David Stark / Zarkonnen

So I'm part of a shared game developer office now, at Swiss Game Hub. I've been talking about game design with Philomena Schwab of Stray Fawn and we decided we'd team up to make a prototype at Global Game Jam 2020.

We ended up completely ignoring the theme (oops) because we had a clear idea of what we wanted to make: a game about a city travelling on the back of a giant turtle.

I was writing notes for Airships' translators, and realised that I was getting quite chatty in some of them. So I decided to go through the world background lines you see in the loading screen and add some comments.

I'm back playing Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. I play a lot of strategy games, but this is the one I've been in love with the longest, despite its flaws.

It's now more than 20 years on, and kind of an abandoned evolutionary side-branch of the Civilization series. The more recent Civ-in-space, Civ:BE, was explicitly not a remake of SMAC. This was probably wise in that any attempt to directly improve upon a cult game would fall short. The problem isn't the game design, the problem is that the game can't make you feel like you're twenty years younger.

To get this out of the way from the start: the crew animation system in Airships is a bit weird. But I'm going to do my best in this article to show you how it works.

My partner and I went to the UK to stay with their family over Christmas. It's been a pleasant and quiet few days, and I've actually managed to not think about work for a few days. That's pretty unusual for me.

This version brings both a large list of bug fixes and some nice new stuff.

In 2019, I organised an exhibition for PlayBern Festival called "Spiele, die anecken". "Uncomfortable games" is a reasonable translation. I've reproduced the list of games and the descriptions as shown in the exhibition.

Ich habe am PlayBern Festival 2019 eine Ausstellung zu "Spielen, die anecken" organisiert. Hier wiedergegeben sind die ausgestellten Spiele und die dazugehörenden Beschreibungen, wie sie in der Ausstellung zu sehen waren.

A few days ago, I challenged Stuff+ to fight a new monster I created: The Shellwalker, a biomechanical monstrosity with a nearly impenetrable bone shield.

Have you ever wanted to worship the monstrous Worm Eye? Penetrate the mysteries of life and death? Summon your own undead Kraken? Well, now's your chance. Select the Worm Eye as your heraldic symbol and get access to a whole new part of the tech tree that lets you recruit cultists and shape your cult.

In honour of the season, I have supplied YouTuber Stuff+, who introduced many of you to Airships, with a new monster.

The Shellwalker, a biomechanical abomination. Once he is able to defeat it, I will add it to the game for everyone to, uh, enjoy.

Introduction

With the newest version of macOS, Apple has made mandatory some requirements for applications that were previously recommended: 64-bit executables, signing, and notarization. Applications that don't satisfy these requirements will no longer run.

This is intended to make the experience safer for end-users and prevent the spread of malicious programs, but it does also make things more complicated, especially for people who aren't primarily Mac developers but would like to support or keep supporting Macs.

It's also especially relevant for game developers deploying Mac games on Steam. Until now, games launched from Steam didn't have to be signed or notarized, but now, they have to obey the same rules as everything else.

I just went through figuring out how to comply with this for my game, Airships: Conquer the Skies. Airships runs in Java and hence also has to bundle a JVM, but the rest of what I learned should be applicable in general.

So here's what I learned about signing and notarization a Mac app that wasn't directly compiled by Xcode. Please note that this is cobbled-together research to make things work for me and may not be 100% accurate. Questions and corrections are very welcome.

Alarms blared as the Battle-Citadel WRATH OF KORGATH prepared to enter the Void Gate to the Krauthammer system. In the citadel’s barracks, thousands of mankind's finest warriors stood ready, photon lances charged, to bring the fury of mankind to the monstrous, tentacular Z’zgh’ghlkt. The words of the High Legate in the citadel’s Command Apex echoed through the War Halls of the mighty craft, imploring each warrior to hold the line against the alien horror that threatened to engulf them all.

Diplomacy and co-op combat are the most-requested features for the game. You want to conquer the skies together, I understand that. :)

I've been working on making this a reality, which has required a fair amount of re-engineering and game design. Today I'd like to lay out my thoughts about diplomacy in strategy games and the design I'm using for Airships.

Version 1.0.8 is out, focusing on usability and prettiness.

Bonuses are a system in Airships used to give players access to new modules, armours and constructions, and change their stats. You can use them to add new technologies, heraldic charges, and monster nest rewards.

Nearly all of the data in Airships: Conquer the Skies can be modded, and modders have created some excellent additions to the game. I want to encourage you to try modding too, so here is a detailed guide.

If you have any questions about modding, it's worth joining the Discord, where you can find helpful, seasoned modders. You can also contact me directly with any questions. If you get stuck, you can even send me the mod you're working on and ask me to help you.

To learn how to mod, you can read this guide, watch this video, or if you just need a starting point and are happy to explore on your own, here's the very very short version:

This is now an incredibly cold take, but I finally wanted to write down my thoughts on Civilization: Beyond Earth (BE), and how it compares to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC), which is sort of its predecessor.

Occult Defence Agency Budgeting Simulator: Defend the realm from vampires, werewolves, pixie swarms. Cut your budget mercilessly. Survive.

Things have been a bit quiet because I've been taking a break, but new things are coming. The next release, due next month, is going to focus on user interface improvements. After that, I'll be working on the previously described long-term improvements to conquest.

Meanwhile, it's time for the Steam Awards again. Airships has never won an award. You could help it win an award. "Most Fun with a Machine" seems appropriate, doesn't it?

Nominate it here.

I bring you a seasonally appropriate monstrous update!

Version 1.0.3 brings a whole bunch of fixes and balance changes.

So I've been chewing at game design to figure out how to best improve the game and address the issues in the previous post. So here's the basic plan for getting the game into a good final state.