.0 It may also be an issue on my part of course because in http://www.sfml-dev.org/tutorials/2.0/start-cb.php it says..
...which of the libgcc_s_sjlj-1.dll or libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll files is present in your MinGW/bin...
I have both of these files present.
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Sounds like you're not linking libraries correctly. Just read my post on that thread it should explain it all. As such it's not an issue with SFML but people not understanding their toolchain. ;)
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Sounds like you're not linking libraries correctly. Just read my post on that thread it should explain it all. As such it's not an issue with SFML but people not understanding their toolchain. ;)
Yeah, it might be.. Had no trouble with the previous version though, 2.1 that is. So I must've forgotten how to link libraries overnight :)
Thanks, anyway. If I get a chance I'll try to resolve the issue.
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Have you tried to make a Linux build (your game, as most SFML ones, probably runs on wine no problem, but still)? If not, would you be willing to experiment with the list of steps to build almost universal linux binary that I posted a while ago?
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Just wanted to hop in and say that the graphics style of this game is super awesome. And I mean super awesome! Will download and try it out!