ConcernedApe just posted on information in regard to Stardew Valley shipping this year that isn't awesome.

"I know earlier this year I estimated that the game would be done before 2014. Well… I have to say that I will probably not be able to meet that estimate anymore.

I’ve always been a little uncomfortable giving release estimates for Stardew. It’s stressful to build up hope for a specific release date, knowing that I might have to disappoint everyone by pushing it back. And i’m definitely guilty of being a little too optimistic about development timetables. Ultimately, though… I think most will agree with me that a slow-cooked, polished game is better than a rushed, quick release."

I agree, it's better to deliver a polished game than something rushed and buggy. This game ranks high for games I am really interested in getting my hands on. That said, there is a pretty huge amount of awesome games out right now, so I think I can find something to occupy my time until Stardew ships, hopefully in 2014 but there is no word on that right now.

ConcernedApe did talk a bit about how far along the game is, which is pretty good news.

"How complete is the game? Well, there are still a couple of features that I haven’t even begun yet… but, they all should be relatively minor in terms of development time. Other than that, there is a lot of polish and fleshing-out to be done before it’s ready. There are also some technical (i.e. not involving actual in-game content) things which I *might* need to do before release.

So, while the game is definitely “mostly done”, there are still plenty of things that need to be finished before I am comfortable releasing it. I am still working as fast as I possibly can without compromising on the quality of the game (and also while maintaining my own sanity, for those of you who saw me playing Terraria on Steam recently :p ). Thanks to all of you for being so patient, compassionate, and supportive during this process… I really do appreciate it!"

If you are interested in some new game details, ConcernedApe also shared some really interesting information about the characters you can date and possibly marry in game. So check it out, link below.

http://stardewvalley.net/dev-update-12/

One of the best parts of the recent Terraria 1.2 patch was the addition of more awesome music. Having a larger canvas of sound to accompany you while you are mining, building and slaying bosses is important. From the first time I heard the music in Terraria I was in love. Composer Scott Lloyd Shelly captures the wonder that you experience playing Terraria very well and I have wanted to talk to him about the game for some time.

Very excited to bring you our interview with the amazing Scott Lloyd Shelly. Don't hold the applause.

jdodson: The music in Terraria is incredibly iconic. From the first time I heard “Overworld Day” to hearing the new tracks from the 1.2 update, the world of Terraria seems boundless and magical. When you were first considering scoring the game, what kinds of ideas or concepts did you want to express with the music?

Scott Lloyd Shelly: Overworld Day was the very first piece of music I wrote for the game. Andrew sent me a few pictures and a very early build of the game (I was slain - a lot...) My first two thoughts were; a) this is a 2D game, with a retroish 80's style pixelated look (which was/is loveable) - I need to pay musical homage to that 8 bit era and b) potentially huge (and magical) worlds are getting created, so maybe some big orchestral sounds can be included as well. I was pretty much trying to create a hybrid of those two elements that would hopefully become unique to the game.

WhiteboySlim: How closely did you work with Andrew Spinks on the soundtrack? Was there frequent feedback or were you given pretty free reign to craft the music yourself?

Scott Lloyd Shelly: Andrew Spinks has been my favorite game developer to work with - after I submitted the first track, he pretty much turned me loose - that doesn't happen very often with soundtracks in my experience.

jdodson: Interested what your thoughts are on Terraria and the very large and passionate community that surrounds the game?

Scott Lloyd Shelly: I'm not at all surprised that so many people have come to love playing Terraria, and I try and watch as many playthroughs posted on YouTube as I can to try and keep up. Some of the soundtrack remixes are pretty cool too.

Travis: The music for each area and event really sets the mood well. Two of the tracks that stand out to me are both of the Hallow tracks, overworld and underground. What real world inspiration did you use when composing for this imaginary world?

Scott Lloyd Shelly: Andrew would send me graphics for each level and biome, and that was a big help for me, and probably the main real world inspiration. For Hallow, I think it was the mention of Unicorns and Rainbows that got me started musically on that one; Hallow/Underground was more of a result of me playing in my musical sandbox, mainly Logic Pro.

