Double Fine's latest game: Spacebase DF-9

[J_C]

Take Double Fine and ban everyone there from ever working in the videogames industry again.

Also, lets's introduce death penalty for farting.

 

[Anthony Davis]

I backed Double Fine's Broken Age for 150$ because the Kickstarter left me with the impression I would be getting more Day of the Tentacle or Full Throttle.

I have not played Broken Age, not even once, it is not the game I thought I would get - nor is it a game I would have bought... ever.

Also, I never received my physical backer rewards. :-|

I don't think I would ever back or buy a Double Fine game again. Everything just seems like good to brilliant ideas that are never finished.

edit:
ack. I wasn't finished.

Spacebase seemed neat at first, but it had the look and feel of a product whose scope was beyond DF's ability to manage. Still butthurt over Broken Age, I gave it, and every DF game since BA a pass.

I'm not sure if I would ever solicit their games again. Not that they will miss me, Tim has a lot of Charisma and lot of great ideas. I think if he could get a handle on scope management, which is a skill most game developers lack, he could produce amazing games again someday.

Right now, as most have pointed out here, they have offices in the outrageously expensive SF and their Offices look like Engineering Offices do in Hollywood.

The Netscape Offices of ye old Internet Wars were not that glamorous.

 

[J_C]

I

Also, I never received my physical backer rewards. :-|

What? You should flip the table on them, what is due is due. You could sell the physical stuff for some profit a few decades later. :D

 

[Anthony Davis]

I

Also, I never received my physical backer rewards. :-|

What? You should flip the table on them, what is due is due. You could sell the physical stuff for some profit a few decades later. :D

I sent them an email, two I think, and got nothing in return.

It's probably not even their fault, not only did I move from Texas to California, I moved twice in the year I've been in California. I've updated addresses of course, but who knows what happened.

 

[Morkar Left]

I

Also, I never received my physical backer rewards. :-|

What? You should flip the table on them, what is due is due. You could sell the physical stuff for some profit a few decades later. :D

I sent them an email, two I think, and got nothing in return.

It's probably not even their fault, not only did I move from Texas to California, I moved twice in the year I've been in California. I've updated addresses of course, but who knows what happened.

I can understand that there can be problems in delivery but not answering your e-mails at all is pretty weak.

 

[Angthoron]

I

Also, I never received my physical backer rewards. :-|

What? You should flip the table on them, what is due is due. You could sell the physical stuff for some profit a few decades later. :D

I sent them an email, two I think, and got nothing in return.

It's probably not even their fault, not only did I move from Texas to California, I moved twice in the year I've been in California. I've updated addresses of course, but who knows what happened.

I can understand that there can be problems in delivery but not answering your e-mails at all is pretty weak.

Yeah, I get Larian emails all the time regarding mailing stuff to 'dex backers, pretty much. And I doubt they get paid 10K.

 

[J_C]

I

Also, I never received my physical backer rewards. :-|

What? You should flip the table on them, what is due is due. You could sell the physical stuff for some profit a few decades later. :D

I sent them an email, two I think, and got nothing in return.

It's probably not even their fault, not only did I move from Texas to California, I moved twice in the year I've been in California. I've updated addresses of course, but who knows what happened.

I can understand that there can be problems in delivery but not answering your e-mails at all is pretty weak.

Yeah, I get Larian emails all the time regarding mailing stuff to 'dex backers, pretty much. And I doubt they get paid 10K.

I can't wrap my head around this. It seems to me that DF is only playing nice until they get compliments and love from the fans. But as soon as they have to deal with something negative (like Felipepepe's forum post about refund), they behave like ass, and get all passive agressive. Not cool Tim, not cool.

 

[Angthoron]

I

Also, I never received my physical backer rewards. :-|

What? You should flip the table on them, what is due is due. You could sell the physical stuff for some profit a few decades later. :D

I sent them an email, two I think, and got nothing in return.

It's probably not even their fault, not only did I move from Texas to California, I moved twice in the year I've been in California. I've updated addresses of course, but who knows what happened.

I can understand that there can be problems in delivery but not answering your e-mails at all is pretty weak.

Yeah, I get Larian emails all the time regarding mailing stuff to 'dex backers, pretty much. And I doubt they get paid 10K.

I can't wrap my head around this. It seems to me that DF is only playing nice until they get compliments and love from the fans. But as soon as they have to deal with something negative (like Felipepepe's forum post about refund), they behave like ass, and get all passive agressive. Not cool Tim, not cool.

Creative types are often pretty bad around negative criticism, unless they voluntarily expose themselves to it early on and grow a thicker skin. Not really very surprising.

 

[Drakron]

Creative types are often pretty bad around negative criticism, unless they voluntarily expose themselves to it early on and grow a thicker skin. Not really very surprising.

Sadly it seems 90% of Developers these days are garden flowers never been exposed to that in their lives and we live in a kindergarten culture of whatever you do it deserves recognition and cannot be criticized outside the ever elusive "constructive".

