Bay 12 Games Forum

More about signing here, but I wouldn't sweat it for now.

I've tried your game... and I've won! I've build straight up. I've encountered no bugs (I know of) during the play.

I'd say the next thing you should figure out is how to display debug data on screen and a toggle key which hides/shows the data at will.

How much fun is NERO? It sounds cool, but it also sounds like a royal pain in the ass.

Attention! I've last played NERO ~4 years ago. There might have been updates.

NERO is/was a research project which used a cool neuroevolutionary algorithm to demonstrate its practical value.

Is it a game? Well, it can be!
You and your buddy can each teach your units how to behave separately and pit them against each other in a custom scenario/map. You teach your units by setting up obstacles, enemy units etc. As units die (by the hand of the enemy unit OR the player), new, evolved units are spawned.

The really, really basic principle of the algorithm is that the units will try to remember the "good" patterns and forget the "bad" patterns. Death = bad, life = good.

If you want to teach your units to follow the edges of walls, you place some walls and kill every unit that is not doing what it supposed to. If you want units to follow the enemy units, you set up scenarios and kill off the units that are not behaving like they should.

Was it a breakthrough in self-learning AI? Sure.
Is it interesting to watch your units learn stuff? To a degree.
Is it fun to play? Not really.

No way to disable/hide some or all chat channels.
Because I want to focus on the game, and not on 13yo's swearing.

And no, I don't care about your mute function where you have to select each individual you want to mute. Just let me mute all of them!

This game looks A LOT like Eldrich.

This.

However, I've tried both games and Barony's gameplay and world is different. Which makes sense since it's still in alpha and they're taking a more RPGish route.
But the atmosphere definitely feels similar to Eldritch (that's a good thing!).

hemmingjay:
May I ask how does one go about strucking partnership/sponsorship deals with companies like Alienware & Nvidia? Do you simply call them up and tell them about your game and plans?

It seems to me you're a new gamedev kid on the block, without any prior games and an industry outsider (AFAIK). Were they not hesitant to partner up with you?
If you were located outside the U.S., do you think you could have gotten the same deals?

I ask because I have no business experience, but I'm interested in knowing more. I like the route you've taken and the fact that you seem to have it under control.

What is the reasoning behind the counter-attack mechanic commonly found in TBS games like Battle for Wesnoth and Age of Wonders?

For completeness: a counter-attack occurs after (but within the same turn)  a unit attacks an enemy unit, when the attacked unit attacks the attacker back!

I'm asking partly because I'm developing a TBS myself, but also to understand WHY others implemented the mechanic. How would the world look like without it?

+1 for using Artemis.

However, the project has been inactive for 2+ years. It _is_ complete, but it does have smaller bugs and limitations.
If you'll ever hit the limitations, I recommend switching to artemis-odb, a forked version (and still active) of the original Artemis.

The intention of this post is purely informational. I'm not affiliated with either of them, nor do I think you should immediately switch to the forked version.

Yeah, you're not the only one. It's been reported.