WhiteboySlim: How did you originally get involved in the video game industry?

Scott Lloyd Shelly: Good question. Way back in 1993, I was studying orchestration privately, and I started to get interested in what was happening in San Francisco and Silicon Valley; buzzwords like "multimedia" and "virtual reality" were flying around, and I wanted to get involved creatively. I started to send demos and resumes to some of the game companies (after phoning first...) and a company called Accolade asked if I could come up from LA for a meeting.

I ended up doing the music for an unreleased title for the Sega Genesis and SNES console platforms for them, and really enjoyed the experience, and moved to San Francisco for a few years after that to be closer the the action.

jdodson: When you were first composing music for Terraria did you have a version of the game you could play or did you work off ideas and concepts only? What did you think of things after you played the game with your music added to it?

Scott Lloyd Shelly: I had a very early build, a few graphics, and emails with the developer. I haven't played the game a whole lot (mostly on PC and now on iPhone) but for me, it (the music) pretty much works. By that I mean it's evocative of the different levels, recognizable as Terraria music, and (hopefully) doesn't drive most people crazy after hours of gameplay (there are always going to be a few haters out there...you can't please everybody.)

I also hope that Andrew Spinks is happy with the soundtrack and that it works for him - Terraria is his vision.

WhiteboySlim: The Empire has attacked your ship (which was totally just on a diplomatic mission). You only have time to grab 2 or 3 things before running to the escape pods. What do you grab?

Scott Lloyd Shelly: My wife, my daughter, and my Fender Telecaster (guitar) - not necessarily in that order:)

jdodson: Track 13 on the Terraria Soundtrack Volume 2 ends with “Lunar Boss” yet to date no such boss exists in the game? Andrew Spinks has noted that he plans on adding an end game boss and I am curious if you know some details about it you don’t mind sharing?

Scott Lloyd Shelly: Sorry, I haven't heard anything about that yet. He does ask for additional music tracks occasionally, so he could be planning something.

Travis: What’s your favorite video game soundtrack that you *didn’t* work on?

Scott Lloyd Shelly: Wow, that's hard. Skyrim, for sure; (Jeremy Soule); Super Meat Boy; Where Is My Heart (Alessandro Coronas); Botanicula; Spore; and Dungeon Seige 2 would be a few.

WhiteboySlim: Andrew Spinks has already stated he plans on making Terraria 2. Do you think you’ll be back for the sequel?

Scott Lloyd Shelly: That's up to Andrew. I'd be absolutely up for it.

jdodson: What have you worked on over your career that you are especially proud of?

Scott Lloyd Shelly: Putt-Putt Joins The Circus for Humongous Entertainment, Reader Rabbit 1st Grade (classic version) and The Crocodile Hunter TV shows.

Travis: I’ve heard these songs countless times, and if it was any other music I would have gotten really sick of it by now. When you were writing the music for Terraria, were you considering the fact that people would be hearing this music over and over and write it with that in mind? How do you keep it catchy after the thousandth time?

Scott Lloyd Shelly: Thanks, Travis - I thought about that a lot. Part of it is not letting the music stay on one section for too long. I figure if I'm getting bored listening to a loop a few times, someone who's playing the game for hours will for sure. I also try to keep the arrangements fairly sparse (except for the boss music) and hopefully that helps too.

jdodson: Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions, is there anything you want to
say before we finish up?

Scott Lloyd Shelly: Thanks to you guys for asking questions! We music people are pretty much behind the scenes most of the time, and it's really nice to know somebody's listening. Thanks again, and please keep me posted.

http://www.resonancearray.com/
http://www.terraria.org/

I am very excited to let you know that FTL is getting a new Advanced Edition that will drop early 2014. I heard about it today and like many of you am really excited to get my hands on the new content.

