Since the end of the Korean war, the two halves of the Korean peninsula have be free to pursue their own destiny. Communist North Korea pursued a centrally planned socialistic economy. South Korea pursued a capitalistic free market economy.

So next time you're asked whether you support government run health care or other centrally planned initiatives, ask yourself how dark you want it to get? A little bit of socialism is like a little bit of death.

Stardock Design has released another free WindowBlinds 6 skin. This is the first in a series of Aero-derived visual styles for Windows Vista and Windows XP.

[Get it here]

Constant CPU and hardweare usage even when just sitting there.

So often people hear about developers and publishres fighting every step of the way during the development of a game.

I want to say that working with Ironclad has just been totally awesome. We've been working together for well over a year now and in that time I don't think we've ever had a serious disagreement on..well on anything at all.  It's been a perfect team up.

Playing through these gamma builds (we just got done with a 4 on 4 multiplayer here at the office) I can honestly say that Sins of a Solar Empire is the best multiplayer strategy game I've played since Total Annihilation. 

The game mechanics are a perfect blend of Ironclad's vision and Stardock's input.  Case in point, the resource system (of mining asteroids) and the research system and such were contributed by everyone on the team -- and by team and I mean the Ironclad/Stardock team.   When we've submitted ideas that Ironclad didn't agree with, they made a good case and we all ended up happy with the end result.

Similarly, while Stardock had a lot of input into the game. Ironclad has had a lot of input into the marketing side.  In other words, the developer/publisher team up was very unusual in the sense that we literally integrated our efforts together.  This website you see here was largely designed by Ironclad.  The advertisements in the game magazines are a team up of our design teams.  The box, the story text, etc. are all the result of both teams working together.

I wish I could say that the team up could be used as a model for other developers and publishers. But I think a lot of the success is because we're both indies and we both love this specific type of game and thus already have a lot of understanding of what needs to be done.

I remember hearing an EA executive talking about "small" projects in which the development team had over 40 people on it.  To give you an idea, 40 people is bigger than the Stardock + Ironclad teams combined.  And that also means not just a game that can take chances on game play and such that others wouldn't do. 

The efficiency of indies also means lower costs. The Collector's Edition of Sins of a Solar Empire costs the same as most new AAA title standard editions. 

So in 3 weeks, when Sins of a Solar Emprie hits Best Buy, Walmart, EB, Gamestop, etc. and you see it on the shelf, you're buying a game that has gone through a very unique process.  A game that has gone through a public NON NDA beta over many months.  

We don't have the marketing juggernaut that most games have.  But given how the game has turned out, we think word of mouth may make Sins of a Solar Empire one of the top if not the top (and I'm aware of what other RTS's are coming out) RTS's of 2008. 

But what we lack of sheer logistics, we have some advantages.  For example, like with Galactic Civilizations, we'll be releasing free updates to Sins of a Solar Empire that go well beyond "patches" for bugs and what not. They'll be new features and enhancements that you ask us for after release. 

In just two weeks, the game goes gold, is put into manufacturing and should hit store shelves on February 4 (and be available for download that day as well with boxes hopefully starting to arrive on people's doorsteps that day too).

 

Internal game, I'm blue.  Great 4 on 4 game.

I will say in all honesty, that Sins of a Solar Empire is the best multiplayer strategy game I've played since Total Annihilation.

 

 

http://www.cad-comic.com/comic.php?d=20070331

Updated research screen

This is the research screen as it appears in the release candidates.

Steve Parker (Neobond) and Marcel Klum (Redmak), the founders of Neowin, visited this week.

Here's some pictures.

From left: Marcel, Me, Steve.

Marcel and Steve in front of Stardock building.

 

Steve and Marcel working on Neowin.

Sins of a Solar Empire is shaping up nicely. An RTS with turn-based level depth that allows users to manage huge empires in real-time without getting bogged down in micro management.

Here are some screenshots from today's play.

Each race gets its own technology tree. Tech trees are a feature from 4X strategy games. RTS's usually don't have them.  To keep micro management down, the techs have a cost associated with them but also require a certain number of labs to be built in your planets.

Building orbital labs requires logistics points which are finite per planet. So choosing to build an orbital lab means not building something else.

The scale of the game is what I find amazing. This is a small map. And if you're playing multiplayer, it lasts probably an hour or so depending on your speed settings.

But you could, literally, play the game in this view zoomed out. That's what makes Sins so amazing as a strategy game.  You can, if you want, zoom in and direct each and every ship on the map and watch them battle it out or zoom out and manage your empire here -- or at any zoom level in between.

It was a good trip this year at CES but it is time to go. I've got so much to write, sorry that I haven't had more up lately but I've been so busy visiting booths that I haven't had time to actually post articles. Will address that shortly.