Aurora 4x
Announcements => Announcements => Topic started by: Steve Walmsley on November 11, 2011, 08:56:28 AM
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PC World has reviewed Aurora and you can also now download the game from their server. It seems a very fair review from Ian Harac. It points out the lack of documentation and the fact there are some outstanding bugs but it is very positive in other areas. Much better than I would have expected from a mainstream site, especially in the fact that it doesn't mark down the complexity and steep learning curve.
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,201821-order,4/description.html
Steve
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Very interesting, and congratulations!
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Big time :)
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That is a very well written review.
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Congratulations on the review. Personally I find trial and many errors later better than being directed or told how to play for the most part. Imagination is not to be underestimated.
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Seemed like a pretty fair review, and great exposure for your game. Congrats!
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At time of this posting, its been downloaded there 41 times.
I suspect we'll be seeing some fresh faces around the forums presently.
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Aurora is happy to let you dump naked colonists on an airless world, or give a ship orders it doesn't have the fuel to complete, or send a warship into battle with no missiles loaded. I imagine that Aurora giggles in delight when you do this.
So true. That's why we love Aurora ;D
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Just to comment (I am the reviewer; if anyone doubts this, I sent Steve some emails discussing the review, prior to publication. from the address I use for my professional work, and he can always write to that address and get a confirmation I'm me. Or something.), I'm glad the review was received favorably here, because I really like Aurora -- witness how many posts I've made long after the review was turned in. Aurora is a "keeper" for me. :) Reviewing is tricky business, because it's not just "I like this!" but "Does this meet the goals it sets for itself?", "How does it compare to similar games, including not just genre but budget and design goals?", and "Will the target audience like it, whether or not I do?" and so on. A good reviewer is both personal AND objective, a very interesting balance to try to keep. As "this guy playing the game", I can overlook the bugs and errors, but as a reviewer, I have to factor them in, especially when they're not just things like "Terraforming on planets orbiting G2 stars produces only half as much gas as it's supposed to during the second week of each month ending in 'R'", but database errors, "Invalid Use Of Null", and a lot of fairly basic things like trying to access elements of empty arrays if there's no items selected in a list (I get this all the time in the missile/launcher setup screens). As a programmer, I appreciate how hard it is to dot every t and cross every i, and VB doesn't have a strong enough object model that you can easily create logic to dim out buttons if there's no valid selection without having to hand-code it in all the time, so I want to be clear I am in awe, awe I say, of what Aurora does and that it works AT ALL, never mind if it works WELL. Nonetheless, my editor would rip me a new one if I didn't put some emphasis on very in-your-face bugs and she started getting hatemail from people asking if "those so-called reviewers ever used the software". We do.
I'm a little surprised that people are surprised PCWorld covered Aurora -- I've done reviews of Dwarf Fortress, ADOM, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, and other smaller/indie games with dedicated communities and deep gameplay. Reading comments in this thread, I'm getting the impression it's assumed "mainstream" sites don't cover games like that (or try to compare them to this week's triple-A title that was advertised on the Superbowl, and whine that there's not enough 3D explosions), so I'd like to do something I almost NEVER do and make a request. I get paid a flat rate per review, I don't get any kind of per-click revenue, but, of course, PCWorld does make their money off of ad views and the like, and they have to make decisions about what reviews to assign based on what's popular. So, if you want to, please spread links to this review to forums where people might not even think to check PCWorld. The more people show interest in a review, the more likely it is I can get assigned to review similar products, as opposed to yet another disk defragmenter utility. (And I want to be perfectly clear... I'm only asking that if you're an active member of a community or forum that might be interested in these kinds of reviews, and you genuinely think linking to them would be valuable or entertaining to your fellow gamers, that you let people know they're out there. I despise any kind of shills; it's instantly obvious when Captain Post Count=0 shows up in a forum and writes something like 'hey i no u lik gamez i found this game its cool go chek it out".)
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I despise any kind of shills; it's instantly obvious when Captain Post Count=0 shows up in a forum and writes something like 'hey i no u lik gamez i found this game its cool go chek it out".)
That happens a lot, but less with games and more with male enhancements. ;)
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As a reviewer, I have to factor them in, especially when they're not just things like "Terraforming on planets orbiting G2 stars produces only half as much gas as it's supposed to during the second week of each month ending in 'R'", but database errors, "Invalid Use Of Null", and a lot of fairly basic things like trying to access elements of empty arrays if there's no items selected in a list (I get this all the time in the missile/launcher setup screens).