A culture of irresponsibility.

 

[felipepepe]

They live inside hugboxes and echo chambers. Imagine everyday reading countless posts about how you're awesome and can do no wrong. It fucks people's mind.

 

[Angthoron]

Creative types are often pretty bad around negative criticism, unless they voluntarily expose themselves to it early on and grow a thicker skin. Not really very surprising.

Sadly it seems 90% of Developers people these days are garden flowers never been exposed to that in their lives and we live in a kindergarten culture of whatever you do it deserves recognition and cannot be criticized outside the ever elusive "constructive".

A culture of irresponsibility.

Fixed that a little. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people elect to live inside hugboxes. It's pretty easy to do since the modern world offers tons of possibility for it, and it starts pretty early on, as early as kindergarten, where kids are essentially outside even objective criticism in firstworldia. It'd be strange to expect people taught that they're each a special flower full of potential and amazing ideas and never really wrong to actually own up to their mistakes.

Add a "creator's pride" thing to it and you have someone that can easily go into a full-out retard mode as soon as someone says something slightly negative about them and their creations.

 

[J_C]

Spacebase 1.0 is released. Latest improvements:

New Tutorial Mode teaches basic game concepts. Access Tutorial Mode by selecting “Learn to Play” from the pause menu or by picking Tutorial Outpost EZ-101 on the Galaxy Map.

New Goals Screen tracks player progress towards persistent goals, such as “50 citizens on base”, “Researched all technologies”, etc.

Later in the game hostile forces now show up in greater numbers and combinations, culminating in a visit from the Pirate Megafleet once your base becomes successful enough. Survive the onslaught to complete the game’s hardest goal.

Minor Improvements / Bug Fixes
All “Famous Citizen” tier customer names added to Credits and random citizen name pool.
Disaster Menu can be enabled with a secret key combination and used to unleash disasters on your base.
Many new sound effects, including crowd noises in rooms based on their current population.
Many small UI polish items. Look and feel of UI in the Citizen/Zone/Object Inspectors is now more consistent.
Brig and Residence assignment UI improvements: X button to clear an assignment, clicking the assignment button a second time cancels out of pick mode.
"Execute" button in citizen action tab causes security to immediately target this citizen. Use responsibly!
Asteroids are treated like walls for the purposes of object placement.
Citizens who are sleeping in beds that get destroyed wake up and become annoyed.
Clicking an object in the Contents section of a container’s Stats Tab selects it.
Improved mouse wheel, middle mouse, and keyboard view zoom behaviors.
Vaporizing a wall with an object hanging on it vaporizes the object and refunds its matter.
Dropped research datacubes will preserve their “claimed for research” state. Scientists will try to drop them off somewhere in the base even if there isn’t a Research Lab.
Citizens flee when someone is having a tantrum nearby.
Emergency Alarms in rooms with no/disabled alarm panels turn off.
Price of Dark Matter Reactor increased from 450 to 600.
Tooltip for a research datacube shows the blueprint it contains.
New Spaceface logs: cuffed, escaped from brig, needs shelving, security starts exploring a beacon, security finishes exploring a beacon.
Duty skill increases when morale is high, up to a 25% bonus per duty task.
Security citizens take their helmets off if they get into a brawl with another citizen.
"Flavor" text and descriptions for all objects that were lacking them.
Start new bases with time paused.
Balance: Many small changes to citizen morale and duty efficiency.
Balance: Turret damage output increased.
Balance: Buildable objects are more resilient.
Fixed: Dozens of crashes and AI issues.
Fixed: Scrollable views such as the Job Roster don’t display correctly in non-16:9 aspect ratios.
Fixed: Decals remain after a tile is vaporized.
Fixed: On loading a savegame, citizens who were sleeping are awake and restart their sleep cycle.
Fixed: White helmets display on citizens when playing certain animations.
Fixed: Citizens exercise, play games, and hang out in functioning airlocks.
Fixed: Lower right UI buttons shift to left even if there are not enough alerts to warrant this.
Fixed: Job Roster columns highlight on hover incorrectly.
Fixed: Non-citizens in unclaimed derelicts do not react to dangerous situations.
Fixed: Botanists do not repair damaged or destroyed hydroponics cultures.
Fixed: Citizen talk and thought bubbles do not draw correctly.
Fixed: Exiting Job Roster / Research Assignment screens minimizes the Hint pane.
Fixed: Killbots bleed.
Fixed: Killbots get sick.
Fixed: Player can hover and select some objects or rooms within hidden areas.
Fixed: Security duty citizens flee in rooms with active alarms while doing certain tasks.
Fixed: Removed debug power visualization mode.
Fixed: Security Beacon location isn’t preserved across save+load.
Fixed: Flipped text on the Alarm Panel.
Fixed: Turrets in space can’t be deactivated.
Fixed: Breach ships don’t play VFX when taking damage or exploding.
Fixed: Text overlaps UI in several miscellaneous places.
Fixed: Matter counts up/down from previous session’s total when starting a new base.

