Eric Barone has been hard at work on Stardew Valley since our interview with him a while back. I still am very excited about this game and want to let you know how its shaping up:

"I’ve made a bunch of progress on character customization, and I’d like to share some of the results with you! Above, you can see just a few of the many possible combinations for your character. After you’ve created your starting look, there’s nothing stopping you from getting a haircut or changing your outfit in the future. Below is the unfinished character customization screen. You won’t have access to all clothes when you first start your character, but over time you’ll be able to put together a pretty sharp wardrobe!"

Eric also released some HD wallpapers of the game and I set it to my current desktop. Very beautiful pixel-art and I recommend you check it out if you are curious.

http://stardewvalley.net/mini-dev-update-2/
http://stardewvalley.net/new-wallpaper/

You can also read my interview with Eric as well:

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/1005

The Starbound pre-order just dropped and the minute I heard about it I pre-ordered my copy, downloaded the soundtrack and put it on my phone. You should too, the game looks wicked awesome.

The first few pre-order levels:

Pixel Tier:

• Copy of Starbound + Steam Key


• Beta Access


• Soundtrack

Silver Tier:

• Copy of Starbound + Steam Key


• Beta Access


• Soundtrack


• Tier 1 Forum Badge

You can check out the rest on the pre-order site. It goes up from there and maxes out at the Impervium Tier that only costs $2k but you get an in game statue, name in the credits, tier 6 forum badge & your name in the NPC generation routine.

It's only been available for a few minutes and they have already made $43k on the pre-order. I wish them well to a speedy beta!

http://playstarbound.com/store/
http://playstarbound.com/store/faq.php

"For the last 15 years, as I served as the constant whipping post for thousands...nay, MILLIONS of pathetic worms who have plundered my depths and banished me and my brothers to the soulstones time and time again! NO LONGER! On May 15 in the year of the Panda, 2012, my plan to claim victory over the Nine Hells and the High Heavens has come to fruition! Behold, the chronicle of my journey thus far!"

This might be known to some of you already, but I just found "Diablo's" review of Diablo III on Amazon. Its really funny and sums up the initial problems with the game.

"Day 1: Millions of hapless insects gathered with their gold in hand and their steel drawn as they prepared to storm my doorstep, thinking that I, the Lord of Terror, would stand idly by as you farmed me for loot. Little did you suspect that my secret weapon "error 3007" would lay you all low! Those of you that happened to slip by my net came face to face with my uberlieutenants-- Lagmodan, The Serverbreaker,and Archbishop Disconnectus."

Hahaha, awesome.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2E1992AEAUA8Z/ref=cm_cr_dp_title

I nabbed The Legend of Dungeon off the humble store and have been playing it a bit over the last few days. Its a really fun hack-n-slash roguelike with a really beautiful pixel-art tone. I am not amazing yet, as seen in this video but its a pretty good walkthrough of how the game plays and how awesome it looks.

Like most roguelikes you can spend a few minutes playing or hours, its really up to you how many times you want to keep playing.

http://www.robotloveskitty.com/LoD/
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=108895757

"You and up to three companions are looking for treasure and glory in a dark flickering dungeon full of deadly. Legend has it there is a massive treasure all the way down on the 26th floor. Your quest: get the treasure, and make it back alive. Which you won't, you'll die...
...the game is about dying, and treasure!"

After being successfully Kickstarted, The Legend of Dungeon needs a few Greenlight votes to make it to Steam. This game looks like a really awesome retro roguelike that has an really interesting dark pixel style.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=108895757

You can also pick the game up for $10 on Robot Loves Kitty website which gets you the current alpha build, final build and 2 game expansions! For an extra $5 you get the score as well.

Works on Mac, Linux & Windows.

http://www.robotloveskitty.com/LoD/

FTL is one of the most unique games I've played in the last few years. Many gamers started following the game since its successful Kickstarter till now. Being a huge fan of the game myself, I contacted the FTL folks to ask them a few questions about the game and how things have gone since launching it. I want to thank Matthew Davis and the FTL team for taking time to talk to me and for also making such an awesome game.

Thanks to @scrypt & @CapnCurry for adding questions to the interview!

jdodson: FTL was successfully Kickstarted, has been reviewed very well by gamers and recently you guys won an award at GDC. How as all the attention been and what has been the one thing that surprised you about it all?

Matthew Davis: All of the attention has been surreal. We never expected that FTL would turn into the success that it has been. One small surprising thing happened after we won our IGF awards. I was carrying a trophy to get dinner at Chipotle and the cashier bought me a burrito as a congratulations. Indie development success has perks!

jdodson: In a world of soul destroying roguelikes, FTL dares to be fun. FTL is hard, but not impossible as it allows you some great runs and a bit more luck than I have experienced with other games. I wonder for you, what did you add to make FTL a bit more fun than soul crushing compared to the typical roguelikes?