"We’ve been working hard over the summer and are excited to finally officially announce a free expansion, FTL: Advanced Edition! FTL: AE is a huge content addition that includes new weapons, drones, augments, systems, enemies, and more. Here are some details on just a few of the additions visible in the trailer:

• Mind Control System: Temporarily turn enemies into allies. Force a boarder to repair the damage they just did, or have the enemy pilot sabotage their own helm.


• Hacking System: Lockdown and disrupt enemy systems. Unique effects for each system, ranging from forcing a teleporter remove boarders to making the medbay damage instead of heal.


• New Sector and Events: Our writer Tom Jubert has returned along with special guest writer Chris Avellone (of Planescape fame), who managed to find some time for us between his work on Project Eternity and Wasteland 2. They’ve been helping us add a new sector and scatter new events throughout the rest of the game.


• New Weapons and Effects: Many new weapons that take advantage of new mechanics: overcharging to increase the number of volleys, stun effects to freeze crew, and area effect targeting, to name a few.


• And more systems, drones, augments, enemy ships, enemy layouts, and hostile environments. All of which we’ll be sure to talk about more in the coming weeks!

"

FTL will also be getting new music from Ben Prunty. They will also be releasing the game to iPad. What do you think, will this be something you check out? What part of the update are you most excited about?

http://www.ftlgame.com/?p=598

"Do you want to make the world a slightly better place and be rewarded some games for being an awesome human being? It's simple: choose a charity you like from the three we have here (WWF, Worldbuilders, and Gaming for Good), pick out 3 games you like out of 13 offered, pay $5 or more, and we will give 100% of your donation to charity*! You can also pick more than 3 games, and your minimum donation will be raised accordingly. Want to donate more? No problem--you can set the amount manually. Don't need the games, or already have them? Select the "Gift this order" option at the checkout, and make some other gamer happy."

GOG.com is running a charity bundle featuring some awesome Indie Games and all the proceeds go to one of three Charities you can pick. The bundle is featuring some great indie games such as Anodyne, FTL, Escape Goat, Incredipede, Darwinia, Oddworld Abes Oddysee, Driftmoon, Botanicula, Walking Mars, Creatures Village, Gemini Rule, PID & The Whispered World. This bundle is a bit different in that you can only pick three of the above games when you donate.

Cool to see GOGcom jump into the Charity bundle scene. Any plans to pick any 3 of these games up on GOGcom?

http://www.gog.com/news/charity_promo_pick_3_games_donate_5_or_more_100_goes_to_charity

After an absolutely killer Kickstarter, Hyper Light Drifter is now dropping on us some absolutely amazing gameplay footage. Featuring some awesome music by Disasterpeace, the video is very promising. My only gripe? I wish the gameplay footage were in HD.

With a final Kickstarter funding level at 650k of the initially asked for 24k, this game should be coming strong. According to the developers Hyper Light Drifter will launch mid 2014 on PC, Linux, Mac, PS4, Vita, Wii U & OUYA.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1661802484/hyper-light-drifter

The Playstation 4 will release November 15th but there are already unboxing videos flying around the interwebs and this morning I saw one that was really interesting. Wired Gadget Lab posted a video exclusive of Sony's Engineering Directory Yasuhiro Ootori unboxing the new system and taking it apart. A really fun video and he does a great job explaining what everything inside the new system is. Watch the magic below:

http://video.wired.com/watch/gadget-lab-playstation-4-unboxing-the-new-game-console

-

"PLAYSTATION 4 NO DISASSEMBLE!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjeptaI2T8E

This was a special episode of the Cheerful Ghost Roundtable as @CapnCurry and @Travis were out hunting Vampires that sparkle. We talk a bit about the games we are playing and dive in to some awesome game news.

We give our thoughts on the new Starbound Beta and just how much of it we will play. We both break down some new Steam Machine news and Valve's promise to not release SteamOS exclusives. We round things off with some PS4 happenings as well as some awesome games on Kickstarter right now.

