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Guns of Icarus dev blog talks player feedback, Hurricane Sandy
Launching an online multiplayer game is challenging in the best of conditions. Try launching one in the midst of a natural disaster, though. That's what Guns of Icarus developer Muse faced in October of 2012 as Hurricane Sandy battered the northeastern United States and left New Yorkers -- including Muse staffers -- without power and internet for weeks. Muse CEO Howard Tsao tells the full story in the fourth part of his Guns of Icarus post-mortem, which Gamasutra published this morning.
Guns of Icarus postmortem on post-publisher challenges
If you're a Guns of Icarus fan, an indie fan, or just a gamer interested in the creative process, you should take a few minutes to read the ongoing dev diary from Muse CEO Howard Tsao and co-authors Eric Chung and Tim Doolen at Gamasutra. Part two was published this morning, and it tackles the dev team's development struggles in the aftermath of part one's publisher debacle. "Designs on paper are rarely any good until they're tested in some form," Tsao says. "Ultimately, everything begins with low fidelity (cards, dice, paper, and role play) prototypes but sometimes jumping straight into digital prototypes is required. At the time, it was important to move fast and find results quickly and in this it case meant one person going from ideation, designing interaction flow, to digital prototype. A combination of flexible responsibility, knowledge, and Unity's low barrier to entry made it possible."
The Daily Grind: Did you reconnect with any games thanks to PAX East?
Now that PAX East is winding down, it seems as good a time as any to take stock of the news coming from this year's convention. On a personal level, I was excited to hear about the (eventual) MMOification of one of my favorite games. I also enjoyed catching up with Guns of Icarus, an indie title already holding its own and with its eyes on a larger persistent world prize. What about you, Massively readers? Did you glean any useful nuggets from PAX East or perhaps rediscover a game you'd not thought about in a while? Massively's on the ground in Boston during the weekend of April 11th to 13th, bringing you all the best news from PAX East 2014. Whether you're dying to know more about WildStar, Landmark, or any MMO in between, we aim to have it covered!
Guns of Icarus looking to kickstart persistent world expansion
If you're a fan of Guns of Icarus Online -- and you should be -- you'll probably want to know about Muse's new Kickstarter project. The steampunk multiplayer airship battler has been playable for quite a while now, but the dev team has long sought to fill out the game and the world by adding something called Adventure Mode. Adventure Mode will basically expand the lobby-based live game to a persistent world complete with towns, trading, and player factions. Enter Kickstarter, which Muse is currently leveraging to the tune of a $100,000 goal. As the project page notes, Muse is "one of the only studios to successfully complete a Kickstarter campaign and deliver on our promise with a shipped game that's currently being played by people all over the world." [Thanks Angela!]
MMO Burnout: Quality time with Guns of Icarus Online
Pardon me for being a fanboy, but I need to get this out of the way up front: Guns of Icarus Online is funking awesome. If you're OK with the fact that I couldn't make it past the 24th word of a 1000-word impressions piece without sharing that little nugget, keep reading and I'll tell you why this indie gem is in fact funking awesome... and why you should give it a whirl.%Gallery-173501%
