Thanks for the kind words guys. It's always a bit of a back-handed compliment to be called "underrated", but it sounds good to me.
We do hope to release a version of Natural Selection for Source (and a new game in the NS universe) in the future, but going from successful mod team to AAA game studio is really really difficult. Really.
Darwinia is very impressive, but I think mostly only to game developers or afficionados. That said, I don't see why they need to get into retail in the U.S.: they are profitable already and they used raw persistence and cohones to get themselves into UK retail.
They've gotten great PR for themselves, and they are able to sell their games directly from their website at essentially 100% profit. They don't NEED retail!
If they ever go out of business, they should be able to land a sweet game job, save up some cash and do it again. They've earned quite a reputation.
If I were them, I would just keep doing what I was doing.
While I can't claim that the game got better for everyone with every subsequent version, I can tell you that the online player numbers have remained solid (though basically unchanging) throughout our development.
It's my opinion that a lot of people SAY they like 3-hour long games, but the number of people that PLAY games of this length are much less then those that enjoy games that generally finish within 15-20 minutes.
Thanks for the unbelievable compliment, I only wish it were true. Star Control II is tied for 'Best Game Ever' in my book, tied only by Starcraft and Chess (I'm totally serious).
I'm glad there's interest here.:) The 'SDK' that was released doesn't have any actual code or coding information. It seems to be the new model viewer and updated version of Hammer (the map editor). So we still can't experiment with it, to see how much work it would be to move the code-base over.
If and when we do move NS over, we'll likely keep the gameplay exactly the same (at least for now) and then stop supporting the original NS. Trying to balance and support two versions would be a lot of unnecessary work.
Also, I've started design (and funding) work on a next-gen game in the Natural Selection universe, but there are no details available there yet (unless you want to help fund it).
Slashdot Mirror
Here's another one (though not a side-scroller). Cory Strader's hand-painted artwork gets me every time.
http://www.zenofsudoku.com
(sorry for the plug, I don't have the money to have a PR drone post this for me!)
-Charlie
Thanks for the kind words guys. It's always a bit of a back-handed compliment to be called "underrated", but it sounds good to me.
We do hope to release a version of Natural Selection for Source (and a new game in the NS universe) in the future, but going from successful mod team to AAA game studio is really really difficult. Really.
Darwinia is very impressive, but I think mostly only to game developers or afficionados. That said, I don't see why they need to get into retail in the U.S.: they are profitable already and they used raw persistence and cohones to get themselves into UK retail.
They've gotten great PR for themselves, and they are able to sell their games directly from their website at essentially 100% profit. They don't NEED retail!
If they ever go out of business, they should be able to land a sweet game job, save up some cash and do it again. They've earned quite a reputation.
If I were them, I would just keep doing what I was doing.
While I can't claim that the game got better for everyone with every subsequent version, I can tell you that the online player numbers have remained solid (though basically unchanging) throughout our development.
It's my opinion that a lot of people SAY they like 3-hour long games, but the number of people that PLAY games of this length are much less then those that enjoy games that generally finish within 15-20 minutes.
Thanks for the unbelievable compliment, I only wish it were true. Star Control II is tied for 'Best Game Ever' in my book, tied only by Starcraft and Chess (I'm totally serious).
:)
Just wait until you see NS2.
Hey guys,
:) The 'SDK' that was released doesn't have any actual code or coding information. It seems to be the new model viewer and updated version of Hammer (the map editor). So we still can't experiment with it, to see how much work it would be to move the code-base over.
I'm glad there's interest here.
If and when we do move NS over, we'll likely keep the gameplay exactly the same (at least for now) and then stop supporting the original NS. Trying to balance and support two versions would be a lot of unnecessary work.
Also, I've started design (and funding) work on a next-gen game in the Natural Selection universe, but there are no details available there yet (unless you want to help fund it).
Cheers,
-Charlie