As always, if you don't watch and subscribe to your YouTube channel, Mario needs to go to one more castle to find the Princess.

show notes

• Terraria 1.2


• My first thoughts on Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft: http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1702


• Organ Trail: http://hatsproductions.com/organtrail.html


• Super Meat Boy comes to Linux on Steam: http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1719


• Starbound Beta is coming in three stages: http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1703


• Valve will not release SteamOS exclusives: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/11/05/valve-shows-off-steam-hardware-promises-no-exclusives/
  


• Engaget hands on with a Steam Machine: http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/04/valve-steam-machine-hands-on/


• Steam on Linux released a year ago, now there are 231 games for it: https://twitter.com/icculus/statuses/398153339440881664


• PS4 "Can't Do" http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/sony-releases-list-of-things-the-playstation-4-cant-do


• Paradise Lost: First Contact Kickstarter - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1183462809/paradise-lost-first-contact


• SCALE Kickstarter - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1188957169/scale

Recently Super Meat Boy on Steam was updated to add Linux as a platform and refresh the Mac port to fix some bugs and get it working on newer Macs. The port and fixes were done by everyones favorite Linux port guru Ryan Gordon. To celebrate the games 3rd anniversary and its recent Mac and Linux love it is 80% off on Steam right now.

Ryan Gordon recently posted a bit about the update:

"- Linux version now available on Steam. If you already own the game for Windows or Mac on Steam, you get the Linux version for free right now. Otherwise, your three dollars gets you three platforms of Super Meat Boy, plus SteamOS support some day.
- Now using SDL2, which means...
- ...game controller support that actually works!
- Tons of bug fixes.
- Super Meat World now works on Linux.
- 64-bit support on Mac OS X.
- Steamworks support on Linux (32-bit only, not my fault!)
- Fullscreen support on Mac OS X.
- Better fullscreen support on Linux.
- Mac framerate should be dramatically better.

Updated Humble Bundle builds coming soon, but I'll probably wait a day or two for Steam feedback before packaging it up."

Awesome to see this awesome Indie title getting some attention and it takes one game off my wish list of things to come to SteamOS.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/40800/

Read Ryan Gordon's post:

https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z12aub0rzuzfdhyks223zr2gotv1fblaa04

List of games i'd love to see come to SteamOS.

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1692

Legend of Dungeon tops the list of awesome games i've played this year. The game brings a fresh face to the rouge-like genre while keeping it true to its most basic dungeon exploration elements. One part of the mix that makes the game work so well is its score. I was able to contact David Dirig, the composer for The Legend of Dungeon score and he agreed to talk with me about it.

jdodson: When you started the process of creating the music for Legend of Dungeon, what was the sound and tone you were going for?

David Dirig: -When I started the project I wanted to maintain a very strict ancient/traditional sound. I had a very limited palette of instruments and sounds that I thought would fit the mood and spaces in the game. However, as the project progressed, I found that I needed to include more modern elements in the music. The introduction of various electronic elements allowed the music the opportunity to hold the interest of the listener while still maintaining my original goals. Plus it made it a lot more interesting for me as the composer.

jdodson: As I play Legend of Dungeon the score conveys a sense of dread and somber darkness. Was this something you planned or did it just come out naturally?

David Dirig: When I started the soundtrack I knew that I wanted to stay on the darker side when it came to the feel and atmosphere created and maintained by the music. I wanted the feel of the Dungeon to be ever present throughout the OST. When the music started I wanted it to almost give the listener a sense of spacial recognition. Incidentally, I wrote the entire soundtrack in a completely dark space lit only by my monitor.

jdodson: “Zombie” is a fantastic song. I really like the way it brings out the guitar and the strong drum rim hit with the synth. At what point in the score process for Legend of Dungeon did Zombie come and how long did it take to complete it?

