The next big project and space bandits.

I have two projects now, one planned and a second that I have started working on. The planned project is the one I promised that was more of a community dare then anything.

The Blockade was a memorable character featured in this video. I will do my best to collect his shield and, if possible, resurrect his corpse. I’ve heard that if you resurrect a normal zombie and then kill them while doing as little damage as possible, and then resurrect them again as intelligent undead, they will follow you. The ideal end goal would be to make a few (failed) attempts, followed by a final successful attempt. I feel this would build up an exciting story of pilgrims attempting to acquire this legendary item. Regardless, even starting this project is still a few weeks off, as I need to finish Goretusk first, and there are a few other things I'd like to do before that.

Goretusk is becoming a fun project. It’s kind of a side story since it takes place in the same world. I started building it before I even edited the GodlyTombs video. In fact, it even shows up for a few frames at the beginning of it. It’s a volcano fort almost as far south as you can get from GodlyTombs. It has already built up more footage and will likely take me a good two weeks or so to finish. Since I'm targeting Mountain Home as my end goal, it still has a ways to go. This project will be the first where I take a week off streams to finish. It started off as a cool-off period because the last fortress was stressful and hard to play. It’s become a bit of a cult fortress and will focus more on storytelling than mechanical difficulty. It'll be me manipulating the game into a narrative versus the game bashing me into submission. I do hope it’ll make for a good follow-up and starting stage for my pilgrims.

The videos won’t be numbered, but I want them to have some connective tissue without the need for them to be viewed in order. I want them to stand on their own so YouTube can do its thing without them falling into a linear narrative. This makes them more sustainable in the long term.

Let’s talk about the format itself. I also want to attempt smaller videos with this format that are one-offs. If you want an idea of what these would look like, the outline I have is the video I did on Norland. There are a few games that I think I could make work, mostly falling into traditional roguelikes and colony builders. I don’t think they will perform as well or garner as much interest as the Dwarf Fortress videos, but I think if I keep going in this direction, overtime they can build on their own. August 16th Odd Realm leaves early access, and that is something that I think might fit this format. I plan to return to Norland in the future as well. Not all of these games will fit into the same type of narrative style, but they will likely meet enough needs to create an interesting 10-30 minute video.

The benefit here is that I can make them in less time and not need to take a week off, and they will provide some creative lubricant to keep me going while also continuing to work towards promoting small games I think deserve more attention. That has always been a stated goal in my work, and I hope to maintain that into the future.

I'm not a reviewer, but I have always respected and wanted to be like those who are. I have always respected people who can coherently put words in order to explain why a game is cool. I have always had difficulty criticizing things in an interesting and constructive way. I feel that I am better at simply demonstrating why I like something. Maybe that is why I have always prioritized streaming over edited video. Maybe storytelling is my bridge into that type of work. Ideally, folks will subscribe to the channel for videos like these and not specifically for Dwarf Fortress. While I love the game, I want to use my reach for more than just the old dorfs.

Approaching Infinity is a Traditional Rogue-Like by Indie Developer IBOLOGY also known as Bob "IBOL17" Saunders. Here is the trailer and a link to the kickstarter from 2013.

The game went into Early Access on Steam on August 5th, 2020. However, this was not the first time this game was for sale. The game initially released under Shrapnel games after failing to make it through the now defunct Steam Greenlight system. Greenlight was later replaced with Steam Direct allowing indie developers, or anyone really, to publish games without having to get the fickle users of the internet to vote on whether the games were published on Valve’s platform. 

Shrapnel Games is a rather old school publisher, shipping physical boxed copies of Strategy and Wargames to people since 1999. Some of their games are also available as downloads however all their games include extremely restrictive DRM. They limit games bought from their store to a maximum of three installs. Not only that but, if you decide to go with the Downloadable version, you only have a 10-day window to download the game. Additionally, in their terms they specifically note that you should burn a back-up. If you don't believe this, here is a quote from their site. No, that is not a typo, they spell "Purchase" wrong. 

"Downloadable Games - Shrapnel Games"

"We offer most games in either a downloadable version or a physical product version. The same licensing agreement applies to downloadable games as to physical games.  You can find our Software Licensing Agreement in the front of our manuals.

Or policy for downloadable games is to allow you a ten (10) day period in which to download your purchase.  Please make backup copies of all downloadable games you purchase as you will not be given another download after the ten day initial download period.

You may puchase an Extended Download Service for each of our downloadable games.  If you have trouble burning backups, this may be worth the small investment for you.  You may find more information about the Extended Download Service in the Service category in our Products Listings.  Please be aware that you will need to register an account to have access to the Extended Downloads Service." 

The outright aggressive nature of Shrapnel destroyed the games possible success in the Rogue-like community. This pushed the game into an opaque obscure niche within an already obscure niche. I had heard the name of it mentioned here and there but that was it, and it’s my job to look into this stuff. 