Thanks for commenting in the thread. I have no problem at all with the reference to bugs in Aurora as there plainly ARE bugs in Aurora :). My enthusiasm for adding new stuff generally exceeds my enthusiasm for hunting down bugs and fixing them. I do get an attack of conscience every so often though and go through the bugs thread to fix what I can :)
Steve
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My enthusiasm for adding new stuff generally exceeds my enthusiasm for hunting down bugs and fixing them.
True of every developer!
In any case, I shared both the review and the game on Reddit, so maybe we'll see some new people in here from there!
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I'm a little surprised that people are surprised PCWorld covered Aurora -- I've done reviews of Dwarf Fortress, ADOM, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, and other smaller/indie games with dedicated communities and deep gameplay.
I don't have hard numbers, but I feel like Aurora is farther out on the long tail than the games you mention there. My knee-jerk is to say that there's probably a degree of magnitude difference between the fanbase for those games and Aurora... maybe more. Certainly, in my limited personal experience, I know way more people who have played those three games than Aurora. So, to me, even a site which occasionally reviews indie games would surprise me when it reviewed Aurora.
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Considering this site is probably the "biggest" repository of Aurora knowledge, and there is just under 3200 members here; call an additional 50% for other people who get Aurora and don't register, that's still under 5k user base. Not bad for a niche free game I'd say.
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Considering this site is probably the "biggest" repository of Aurora knowledge, and there is just under 3200 members here; call an additional 50% for other people who get Aurora and don't register, that's still under 5k user base. Not bad for a niche free game I'd say.
I agree! And compare that to the 45k+ members over at Bay12, and my degree-of-magnitude WAD isn't *that* far off. ;-)
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For comparison, (well, someone beat me to this so whoops!) just checking the Bay12 (Dwarf Fortress) forums, there are 45,000 members. Some of those folks aren't even there for Dwarf Fortress, but for the community itself (I almost only lurk there for the Other Games forum myself). The 'online today' numbers for the two are 32 vs 431 (no prizes for guessing which is which). Just back-of-the-envelope-numbers-wise, Dwarf Fortress showing up on a 'big' site is less surprising than Aurora.
Aurora is also fairly niche and a bit more difficult to approach (like the resolution and installation issues), so seeing it in the mainstream is a bit of a shock for those of us who just bunnyhopped here from various corners of the Internet.
I am glad it was reviewed though; Aurora may not be for everybody, but I'm sure there's lots of folks who'll find it through PCWorld and find it to be the game they never knew they wanted.
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We'll welcome them with open arms... Until they spam viagra. Then I ban them ;)
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Nice review well done.
And well done to the Aurora team, Steve may program it for free, and Erik does wonderful work with the forums and a host of people deliver support and encouragement. It really is a team effort for a great product.
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I tried to ad a user review but I couldn't get logged in. I'll try again later.
The review was going to include the fact that when I play, I sometimes have to make the decision at 4am as to whether I should try of an hour of sleep or stay up and get ready to go to work.
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There is no decision you play an hour.
No wonder my doc says I need more sleep else I will die, 4 hours is not enough. ::)
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"Aurora is happy to let you dump naked colonists on an airless world, or give a ship orders it doesn't have the fuel to complete, or send a warship into battle with no missiles loaded. I imagine that Aurora giggles in delight when you do this."
That isn't totally true, it will warn you if you are about to trigger an extinction level event on your homeworld(removing the last mass driver when a kiloton of neutronium traveling at 5000km/s is headed for earth for example), not enough to rescind the order, but warn you all the same.
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I notice there has now been a user review, although he doesn't seem to be a huge fan :)
Steve
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I notice there has now been a user review, although he doesn't seem to be a huge fan :)
LOL - I don't think he fits the target demographic :)
John
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LOL - I don't think he fits the target demographic :)
John
Well, one thing I feel he got somewhat right is about Aurora almost not being a game. . . I myself prefer to consider it as a simulation, similar to, say, finite-element analysis or other modelisations, in that the result is dependent on time pulse and sub-pulse lenghts. It became very apparent to me when I noticed my shipping line incomes triple when using 8 hours increments instead of 1-5days ones.
But associating Aurora with casual gamers? No way. None of my friends understood my appeal to Dwarf Fortress, and it's the same for Aurora.
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But associating Aurora with casual gamers? No way. None of my friends understood my appeal to Dwarf Fortress, and it's the same for Aurora.
Yup, my house mate refers to it as Database Wars
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Yup, my house mate refers to it as Database Wars
That sounds like a viable new name!
Dwarf Fortress still kicks my ass. Partly because I only play it on my rather outdated Laptop. I invariably go to a point where things just STOP. Dwarves just stop working.
