Tuesday, July 31, 2012

The final monster & item countdown for ADOM

The last hours of the power pledge drive #2: monsters & items are running out... and we have made fantastic progress. So far enough pledges have been made to have 13 new items and 4 new monsters added to the game!!!

As this is the last chance during the crowd funding campaign to have new monsters and items added make use of the remaining hours... there's still some room to have more awesome stuff added... together with new beasties to guard the stuff!

Oh, and BTW, we by now have made 55,06% of the funding total in less than 50% of the campaign time. Things look great despite still having a way ahead of us!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Prerelease 1 video of ADOM 1.2.0

I just posted a new update to the ADOM crowd funding campaign which contains a short video with a very first glimpse of a (yet unfinished) prerelease 1 of ADOM 1.2.0. We intend to do one release of the current state of development within the next seven days (keep your thumbs pressed!) in order to raise more awareness for the campaign. So soon there actually will be a new ADOM release after almost 10 years of silence. Please enjoy the (IMHO) wonderful intro theme composed by Lucas Dieguez for ADOM... it's not yet integrated into the game but we used it for the video. And enjoy my bumbling efforts of moving through the small cave ;-)

Regarding ADOM II logo designs and starting screen designs

The past two days I have been working on the revision of the splash screen and the main screen of ADOM II. As planned for ADOM II 0.3.0 the results of the ADOM II design competition get introduced to the game... and I must say... the new graphical design totally rocks. As far as I am concerned ADOM II is going to have the most beautiful splash screens and main screen ever designed for a roguelike game. Awesome. Believe me. Maybe I'll post a teaser video soon once Krzysztof Dycha improves my main screen sketches... maybe even before to give you an impression.

The new splash screens really are... totally awesome and they will grow over time. Let yourself be surprised.

Monday, July 23, 2012

ADOM & ADOM II as scientific conference topics

Sometimes conference talks really are fun. The next one that is going to be big fun is my talk about

Event driven architectures and concern driven programming in roguelike computer gaming

at the ICT Innovations Conference 2012. Here's the abstract and the keywords:

Announcing power pledge drive #2: Monsters & items

As pledging for the ADOM crowd funding campaign has slowed down to a trickle a new power pledge drive has been announced!

The ADOM crowd funding power pledge drive #2: Monsters & items is all about those! For each $300 collected until the end of July one new item will be added to the next release of ADOM (as of today we start at $22.601... so raise that!). Additionally for every day in which we manage to collect multiple of $1.000 three new monsters will be added to the next release for each such multiple!!! (and if we manage to pass that mark by quite a bit on any given day there will be an additional new monster and item for every $500 past $1.000 on that day)

Example: We raise $2.150 on a single day. That makes for 7 new items ($2.150 divided by $300) plus six new monsters ($2.150 divided by $1.000) plus yet another 2 new monsters and 2 new items (passing $1.000 by $1.150 on a single day, $1.150 divided by $500). Thus pledges of $2.150 on a single day yield a total of 9 new items and 8 new monsters!!!

So how's that? This is your best chance to up the number of items and monsters for the next release by a huge margin (as I had no specific plans for them).

And remember: The campaign needs your help. We still have a long way to go and time is slowly running out! Please spread the word, share the campaign, tweet, blog, post and like it. We need all the public attention we can get and there still must be thousands and thousands of old time ADOM fans out there who yet haven't heard about the campaign - I know, because I meet one or another every day!

Thanks for your continued support!

Saturday, July 14, 2012

The results of the power pledge drive #1: Corruptions

The first power pledge drive of the ADOM crowd funding campaign is over: We made a total of $21.515 which results in 12 new corruptions being added to the next release of ADOM (1.2.0). Thanks for your support!

The next goal still is the 50% mark and I sincerely hope that we'll take it soon on our way to a successful funding. This weekend I will try to finalize my research on doing a limited edition box of the next ADOM release. I'm still extremely careful about physical goods as the overhead efforts and costs are much higher than most people think. If anyone has good advice on a producer of boxes in Germany together with custom printing, etc. I'm happy for any advice at creator(at)ancientdomainsofmystery or via Facebook as so far I am less than happy with my findings.

Read ya!

P.S.: Right now I can't log into Indiegogo due to some technical problems at Indiegogo. I'll change the content of the campaign as soon as that problem is resolved.