Developer IBOL says that the reason the game was published by Shrapnel was its failure to make it through Greenlight and IBOL’s own fondness for them in the past. They had published one of his favorite games "Space Empires IV" (Steam) and he hoped that their built-in audience would latch onto the game, but this was not the case. Instead, the effect was the opposite.

IBOL notes that this caused stress and regret. In 2019 he announced he was quitting game development to spend more time with his family and disconnect from the stress that Shrapnel had caused. However, he would return in July 2020 after the publisher decided to drop the game from their catalogue and stop publishing it. IBOL talks more about that in this post his blog. It’s an interesting read. 

Enough of the history, let’s talk about the game itself. Having had the game on my wish list since it released, IBOL was kind enough to send me a key last week. I redeemed it to see if it would run well under Proton on my Linux setup, it did! 

I decided to stream it this past week and give it a look. My initial impressions of the game surprised me with the polish. Yes, the game had been in development for some time, but you never know with these types of hobby projects. It has a decent tutorial. The is expansive and inclusive character creation allowed me to create this monstrosity known as FRED TACTICAS and my glorious, albeit tiny, spaceship. 

The game drops you into a traditional grid based 2d place representing space. If you decide to play the tutorial it walks you through the controls and explains what most of the objects in space do. It also gives you some pointers on what to look out for. The game also has numerous tooltips, a built-in wiki called "Infinipedia”, optional cheats, and difficulty levels. Perma-death is also optional for more casual players.

The game has a few main activities. Flying around in space hailing ships, shooting them down, and interacting with the different factions in their stations. The different factions have their own unique objectives in space and offer quests that help you learn more about them. The game has a few winnable objectives, however I have yet to achieve any of them. Quests point the player at a location. These often are in different sectors then where the quests are given. Sectors are the connective tissue of the game linking the galaxies that can be explored. The galaxies consist of planets, stars, asteroids (that can be mined for materials) and destroyed spaceships. When you send an away team down to a planet it drops you into a map with enemies. When you complete the planet’s surface map you get "data" that can be sold to vendors for cash and updates to your ship, crew, and away team's gear. Crew members can be hired at ports, and they have unique skills and level on their own. Their class determines how they earn experience and can be killed on missions. The away team itself has cannon fodder "red shirts" that we all know and love. The game has a great sense of humor and is full of references to films and pop media.

When you dock with destroyed ships you run into a different kind of alien threat. Once cleared of monsters, the ships can be blown up or towed. If you drag it back to a station you can sell it. If you destroy it, then it explodes into loot. It also seems like you can fix them and keep them, but I have yet to manage that.  While planets and ships sometimes have oxygen, moving about without your helmets can cause [REDACTED] and it can lead to both hysterical and harsh side effects. 

While in space your ship uses supplies. Supplies can be bought at stations for a small fee and there are ways to find more supplies in space and on away missions. Money earned from your sales of legitimate or ill-gotten gains can be spent, however at banks you can "pay it forward" allowing you to go into your next run with a bigger savings account. 

I'm still quite new at the game, having played a little over 7 hours now, with 5 of them on stream. I can say that there is a lot going on here. I really like the baseline of features and the game’s style and humor. I went in knowing I would likely enjoy the game, and I am happy to say I do. I'm also happy that IBOL made it out from under his previous publisher and into the modern era of video game publishing and sales. The game feels like a complete experience already and has a lot to offer for the requested price of $14.99$ USD. Check it out if you are interested. Its also got a demo :https://store.steampowered.com/app/551620/Approaching_Infinity/

Official Website: https://approachinginfinitygame.com/

The following is a small interview with IBOL.

How long have you been working on the game?

I started Approaching Infinity in 2013, and worked non-stop into 2015, at which point it was published by Shrapnel Games. They stopped wanting updates, but I never stopped thinking about it, writing down stories and game mechanics I'd one day like to add. Work began again in 2020, and has been steady since then.

Why Traditional-Rogue-like and not something more mainstream?

For the emphasis of gameplay over graphics, the endless exploration, and how much I love procedural generation. I'm not a flashy graphics kind of person. You can probably tell. I'm much more interested in exploration and emergent gameplay from interacting systems. (Although I haven't attempted Dwarf Fortress...) I'm much more impressed with stuff like nethack, where "the dev team thinks of everything". I don't think of everything, but I like to throw my players the occasional curve-ball. And I love to write map generators (there are already over 70 different types).

Is the game solo developed or have you had help along the way?

All concept, design, coding, testing, and laughable PR: that's me. David Gervais does the tile art (he's rogue-like famous for producing the Angband tileset that so many RL devs use at one point or another. He's been my artistic partner for nearly 20 years (OMG). Thanks David. I tend to contract out for higher resolution stuff, like the race portraits, done by Kenny Dalman. But it's mostly me, every day at my keyboard.