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Yup, my house mate refers to it as Database Wars
Attack of the Spreadsheets: THE REVENGENING
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great review and DF in the next week or two is getting its big yearly update so numbers will spike over there. I play both aurora and DF both are great games in their own right
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I would play DF if I could understand the graphics, I never been good at figuring out asci.
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I would play DF if I could understand the graphics, I never been good at figuring out asci.
The point of DF graphics is to look like what it represents using ascii, if possible, and if not, use a relatively distinctive letter. After a while of using the look (k) or view (v) options to check what that grey "d" means, you eventually end up seeing the war dog, or knowing it's one and not a donkey. Like the Matrix. Except with dwarves. Drunk ones.
Better wait the bug-resolving versions after this big update. Then will come the time I melt my laptop by running both Aurora and DF, with a YouTube video on the 2nd screen.
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actually aurora is fairly well done in 2d graphics, df there are 3d isometric programs and of course 2d sprite replacement mods which makes it easier to play. I can only hope steve opens the game up to some help maybe or if he goes aurora newtwonian maybe opening up at some point the core game as it is now to open source or some form of NDA assistance might help the programming along or getting offers of help from those he has associations with perhaps on some non core game elements
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The point of DF graphics is to look like what it represents using ascii, if possible, and if not, use a relatively distinctive letter. After a while of using the look (k) or view (v) options to check what that grey "d" means, you eventually end up seeing the war dog, or knowing it's one and not a donkey. Like the Matrix. Except with dwarves. Drunk ones.
Better wait the bug-resolving versions after this big update. Then will come the time I melt my laptop by running both Aurora and DF, with a YouTube video on the 2nd screen.
After a while you don't even see the code anymore, you just see carpenters, soap makers and siege engineers.
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After a while you don't even see the code anymore, you just see carpenters, soap makers and siege engineers.
Where's the hotty in the red dress?
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Where's the hotty in the red dress?
She's behind the hotty in the PVC bodysuit!!!!
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Similar subject was being discussed at yahoo answers last week. I can post the link if needed.
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On one site I posted about Aurora on thread, pictures, empire status report, whatnot. Most of the reactions of others were between absolute confusion about what they were supposed to see and brain-implosions upon trying to comprehend what they were seeing. I asked on the same thread if Dwarf Fortress is harder than Aurora, I was told that Dwarf Fortress is facebook game compared to Aurora in terms of complexity.
And this was on a thread where there were people saying how uncomprehensible clusterfluff Dwarf Fortress was
At that point they refused to believe that I was a human
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I'm a little surprised that people are surprised PCWorld covered Aurora -- I've done reviews of Dwarf Fortress, ADOM, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, and other smaller/indie games with dedicated communities and deep gameplay. Reading comments in this thread, I'm getting the impression it's assumed "mainstream" sites don't cover games like that (or try to compare them to this week's triple-A title that was advertised on the Superbowl, and whine that there's not enough 3D explosions). . .
It's interesting you mentioned PC World did a review on Dwarf Fortress. I discovered Aurora from a thread on the Dwarf Fortress forum discussing this game, comparing the depth and complexity as being rather similar to each other. (I discovered Dwarf Fortress from a YouTube video, but that's another story. . . )
Actually, I'm not at all surprised of a PC World review of Dwarf Fortress. It may be a niche indie game, as opposed to a commercial venture from a big publisher with lots of ad revenue and such, but it's quite unique and incredibly popular for a game of it's type. Indeed, in July of 2011 the New York Times did an article on this game.
You know your game has become popular when it becomes an Internet meme (like Dwarf Fortress). Indeed, it's tvtropes page is colorful, including how World of Warcraft has two dwarves bickering in a quest plot to do a hilarious parody of a Dwarf Fortress issue.
Anyway, I do find it surprising that PC World covered Aurora. And not just because it's a non-commercial indie game. That too, but mostly because it doesn't seem to have "caught on" yet. It's not nearly as recognized or famous, unlike ADoM or Dwarf Fortress.
But, I would be just as surprised if you had reviewed any obscure indie, such as the GearHead RPG (either GH1 or GH2). It's a unique post-apocalyptic mecha-anime roguelike with (for a roguelike) passably decent graphics (even without any of the replacement graphics or mods). But despite the game's brilliance, it's a relative unknown to this day. I'm only aware of two short user-based reviews on it, one on Moby Games and another on RPGDX.
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http://www.gearheadrpg.com/
im gunna take a look at this anything as complex as aurora or DF is rare in the world of cough simcity 5 which EA has destroyed. Post apocoltypic gmaes are well worth a look it looks complex to