Friday, July 13, 2012

The final hours... of power pledge drive #1: Corruptions

So it's Friday, 13th, my lucky day :-) And we are running the final day of power pledge drive #1 (Corruptions!) in the ADOM crowd funding campaign. Let me summarize:

  • For every $300 collected over $17.822 one new corruption will be added to the next release of ADOM.
  • So far we have collected enough pledges to add nine (9!) new corruptions to the game and we are only $13 short of the tenth ($20.809 total as the time of this writing)!
  • This plower pledge drive ends when todays Friday 13th ends - so if you wanted to pledge or increase your pledge now is your chance to help adding fun new corruptions to the game!
See this thread here for many cool corruption ideas that will serve as an inspiration for the corruptions to be added!

Now I'm going to hold my breath to see if we manage to pass the 50% funding mark by the end of the day (yet another ambitious goal for today, I know, but I still believe we can make it!).

Thursday, July 12, 2012

10 days of ADOM crowd funding: A status report

The ADOM crowd funding campaign now has been running for 10 days and the results are - as far as I am concerned - totally amazing. You are amazing. Hail to the ADOM tribe!

Let me explain...

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Special episode on roguelike radio!

Yesterday evening Jochen and I did a special episode on Roguelike Radio concerning the ADOM crowd funding campaign. I hope we got many of the questions answered that folks put up in the past week and if you have any more questions - let us know! Thanks to Darren Grey for moderating this interesting discussion!

Till then I propose tHaT wE aLl WoRk On MoRe CoRrUpTiOnS! (three new are guaranteed so far!) ;-)

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Power pledge drive #1 for crowd funding ADOM: Corruptions!

I just announced the first power pledge drive for the ADOM crowd funding campaign: For every $300 that we collect between now and the end of Friday 13th (GMT+1) I am going to add a new corruption to the next release of ADOM.

Spread the word, tell everyone you know who hasn't donated so far, upgrade your pledges and make this the most ChAoTiC release ever!

(I just don't want to imagine making the funding goal... I'd have to invent more than 100 new corruptions :-) )

And now go pledging ;-)

Monday, July 9, 2012

ADOM on the Raspberry Pi

Jochen got ADOM to compile and run on the Raspberry Pi :-)

So, yes, we are dedicated to making ADOM to the "roguelike available on the most exotic systems" ;-)


German podcast interview: BlaQuadrat episode 38 & ADOM

I'm happy to today present episode 38 of the BlaQuadrat Podcast featuring Daniel, Lex and myself (among other things) with a special focus on the current ADOM crowd funding campaign (starting with me at around 26:00 but before there's cool stuff, too). It's in German so it won't be for everyone. I throughly enjoyed doing the interview and I think we had a lot of fun. Thanks to Daniel and Lex for taking the time! BlaQuadrat also has a Facebook page, I like it ;-)

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Upgrading pledge levels in the ADOM crowd funding campaign

Upgrading pledge levels in the crowd funding campaign to resurrect ADOM development is not directly supported by Indiegogo. Instead they recommend to work out something with the campaign owner. I have come to the conclusion that we should go for a simple and easy approach in order to handle upgrades as smoothly as possible.

Here is what we will do if you want to upgrade your pledge level:
  1. Send an email to creator(at)ancientdomainsofmystery.com. Your mail should have the title "ADOM pledge level upgrade" and contain the name under which you pledged and the upgrade you want to do.
  2. After sending the mail simply go to Indiegogo and pledge without selecting any pledge level (the last option in the list). Enter the same information as when you first pledged and enter the additional pledge amount.
  3. Soon after receiving your mail I will confirm both it and the new pledge and note down the higher level you desire.
  4. After the campaign ends successfully you will be rated at the final level you achieved.
This should be the easiest and most simple approach. If you have any questions feel free to ask!

10% of the ADOM crowd funding campaign are over...

...and the results so far are amazing, you are truly the ADOM tribe! After 10% of the time planned for the campaign to resurrect ADOM development we have reached more then 1/3 of the funding goal. So far we have two legendary backers at the $1.000 level and lots of more lords and heroes. Very very cool! Not too mention that vast number of other supporters. I'm absolutely grateful to you all!

Friday, July 6, 2012

Crowd funding the resurrection of ADOM development now title feature!

Yeah, another nice little milestone: The ADOM: The Resurrection crowd funding campaign now is featured as a title project on Indiegogo:


As we missed the $15.000 target since yesterday this hopefully will bring another little boost!

Pondering construction plans in ADOM II

I used this evening to do more work on ADOM II - initially I planned to get archer abilities finished (because basically only enhanced fletchery was missing). This lead to an amazing side trek I have not yet returned from as I am right now wrangling with major changes to the construction system :-^

Let me explain...

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Anyone interested in a Reddit AMA?