David Dirig: Thank you. Zombie was actually the first song that I wrote and I used it as a measuring device for the rest of the soundtrack. It conveyed everything I wanted to say with the OST. As for the time, When I’m composing, I tend to get large pieces of music almost all at once. The first rough version of Zombie was done in around 20 minutes. I hope this doesn’t cheapen it’s value, but that’s just how the process works for me sometimes. Some of the other songs took an easy ten hours to rough out.

jdodson: What are you working on right now?

David Dirig: I have been working to complete a few projects, one of which is compiling an album of some of my newest compositions for release in the next few months.

jdodson: The landscape of composers is pretty broad, for you who stands out to you as someone you admire?

David Dirig: -I love listening to Zimmer. I particularly enjoy the Dark Knight score. I was obsessed with it while writing the LOD soundtrack. I also have to mention Zoe Keating. I came upon her work a few months ago and her compositions are both beautiful and mesmerizing.

jdodson: Did you have access to the game when you were composing it in some form to help the process?

David Dirig: Absolutely. I had access to nearly every version during it’s creation. It was incredibly helpful in adjusting the mood and feel of the music as well as finding what wasn’t working.

jdodson: Is there anything you haven’t done musically that you want to try or get into?

David Dirig: Scoring a film would be amazing. Most of the music I write has a visual inspiration at it’s inception and I would love the opportunity to work on a project where it’s possible to help someone else describe an Image or a particular set of emotions sonically.

jdodson: How involved were Alix and Calvin in how you went about writing the music for Legend of Dungeon?

David Dirig: I typically spoke with them nearly every week about the games progression and regularly presented them with ideas I had musically. They were wonderful to work with and allowed me every opportunity to be creative and just do what I do.

jdodson: I wonder what the typical setup you use to compose is? Do you use any particular gear, software or configuration?

David Dirig: I used garageband for the entire project. I wanted to see what I could do with it. Gear wise, iMac, Audio-Technica ATH-m50 Headphones, Jackson 7-string and a takamine tc28c Classical Guitar running through a Boss GT-5 processor and an M-audio interface, A Kawai ES-1 electric piano as a MIDI controller. Pretty plain and simple.

jdodson: Zombie starts off the Legend of Dungeon score and Succubus closes it. How did you compose these songs in relation to each other if at all?

David Dirig: The songs in the soundtrack are presented in the order that they were written. When writing Zombie, I wanted it to convey a sense of nervous anticipation and mystery. For Succubus I was going for after battle swagger. One opens, one closes. In addition, all of the songs in the soundtrack were written in the same key and tempo. The music heard during actual gameplay is randomly created from elements of each of the songs in the OST. I wanted the in game music to never get boring or predictable. I broke the 18 songs in the soundtrack down into the 244 tracks from which they are made. I then compressed the tracks into 2:08 loops. The song elements fit seamlessly due to their afore mentioned composition. The individual loops are randomly assigned to creatures, places and things in the levels and proximity controlled to fade in and out of the game audio mix. When you as the player hit the reset button the game music effectively changes completely while maintaining the same feel and hopefully staying interesting.

jdodson: When you look at Legend of Dungeon now, is there anything you may have changed in any of the music you created for it?

David Dirig: There is a single point in Minotaur when one of the tracks is too low in the mix. It bothers me every time I hear it, but no one else has complained. When composing, you can always find things that can be changed. There comes a point in the creative process when you have to recognize that the work is done and start the next creative endeavor. I reached that point and feel that I did my best.

jdodson: It’s awesome you were able to do this Dave, anything you want to say before we finish up?

David Dirig: This has been an amazing project. Thanks to all the people playing Legend of Dungeon.

https://soundcloud.com/daviddirigaudio

Ben Prunty, the composer extraordinaire behind FTL and the upcoming game SCALE posted the title track on Sound Cloud. It's a very moving piece rocking some really great qualities I hope to hear in the final game score.

SCALE is 11 days away from its Kickstarter conclusion and isn't funded yet. If the game seems like something you want to see made, kick it!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1188957169/scale

If you need to placate more of your Ben Prunty fix, check out our interview with him about everything rad:

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1552