KickStarter Jon Shafer's At the Gates

[Destroid]

https://www.atthegatesgame.com

Spoiler

Long let's play with Jon Shafer showing off his game, looks interesting, I like the new art style.

 

[KoolNoodles]

I like JS. Sounds like he got fucked on Civ5 initially(huge project for somebody with little experience on the Civ4 expansions), and has a good head on his shoulders. He's been involved in Civ since Civ3(mods), which is pretty bro. Still quite young, and interested to see what he can do.

Edit: Also he name dropped Crusader Kings 2 and King of Dragon pass when talking about the clan system. Nice. We'll see how it plays.

 

[Gondolin]

I sort of watched the video. Pretty good stuff.

 

[Frusciante]

So I didnt find a thread about this yet. Was a kickstarter from the designer of Civ 5.

Indie 4x where you play barbarians invading the roman empire. Has seasons affecting the map, survival, army supply etc.

Looks pretty interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do-RQpQ3rDI

 

[Borelli]

"From the designer of Civ5" is not something that fills me with hope but this doesn't seem to be like it. Has a KoDP vibe which is always great and the late roman setting is unique but from the video the getting new clans mechanic seems a bit gamey. Haven't seen much of the aforementioned Roman Empire, i hope that they will not be an easy prey and that you will need more than a couple of raiders to bring them down.
Will definitely keep an eye on this.

 

[Muty]

I remember reading an interview where he stated that he was basically forced to dumb down every aspect of civ in order to make it more appealing to the masses of uneducated faggots that don't give a shit about strategy games.

 

[Frusciante]

"From the designer of Civ5" is not something that fills me with hope but this doesn't seem to be like it. Has a KoDP vibe which is always great and the late roman setting is unique but from the video the getting new clans mechanic seems a bit gamey. Haven't seen much of the aforementioned Roman Empire, i hope that they will not be an easy prey and that you will need more than a couple of raiders to bring them down.
Will definitely keep an eye on this.

I think a lot of game designers actualy would like to make less dumbed down games. Problem is that they get a target of ''sell X million copies''. And the market for hardcore games just isnt big enough. In short: give this guy the benefit of the doubt. At least he gave up his job to try and make something he really believes in.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I dunno if you can really say he gave up his job 'cause HIS SHIT WAS TOO PURE. I thought people at Firaxis generally lead-designed one game and then fell off the face of the Earth, either doing other work at Firaxis or being non-lead designer on other things. Like Jeff Briggs was a designer on Civ 2 and Colonization but lead designer of Civ 3 (Then went back to doing other things at Firaxis, in his case composing) so we can lay the entirety of the blame of 3 on him.

Plus Shafer apparently was lead designer for a Stardock game in the Elemental series (Which I assume would've been that Sorcerer King game or whatever) until he ejected there to do his Kickstarter thing. His Kickstarter thing that has his name in the title. If I was judge of character Cow I'd say he was after glory and to become a Name, since after he had the lead designer slot at Firaxis he bailed, then had and gave up the lead designer slot on a Stardock game so he could immediately jump into lead designer of a game with his name in the title instead. Maybe it'll be wonderful but it seems a little suspect to me. Definitely enough that I skipped the Kickstarter.
Especially since as shit as Stardock is, they're far lower budget than Firaxis and (You would think) that would allow him more free reign to do whatever. Like Borelli mentioned late Roman setting is more interesting than Elemental generic fantasy shit, but it seems weird that you'd bail on a lead designer position just because you hate orcs.

Like I mentioned though I'm just pulling this out of my ass. It was enough to give me pause but I still have been half-assed eyeballing the game.

 

[Alienman]

Been watching for 40 minutes now, think it looks really good and interesting. And if the game flops Jon Shafer can always fall back on a youtube/LP-career. Guy is pleasant to listen to

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeah this looks good, one of the more promising strategy kickstarters.

 

[tuluse]

Just watched this. Looks potentially interesting. I wish it had showed the moving on mechanic. It sounds like you will only have one city in this game?

 

[tuluse]

I looked up some more info on the game. I vaguely remember the KS and not backing it because I didn't like how Civ5 turned out.

On the official website, Jon has a pretty interesting blog post http://www.atthegatesgame.com/node/31. He name drops KotDP, CK2, and Imperialism. So he's done his homework.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

What I'm really looking forward to is someone making a game halfway between civ2/civ4 and Victoria.

 

[Zed]

this game looks hella cool. any word on estimate release? early, late 2015?

Spoiler

's

 

[tuluse]

I think late 2015 is the target right now.

 

[tsiforb]

 

[Kane]

If John Shafer's At The Gates again, I'll blast that bastard another hole.

 

[tuluse]

Finally got around to watching the video entirely. Jon save scums

In terms of system interaction this seems like the polar opposite of Civ 5 (everything was separate) and gives me Civ 2-4, SMAC vibes (good integration of various systems interacting with each other).

I still want to see how the one city thing works in late game though.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Yeah, late game interests me too. Overall a good concept that offers a lot of replayability if world randomization is good as the potential for making new tribal combos and experimenting with composition seems solid.

Gonna watch second video now, hope it shows some large scale unit combat and how it plays out. Also interested to see if any events play when you encounter other major tribes, how diplomacy works, if there is any sort of civilization/city planning after you grow to a sufficient level and whether you encounter a large civilized faction later in the game. (didn't say anything about it in the first video but I thought this was supposed to play out as barbarian migrations into rome-kinda thing)

 

[tuluse]

If you've watched it, you'll see by now Rome gets mentioned in this video. Apparently diplomacy isn't implemented yet though.

It does technically show multi unit combat as Jon has exactly 2 archers and fights 2 barbarian units. It looks like it takes some cues from Civ 3 with combining units into super units.

He also shows some very minor migration (moves 2 hexes, plans to move more then realizes it hurts more than it helps).

One concerning thing I saw in the second video was it looks like there's a lot of +1 techs in the current tech tree.

 

[tsiforb]

This one's a six parter.

 

[tsiforb]

 

[Destroid]

Damn, this looked like it had a lot of game put together already in 2014

 

[Turtle-Zone 3000]

Looks like he'll be working on this simultaneously with his Paradox project.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonshafer/jon-shafers-at-the-gates/posts/1879147

Seems to be aiming for a release at the beginning of 2018 according to the schedule he's given.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Damn, this looked like it had a lot of game put together already in 2014

Cleveland Mark Blakemore

I read somewhere that the broad strokes of game development were the easy parts; It's the nitty gritty details that consumes the most development time.

Do you agree?