Matthew Davis: I don't think we set out to specifically make FTL 'more fun' than typical roguelikes. I think that we probably set out to make it slightly more accessible (which isn't always a dirty word for hardcore games) by just having a functional graphical UI and an overall simpler game than most roguelikes. That probably made it easier for most people to give the game a shot and find the fun.

jdodson: I wonder what you would do in the following situation:

“You find a number of ships fleeing from a small space station. You hail them, asking what's wrong: "Help! We're being overrun by some sort of giant alien spiders!”

1. Land on the planet to investigate, spiders kill one crew member no matter what.


2. Land on the planet to investigate, spiders kill everyone except Ripley, Hicks, Newt and Bishop “GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER.”


3. Remove spider code from game because the loss of life has been too great.

Matthew Davis: Haha. That event is no more dangerous than most! But I still never land on the planet, giant alien spiders are no joke.

CapnCurry: FTL is unapologetically difficult, and that was clearly a deliberate design decision - no saving games, no second chances, and a difficulty progression that's meant to restrict victory to the narrowest cases. It definitely works, and part of the game's fun is in knowing that there's no looking back and that today is probably not the day you save the Federation. In an era where even "limited continues" is often considered a rigorous difficulty feature, how and why did you decide on this level of challenge?

Matthew Davis: We grew up playing difficult PC games and just prefer the challenge. We never intended FTL to actually reach a large audience, so we were designing for the small group of players that like to be repeatedly beat down! With a game like FTL, the playthroughs are so short that you can get away with it being a lot harder. Permanent game over is more difficult to stomach after 20 hours, but if you've only put an hour into it you just hit reset and start again!

jdodson: Do you have any kind of statistics as to the amount of players that beat normal mode compared easy?

Matthew Davis: We don't have any statistics at all. And I wouldn't even be able to make a very educated guess on that... it seems like 50/50 people play normal vs. easy.

jdodson: What games are you playing right now?

Matthew Davis: Working my way through Bioshock Infinite on 1999 Mode. Also playing Tribes: Ascend, Starcraft II, and SimCity.

scrypt: As a Kickstarter backer, it was interesting to see how the game evolved from what you had at that point, and what FTL became. It seemed like the feedback you received from each build had a definite impact on what was released to the public. How was your experience with that, and the Kickstarter process in general, and is it something you would consider doing again?

Matthew Davis: The Kickstarter experience was rather terrifying. Having that many people watching you and depending on you to make a great product is a lot of stress. I'm glad you felt that the feedback was reflected in the game, we worked very hard to listen to everyone and try to make the best game we could. FTL is a much better game for the Kickstarter and we appreciate that immensely. That said, I think we would be hesitant to use it again. The stress levels were too high and we prefer to work quietly in a cave.

jdodson: I wonder what you would do in the following situation:

“You have released FTL to critical acclaim and financial success. You won a few awards even, YAY! After you buy your second Ferrari and new winter home in Tuscani do you...”

1. Work on a game DLC to extend the FTL experience.


2. Work on your next game. You know, Minecraft with Dinosaurs but without all the building and stuff.


3. Retire young and laugh at all the suckers that have “day jobs.”


4. Take offer and work for EA to lead the team working on the next FIFA title. GOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLL!

Matthew Davis: Ideally #2. But we're still busy with potential tablet ports, patches, and some Kickstarter rewards to actually get going on it! We're happy with the final product of FTL and would get more excitement out of something new rather than expanding on the old.

jdodson: If at some point there is to be an FTL 2, I wonder what you would like to see in it?

Matthew Davis: There were a thousand things left on the cutting room floor that I would've loved to see, but FTL 2 would probably require a much bigger change rather than just some expanding content on the original. The most common requests are co-op and open world gameplay, which would definitely be two things we'd consider. But there are no plans for an FTL 2 any time soon.

jdodson: Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions today, before we wrap things up is there anything you want to mention?

Matthew Davis: Thanks for taking the time to play and enjoy FTL!

To celebrate today's retro Tuesday I decided to dust off a DOS classic, ZZT. ZZT isn't one of those classic retro DOS games that garners a ton of critical acclaim like Commander Keen, Warcraft or Doom but that doesn't mean I don't look back on it fondly. As most DOS games at the time were moving on to CGA, EGA and the super-ultra-deluxe-epic VGA graphics, ZZT games lived entirely in ANSI. When ZZT came out, it wasn't entirely original as the ANSI style was pioneered in other games like The Kingdom of Kroz and others. I really enjoyed Kroz, but the quirky nature of the ZZT kept me coming back to it. Well that and they were all available as some form of shareware.

I heavily played the original ZZT and Super ZZT the most. As they were both Shareware, I never did actually beat them but played the hell out of what the shareware versions did include. I always dreamt about making my own levels in the "for pay" version but never had the money to actually spring for it.

I think one of the reasons I love MUDS, ANSI adventure games like ZZT and the like and find more modern incarnations in games like Dwarf Fortress is because of the imagination you have to bring to the game. When the player is a simple smile on a screen the epicness of what you are doing lies in your mind. Another reason these games are awesome is because they are often simple to play.

One awesome trival-bit about ZZT is that it was made by Tim Sweeney and a very early Epic MegaGames. Yes, ZZT was made by THAT Tim Sweeney and THAT Epic Games... the folks that brought us Gears of War and Unreal Tournament. Kind of awesome to see how far the company came from making ANSI based adventure games to writing the tech that powers the majority of triple A games in the industry.