I don't have time to play it right now, but I'm interested in the opinion of someone who actually plays the game and rates it on its own merit, instead of listing what it could have been.

 

[Ulminati]

Don't you mean Last improvements? Doublefine already stated they would do no further work on it after 1.0.

It's just a bunch of tweaks. No gameplay additions.

 

[Zewp]

I don't have time to play it right now, but I'm interested in the opinion of someone who actually plays the game and rates it on its own merit, instead of listing what it could have been.

You mean someone who can overlook the fact that Double Fine fucked over even more people? You should maybe talk to yourself, because other than that I think you're shit outta luck.

 

[J_C]

I don't have time to play it right now, but I'm interested in the opinion of someone who actually plays the game and rates it on its own merit, instead of listing what it could have been.

You mean someone who can overlook the fact that Double Fine fucked over even more people? You should maybe talk to yourself, because other than that I think you're shit outta luck.

I'm not saying that one should overlack that fact, but I'm waiting for the opinion of people who have enough braincells to play the game and review it on its own merits. Is it fun to play or not, and not just shit on it because of the controversy. It is like going to metacritic and give a 1/10 rating automatically, regardless of the quality of the game, just because you don't like the company.

 

[Ulminati]

I don't have time to play it right now, but I'm interested in the opinion of someone who actually plays the game and rates it on its own merit, instead of listing what it could have been.

You mean someone who can overlook the fact that Double Fine fucked over even more people? You should maybe talk to yourself, because other than that I think you're shit outta luck.

I'm not saying that one should overlack that fact, but I'm waiting for the opinion of people who have enough braincells to play the game and review it on its own merits. Is it fun to play or not, and not just shit on it because of the controversy. It is like going to metacritic and give a 1/10 rating automatically, regardless of the quality of the game, just because you don't like the company.

I've played it.

Spacebase DF9 is an ultra-boring barebones copy of Dwarf Fortress. It lacks the complexity that makes unexpected stuff happen in Dwarf Fortress, and your base will pretty much run itself after the first 20 minutes. There's 1 z-level, 1 resource (asteroid) and your sole job is to make sure to build 1 oxygen recycler and have 1 gardener + 4 plots per x colonists. Some ships will arrive on occasion, but 2-3 security colonists are enough to stop any number of invaders. There are no late-game goals or megabeasts to find. There are no way of building mechanisms in the game, so you won't have any large megaprojects to go for either.

Space is 2D and new hulks will attach to the outer edge of your station. If you make a giant 1-tile donut ring around your actual station, the hulks will attach to it and you will never get invaded.

The reason people cut it some slack was because they expected there would be enough stuff going on to make it interesting eventually. This will not happen now, so there are no more excuses for the barebones gameplay. This is what you get and it's vastly inferior to similar games like, say, startopia. Even Clockwork Empires which is in alpha has more depth than DF9.


Play Startopia, Dwarf Fortress, Clockwork Empires, Rimworld, Prison Architect or even Gnomoria instead. They're all better.


And before J_C throws another hissy fit - this has nothing to do with me hating Double Fine. I just changed my assessment from "It's kind of shit, but we have high hopes they'll make it good in future updates" to "It's kind of shit" in light of the announcement there will be no future updates.

 

[J_C]

I don't believe you review.

 

[Ulminati]

Then how about you buy it and review it for the codex J_C?

 

[J_C]

Then how about you buy it and review it for the codex J_C?

I bought it while in early access. I will play it after I finished Dreamfall and Dreamfall Chapters.

And just for the record, DF gives a free Hack 'n Slash to every Spacebase owners (and vice versa), which was a pretty unique game.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/double-fines-latest-game-spacebase-df-9.87086/

How about merging the 2 threads?

 

[Ulminati]

A free hack&slash has nothing to do with the quality of the game at hand. Don't let the aftertaste of Doritos™ cloud your judgement.

 

[J_C]

A free hack&slash has nothing to do with the quality of the game at hand. Don't let the aftertaste of Doritos™ cloud your judgement.

I know. But I welcome their free gift. The 2 games together worth the 20 bucks I paid for Spacebase.

 

[Destroid]

A free hack&slash has nothing to do with the quality of the game at hand. Don't let the aftertaste of Doritos™ cloud your judgement.

I know. But I welcome their free gift. The 2 games together worth the 20 bucks I paid for Spacebase.

Lucky you, not everyone will be happy to receive an apple and half a banana when they paid for an orange.

 

[Ulminati]

I'm allergic to apples.

 

[polo]

I was thinking about buying this, i played the amnesia forthnight prototype for this, and 't was pretty cool.

 

[Junmarko]

Everyone seems to be in a massive uproar over this game's abortive release. What planned features did DF abandon? The massive backlash points to a lot I'm guessing...