Take the depth of Dwarf Fortress, add a bunch of lazy mages and update the interface to modern standards? That's Mage Tower in a nutshell. We're building something really ambitious - a world that you can build to your own whim, while carefully balancing resources, knowledge, and external threats.
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To those who know me personally, much of the following information is review. For those who don't, hopefully this will explain quite a bit.
Hello - I'm Daniel Frandsen, the President / Founder / Lead Programmer for Red Button Games. Usually when I speak as the company, I use generic pronouns like "we," but since this post is more personal I'll be talking as myself.
The Past
Mage Tower has had a sporatic update cycle. I apologize upfront about not communicating what was going on, especially when it's part of my responsibility to keep company followers up-to-date. When Mage Tower began development (May 2012), I jumped in as a full-time developer. I planned on slowly ramping up other involvement through a part-time developer and artist, making a monthly update cycle reasonable. Since then, the other involved parties dropped off (through no one's fault), and I was contacted with a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity (August 2012). The interview process took a while, but I ended up accepting an offer (November 2012) shortly before launching Mage Tower on Desura (December 2012) and another update (January 2012).
Throughout the next 7 months, I moved across the country, sold my house, started a new job, and got married. My update schedule for Mage Tower dropped from then full-time to now just a sliver of the time I wanted to commit to it. Communication dissipated, and I became somewhat nervous to check Desura to see what new dissenting comment I would see. Finally, a new update released (August 2013), and I was happy to see people still interested and to see people who seemed to understand (on some level) what I might be going through.
The Future
Now that things are more settled, I have a bit more time to work on updates. However, I'm not going to depend on my time for the release schedule as much as I can help it. To help with that, I'll be working on making updates even smaller, making them more feasible to be on a regular schedule. Second, I'm hoping to bring on more people who would be interested in the project. I'm a bit...picky about who I work with, but it's become clear that giving more of my own time wouldn't make a reliable schedule.
I hope that helps explain my perspective and why things might be moving slower than you'd like. Trust me, I want to play the "full" game of Mage Tower just as much as you - it's just going to take a bit of time. :)
Mage Tower Alpha 0.1.4 "Wandering Monster" Update Released!
News 4 commentsMage Tower releases the "Wandering Monster" update, adding additional races, NPCs, damaging spells, floating mages, and more!
Red Button Bulletin 7: Mage Tower Q&A
News 3 commentsAfter our release on Desura, we got a lot of questions about the game. We've taken the time to respond to some of these questions.
Mage Tower Alpha 0.1.3 "Sleepy Time" update released!
News 1 commentMage Tower releases the "Sleepy Time" update (Alpha 0.1.3). Adds a day/night cycle, fatigue, interior lighting, and more!
Mage Tower Released on Desura
News 2 commentsTake the depth of Dwarf Fortress, add a bunch of lazy mages and update the interface to modern standards.
Files
Mage Tower Alpha - Demo - Mac
DemoTake the depth of Dwarf Fortress, add a bunch of lazy mages and update the interface to modern standards? That's Mage Tower in a nutshell. We're building...
Mage Tower Alpha - Demo - Windows
Demo 1 commentTake the depth of Dwarf Fortress, add a bunch of lazy mages and update the interface to modern standards? That's Mage Tower in a nutshell. We're building...
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Any news since September 2013?
Could you keep us updated about the game's progress, if any?
I'm so close to ask Desura for a refund.
any time this will be in steam's greenlight?
I don't know if the devs are still 'haunting' the comments section, but any specific reason for the slow update?
Rather than responding to every version of this comment, the basic reason is the project began with a small team, one full-time programmer and couple other part-time contributors, but the full-time programmer (myself) got a full-time job, moved across the country, and got married over the past 6 months. Obviously transitioning to a part-time schedule would be tough enough, but the development pace suffered during this transition.
Now that I'm in a more stable situation, I'm ramping development up to a healthy pace, and carefully bringing on more people to replace the full-time slot that was abandoned. I still really love this game and more importantly want to see it grow to what I envision, rather than the Alpha version that currently exists.
I'll go into more detail in a Red Button Bulletin soon ("real" soon, not "next update" soon), but I wanted to respond to the wave of comments, especially for people who were frustrated by the silence over the months.
Whaaat? A week after I ask Desura for a refund, the game is updated? Colour me surprised!
Please add menu entries for exiting the game properly !
Also, you should consider using cInput2 for Unity in order to bypass the settings window at the start, and disable all mouse actions when using a menu (except for interacting with the menu).
We'll have to look into cInput2 - that's something we hadn't considered up to this point, but as with many problems someone else in the Unity community solved it.
The intention is to disable all mouse actions when using a menu, but we still have a few edge cases to identify.
Ah, i saw this game about a year, ago. Luckily, i didnt buy it: due to comments, its very dead now.
Yes a game is dead when it released an update a day ago, good one.
So I take it the game is dead now then... Any chance Desura will give us a refund?
Alpha Funding means that you support a game during development. Chances are the developer has to do other things to you know live and such. So sometimes delays happen, but guess what he just updated the game. So no need to loose faith just yet!
I dont mind supporting games in alpha however when there is not even a 'hi, we are still here' from the devs in 4 months and the game still in the very early stages made it look ike that. Happy they have started updating again but have lost faith that needs to be restored again.