To many ZZT wasn't a huge footnote in gaming for them, but for me it was a pretty large DOS staple back in the day. If you could download it off a BBS in an hour or less I played it and ZZT was one of those games I played the hell out of.

Since launching the site I realize the stuff I do might seem a bit out of reach to some. Over the last bit I have improved as a write and I am getting better at sharing content that people want to read. One thing that I started doing over the course of the site was to send interviews to people in gaming I respected. I was really nervous giving the first couple, but after that it got easier.

If you have been considering sending out a gaming related interview, I recommend you do so and as such want to help the process for you. I have a few thoughts that might things a bit easier so you can publish your first interview.

whom to talk to?

First off you might have an idea of someone or some company you want to interview. Understand that not all companies and people in gaming will grant your request for an interview. Some people are pretty big in gaming and some companies won't make the time for you because you don't work for PC Gamer or Kotaku. Try not to let it get you down, you can still get in touch with people making awesome stuff.

organize your list

Whenever I play an awesome game or see some information about a cool game on Kickstarter I make a note to myself of someone to contact. I keep a list of people and companies to email and then pick one off the stack. I don't put interviews on the list I am not REALLY excited about and I recommend you don't either, just do stuff about things you dig. In fact, I don't write about anything on the site I am not really excited about either.

reaching out

After I realize what interview I want to do next I make the initial contact. This can get tricky depending on whom you want to talk to. If its a game company they have a website and usually a contact form or a press email. If its a person, that can get harder. Occasionally the company or person simply has a facebook page so I message them on that. A few times some of the companies I have tried to contact have no contact information at all so I submitted a help ticket :D A bit of persistence can pay off and in the case of the help ticket, it turned out into a VERY awesome interview. Its ok to be creative in reaching out, but be respectful and don't break any laws :D

keep poking a few times

Sometimes you get a response right away and sometimes you don't. If I don't get a response within a week I poke them again. After about three attempts I stop all attempts. I am persistent but people are busy or might not be interested in responding at all. No harm, I just take the interview off my list.

after you get your yes, how do you do the interview?

Awesome, they agreed! I would recommend keeping your first interviews simple. Tell them you will write up the questions and send them over and they can respond. This is the simplest way to do your first interview and I seriously recommend it. It might seem rad to do a Skype interview but unless your interview is going to be audio only or some kind of video interview, transcribing all that text to written form could be very cumbersome. That said, there is nothing stopping you from doing that but I would start out doing something simple to start.

Coming up with interview questions is the real work of the process but if you are intimately familiar with the subject, its not too hard. If you read over the interviews (hit the interview tab above) you can get a sense for how Travis and I set up our questions. We both have our own style and if you want to take some of the questions we ask and re-phrase them a bit, feel free.

shipping the interview

After you send over the questions it can take a few days to hear back. Sometimes it can take weeks and sometimes you don't hear back at all. I follow the 3 email rule after an interview in that if after 3 attempts to contact them over 3 weeks if I don't hear back I let it go. Sad, but it happens as people are super busy and things fall off their radar.

After I get the interview back I format it for the site and post it under "interviews" and to do that all you need to do is add "Interviews" to your game list. Each person can format their interview differently, but its nice to have names of whom is saying what so people can follow along easily. After I post it to the site I share it on Twitter, Facebook and relevant sub-reddits if they apply.

no magic, just persistence

There is no real magic to it, just the doing and a bit of persistence. The coolest part is the amount of people I have been able to talk to doing awesome stuff I love. I consider doing interviews to be one of the coolest things i've done on the site and look forward to doing many more. If you have any questions hit up the comment thread or contact me direct. If you want to have me help you with anything about a interview with someone in gaming, hit me up id love to help you out!

Look forwarding to seeing your first awesome interview on the site!

Just curious what everyone is playing right now?

What I have been playing over the last few days:

• Spaceward Ho on my iPhone


• FTL


• Age of Empires Online

Age of Empires Online came to Steam a bit ago and after that really hasn't received as much attention as it should. Its a shame really because its a unique take on the traditional MMO. Its a free to play game available in Steam, so if you haven't checked it out yet, I recommend you do. I reviewed it a bit ago and you can check that out here:

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/557

One glaring problem of Age of Empires is how hard it is to install. After you install it in Steam, it requires you to create a Microsoft Live account and obtain an install key to plug in to Age of Empires Online. Creating a Microsoft Live account is trivial, getting the Age of Empires Online key is very hard to figure out but if you read the steps in this thread you should be cooking:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110825013159AAmC32E

After playing Age of Empires Online recently I have noticed many updates that streamlines the experience and makes things simpler. There are more races to play as and its not hard to buy them or gain points to get them for free. Age of Empires Online keeps all the stuff you love from the Age of Empires 2 core gameplay with a very beautiful graphics overhaul, which is worth the price of admission alone. After the recent set of core upgrades to the gameplay I think giving this game another shot is well worth your time.