Since starting the Resurrect ADOM development crowd funding campaign on Monday I got a lot of feedback, most of it good, some critical and some plain bad. As was to be expected on Internet. I have tried to keep up with various threads, Reddits, newsgroups, etc. but currently this does not seem to be very effective.

Thus I have been wondering: Is there enough interest in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything)? I'd try to do better than Woody Harrelson ;-) I might be able to do one tonight between 9pm and midnight (GMT+1 time zone, summer time) as I'll be staying in a hotel and won't be disturbed.

My idea would be to try to get all questions, criticism and whatever handled in one central place as efficiently as possible. Also Reddit seems to have been the place where I have my toughest critics - so it might be good to centralize things there.

On the other hand there already are something like three or four Reddits concerning the crowd funding campaign, so that might be enough (e.g. here, here, here and here).

Opinions please! (and please note: today I won't have much time to look at the comments here - if there is a lot of positive feedback regarding the idea you might want to reserve the time slot tonight as I might start the Reddit rather spontaneously after checking into the hotel and making sure that I have a decent Internet connection)

P.S.: Technical question as I'm not really into Reddit: Would http://www.redit.com/r/IAmA, http://www.reddit.com/r/AMA or http://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes be more appropriate? :-) (damn, this might be going down the Woody lane - I really have no clue ;-) ).

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Pondering stretch goals for the resurrection of ADOM

Despite what a few strange people out there seem to think I care a lot for the communities opinions - I just don't always agree :-) Over the past couple of days I have read a lot of wishes and thoughts from folks out there and I am trying to take them into account when planning stretch goals for the ADOM crowd funding campaign. I'd like to describe some of the stretch goals we have in mind (some only after listening to folks as we initially ruled them out, some because I want those features, some just because they seem to be a good idea).

Oh, and BTW - we managed to get 25% funded within 3 days. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. But as pledges now seem to slow down I need to help in determining if we can more visibility (articles in web magazines, blogs, etc.) as each boost of visibility seems to reach previously untapped ADOM fans and everyone needs to know. I can't believe that so few of the old community remain. At least I hope there are more. But I'm getting distracted... back to stretch goals as I want to do some ADOM II programming later on.

36 hours into the ADOM crowd funding campaign

We managed to collect about 21,4% of the campaign goal within 2,5% of the campaign duration!!! Keep it coming, folks! You are the most awesome fans ever!

We had great coverage on Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

I posted the first official campaign update.

We are working on a cool surprise I can't quite yet mention.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Analyzing the first 12 hours of the ADOM crowd funding campaign

Folks, this was an amazing Creators Day and I hope that the coming days and weeks continue to amaze me. In the first 12 hours of the ADOM: The Resurrection crowd funding campaign (less than 1% of the total campaign duration) you already pledged $5.652 which is about 11.78% of the total goal!!! (at the point of this writing - the number is rising - just look to the right)

Thanks so much and please keep it up - that would spell an amazing future to ADOM!!! (and before anyone asks: No, it wouldn't harm ADOM II).

Monday, July 2, 2012

Updates to the ADOM crowd funding campaign

The ADOM crowd funding campaign has started pretty well during lunch today (after a few technical problems that have been resolved by now) - see the current results to your right. More than $2.500 in the first couple of hours and no sign of getting slower for now. I'm curious for tomorrow morning and hope for the very best.



Now I'd like to ask for your help in order to not only enthrall old ADOM fans with the campaign but other people who might only have heard a little bit about ADOM.

Today is the day... to resurrect ADOM!

After a a lot of discussion and preparation today is the day to throw the dice of Fate and see where they fall: Just seconds ago I activated the crowd funding campaign for resurrecting ADOM development on Indiegogo. Now please: if you ever loved ADOM and/or still love it - go there and pledge to get some of the cool rewards and help ADOM to step into the 21st century. Or at least spread the word! Now is the time!

Sunday, July 1, 2012

June in review

Here we are with the latest monthly review.

Question regarding videos

There are interesting questions that pop up during the last preparations for the ADOM crowd funding campaign and hopefully there's someone knowledgable about the issue out there:

During the pitch video for the crowd funding campaign I plan to have a computer monitor on the sidelines of the video playing a video. I found some cool videos from the ADOM community I could see there but the originator of my most preferred video doesn't seem to be reachable right now. The video is available on various video platforms like myvideo, youtube, etc.

Now the question: Is it permissible to have that video running at the sideline (e.g. it never will be full screen, during the video I will mention it as an example of a fan video, etc.) or is that a problem?

Alternatively if there's someone out there who has posted some great video illustrating ADOM gameplay and wouldn't mind me using it as background filler for the campaign pitch video, please post a link here and a small statement saying that I may use it.

Thanks - any help is appreciated!