What were the main inspirations for the art and style of the game?

I don't have the visual sense to be an "art director". It's mostly David taking his experience and putting a sci-fi twist on it. Years ago, we never had pictures of the major alien factions, just descriptions. But Kenny made some fan art and I approached him about some race pics, and well, we have our silly aliens. And I know, they're in a different art style, and I know you're not supposed to do that, but IDK, so what I guess? Now you can see the aliens when they talk to you. But style? That's classic Star Trek, Farscape, Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, and a lot of dark dry humor.

the game is in early access how complete would you say it is?

It's at least 95% complete right now. You can win in 10 different ways, and players can spend hundreds of hours exploring and still see new things. There are over 200 hand-written quests and about 30 kinds of procedural ones. Over 200 enemies split between space and away missions, thousands of weapons, lots of ways to play, etc. It's full of stuff, but I can still stuff it with more stuff.

How long do you plan to be in early access?

Last week I decided that I want to release on August 7th, 2025. (8/8 is "Infinity day", because of the "lazy 8", so Aug 7th can be "Approaching Infinity Day"). That will be just about 5 years in early access.

how has steam been from your perspective? Whats the process for publishing your game there been like?

Steam is great. Or maybe Steam is easy? It's a breeze to publish and distribute builds and release patch notes to players, and also receive feedback. They give me a nice central place to park my web presence (because man, do I suck at web dev). And they do occasionally generate me some traffic. But if you want the big stuff, you have to chase it. Especially working in such a niche. And of course, they get a not-insignificant cut of my revenue.

I'd like to know your opinion on self publishing vs having a publisher. I heard in the past that the game was stuck in some publisher limbo and I'd like to hear some background on that.

When I first made the game, it was on Steam Greenlight for a year, and nowhere near getting accepted. Back then, you couldn't just pay $100. You had to be "approved by the community". So when the publisher of my favorite 4X game "Space Empires IV" said they'd release my game and make a boxed copy like the good old days, I said yes. But there were things I didn't understand, as there usually are in those situations. They ended up pricing the game at $40, which alienated my would-be fans, and since sales were low, production costs were never offset, and I saw very little actual income.

I tried several times to get the rights back to no avail. They wouldn't put it on Steam, and they wouldn't put it on sale. As the years wore on, I became more and more depressed about it. My beloved universe was beyond my reach. I quit game development for a year. Getting the rights back in 2020, just as the pandemic lockdowns started, probably saved my life. So yeah, I advise against publishers generally. Although Kitfox, if you're reading this, you can definitely get in touch ;)

What does 1.0 or full release mean to you? What is your target for what the game will look like at that point?

Full release will be 2.0, since 1.0 was with the previous publisher and it is a much better game now. I want to realize all my initial goals: a sprawling open-world space roguelike where you can do what you want, when you want, set in a dynamic universe where your actions have consequences. I want people to be able to pick it up and play it, easing their way into the deeper complexities at their own pace.

I have a few more big stories I've been waiting to tell for a decade (aka "quest lines").  I'll probably add, fix, or balance a thousand other things on the way. I'm about to overhaul the crafting system!

And 2.0 doesn't mean I'll stop. I plan to work for at least another year, adding both free updates and DLCs (I have a few ideas, but we're not there yet). I think the name Approaching Infinity has a lot of meanings for this game...

What's your favorite rogue-like

Historically it's Brogue beautiful simplicity! In theory, it's Caves of Qud: I love the deep systems, breadth of choices, and the lore. Sometimes when I read a book or hear a new song, I'll think "this sounds like something that could have happened in Qud's past". Qud's world has that kind of effect on you.

Recently it's Path of Achra, though short, I really get into conceptualizing a build and seeing how it fares.

Streams will be different this week due to my eye doctors appointment on the 15th. There won't be a stream on Thursday because of this. That means this week we'll do a Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday streams. Normal time, 9am Pacific on Twitch and 10am Pacific on YouTube. During the Friday stream we'll be playing the 1.0 Release of Odd Realm. It can be found here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/688060/Odd_Realm/ Awhile ago I got to speak with the developer Waylon Snedker in a video interview. Waylon also guest hosted on one of my talks with the developers of Dwarf Fortress Here. I also uploaded this snippet that I thought was really interesting.

Stats! Okay so YouTube is way up above normal. The big release video has impacted that a lot. This has landed me 183,678 views in the last 7 days. That is roughly 100k views more than normal. The Twitch streams are still in summer mode. But this past week was alright. Sitting at 163 average viewers. I'll add that revenue is down 35% from last week making it my worst week financially stream wise since June. Netting me a heafty amount below minimum wage just based off stream revenue. That being said the advertising revenue from the YouTube channel has covered the loss. Its is still summer.