Retro-Pixel Castles (tuxdb.com)

Retro-Pixel Castles

Raymond Doerr Developer

SixtyGig Games Publisher

2019-10-14 Release

Strategy Simulation SingleplayerTags

Game News Posts: 175

🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse

Very Positive (7108 reviews)

http://risetoruins.com

Steam Store

The Game includes VR Support

Feedback Needed: A slight design paradigm shift into more player control.

Greetings fellow players, For a while now, I've been debating a paradigm shift in Rise to Ruins. This is mostly a result of everyone's feedback. There are many features in Rise to Ruins that are heavily requested, but I usually respond with a polite "no" and explain myself. The reason provided is Rise to Ruins is intended to be a Godlike Village Simulator, with as little "Village Management" as I can get away with. The core philosophy of Rise to Ruins is a "Hands off" approach, similar to some of the game's grandfathers, like the game Black and White. Many of these features requested are completely reasonable, wouldn't be hard to code in, and would make the game much more fun. They just don't fall under my vision of what a "godlike" is. A very common counterargument I hear when I tell people "no" is that "You already have a ton of direct control, like placing buildings or assigning workers". Guess what? They're absolutely correct! Would it even take away from the godlike elements to allow a little more? Likely not. My only concern is losing the godlike charm seen in games like Black and White while also adding some of the management roles seen in games like Town, Rimworld and Banished. But, I think it still can, and of course, the end goal is for everyone to enjoy playing anyway. Here's a few examples of some of the requested features I get constantly, that I turn down and the reasoning behind it. These are some of the things I may change my mind on, depending on your feedback to this post. 1. "I would like to be able to select what building can, and can't store" This one simply feels like way too much direct control. You're a god, you should not be able to explicitly tell your villagers where to store things. 2. "I would like to be able to configure my towers to attack closest, farthest, lowest hit point, or highest hit point monsters" Like above, it feels like too much direct control. It's not up to you to decide how they fire, it's up to the villagers (in reality, the AI for each tower is configured to what I feel is best. But players may disagree with my choices and want something different) 3. "I want to control storage distribution priority." Somewhat in line with number 1. Another reasonable setting. Again, I set these things based on my own personal opinion what is best, and again, this is something players may disagree with me on and want to change themselves, in-game. 4. "I want to control how much of items are made" This is a big one, currently the system uses a ton of algorithms to decide how much tools, armor, items and everything else is made. The system is completely autonomous. Just like all the others, I feel this is how it should be as a godlike, because god does not get to decide what the villagers do with their resources. Now the great thing about adding everything I mentioned, is many of these will work just like they do now anyway, the only difference is you'll be given control to change them. So while it increases micromanagement, it'll only increase micromanagement for players who decide to do it. Going down this path may result in an even more entertaining game. But it will cause a subtle paradigm shift in the long term development, pushing it a little closer to more traditional village simulators, like Towns, Rimworld, Banished and Gnomoria. Please, let me know down in the comments what you think, and vote in this Strawpoll with your final overall answer.

[ 2017-07-06 18:40:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

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Game Concept

Retro-Pixel Castles is at heart a godlike village simulator, but it also throws in plenty of familiar game play mechanics from classic 90s era real-time strategy games like Warcraft, along with some tower defense and survival elements in an attempt to create a new kind of village simulator. The goal is to try to bridge the gap between the depth and complexity of traditional village simulators, the fun of godlikes and the simplicity of real-time strategy.

Key Features

You can't win!
The problem nearly all village simulators tend to face is you seem to eventually reach a point where you can't lose the game. You become so skilled at knowing exactly what to do and in exactly what order, the game loses all of it's appeal and you eventually run off to play something else. That's not the case with Retro-Pixel Castles, it aims to make a game you can't win. Every game day, the game gets progressively harder. In RPC you will eventually lose. The goal isn't to win, that's not possible, the goal is to see how long you can survive!

Build a village, and die trying!
A major part of the game is village management, and trying to discover new and creative ways to use the tools at your disposal to keep yourself alive as long as possible.

Several Game Modes
Currently, the game offers two main game modes. Survival and Peaceful, Survival is the game the way it was meant to be played, as a brutal survival style village sim. Peaceful on the other hand has nearly no monsters, and plays out much like a traditional village simulator with some godlike and RTS elements sprinkled on top. More game modes are planned like the upcoming Sandbox mode where you basically are given unlimited resources and access to play around with the engine.

Godlike Elements
Not only can you manage your village, but you also have many godlike abilities at your disposal. You can alter the terrain, blast enemies from afar, heal your villagers and speed up resource growth.

Unlock Content Through Gameplay (Coming soon!)
In RPC, you will find yourself in a harsh and unforgiving environment, constantly trying to find new ways to keep your little villagers alive for just a few more days. As you play, you'll unlock more content, like additional buildings, items and units you can use in your next attempt to see if you can survive even longer than the last!

Even though you can't beat this game, you most certainly can make progress in it! Every round you play you'll gain experience, unlocks, and other interesting goodies that will expand the game.

Tons of map set themes!
Every set of maps will follow a certain theme (Forest, Desert, Underground, etc). Most of the current screenshots only feature a few of these map sets. But many, many more are planned.

The Soundtrack!
A full original soundtrack, made by Bibiki Garcia that blends orchestral instruments in a way fans of old 1990s era PC gaming will love and remember!

DRM-FREE

SixtyGig Games is a DRM free independent game developer! Retro-Pixel Castles will not now or ever in the future have any sort of DRM! Piracy protection only hurts you guys, the loyal paying players. So you rest assured knowing that once you buy yourself a copy of Retro-Pixel Castles you'll never again have to concern yourself with nagging questions about if you can continue playing the game down the road due to something like always-online logins, lost registration codes or because you bought a new computer and you're only licensed to put the game on one. All I ask from you is to be reasonable and responsible, you can buy the game and play it as much as you like, wherever you like. Just tell your friends to support my DRM-Free philosophy and buy their own copy! Free Content Patches, no paid-DLC

100% FREE CONTENT PATCHES/DLC!

I don't believe in paying for Downloaded Content. If you buy Retro-Pixel Castles you will have access to the entire game and all the content I'll ever create for this it, forever! I believe DLC is greedy, and you deserve to have the full gaming experience from day 1, right out of the (figurative) box!

Have a say!

Your feedback is extremely important. You can reply here or head on over to the Official Website and help shape the direction of development! :)

MINIMAL SETUPOS: Most 64 Bit Linux Distros (Must support Java)
Processor: Intel i5 or equivalent (Dual Core with Hyper-Threading)Memory: 4 GB RAM
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: Intel HD 4400 or equivalent. 1280x720 resolution or higher.
Storage: 1 GB available spaceAdditional Notes: OracleJDK or OpenJDK 8 Required (OpenJDK bundled with product)
RECOMMENDED SETUPOS: Most 64 Bit Linux Distros (Must support Java)
Processor: Intel i5 or equivalent (Quad Core)Memory: 8 GB RAM
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: Most Dedicated GPUs. 1G+ VRAM / OpenGL 1.3+
Storage: 1 GB available space

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