Fortress of Doors (Page 5)

Fortress of Doors

Sign in Subscribe

Ad Blockers and the Four Currencies

4currencies Featured

Ad Blockers and the Four Currencies

Apple recently allowed Ad-blocking in iOS 9. Some people responded like this [http://www.tomsguide.com/us/ad-blocking-is-stealing,news-20962.html]: > Every time you block an ad, what you're really blocking is food from entering a child's mouth. There's more nuanced takes [http://www.

Defender's Quest II: The City of Ennekar

defender's quest

Defender's Quest II: The City of Ennekar

LARS: As the Defender's Quest II engine and Defender's Quest HD get further along towards completion, we've been building up a huge internal backlog of story and art materials as our writer, James, keeps churning on. He's currently up to his fifth

OpenFL for Home Game Consoles

OpenFL for Home Game Consoles

CONTEXT: This is a presentation I recently gave at WWX2015 [http://wwx.silexlabs.org/2015/] (WorldWide Haxe conference) in Paris, France. Briefly stated, Defender's Quest HD and Defender's Quest II [http://www.defenderquest.com/2] use three core technologies: * Haxe [http://www.haxe.org] is the

Mods, Salutary Neglect, and Storks

Mods, Salutary Neglect, and Storks

Okay so let's talk about this whole Steam Workshop paid mods thing [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/241836/Game_mods_can_now_be_sold_on_the_Steam_Workshop_for_real_money.php] , the internet freakout [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/242074/5_takeaways_from_Gabe_Newells_

Automated Transparent Development

Automated Transparent Development

Every game developer has a dilemma -- you need to make a game (development), and you need to tell people about it (marketing) so they'll get it when it comes out. The more you do one, the more you neglect the other. If you just keep your head

Defender's Quest 2 - Weaselmancer and cast preview

Defender's Quest 2 - Weaselmancer and cast preview

Last week we posted about DQ1HD and DQ2's milestone plan [https://www.fortressofdoors.com/dq1hd-and-dq2-plan/]. Today let's supplement that with a sneak peek at some characters for Defender's Quest 2. A while back we posted a little bit about Javir, Terevan and "New

DQ1HD and DQ2 Milestone Plan

Some people wanted some clarification of how we're doing with Defender's Quest 2, and when they would get Alpha/Beta access. Here's a high-level overview of the release plan for the Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten HD re-release and its sequel,

Stenography for Programming

So I'm learning Stenography. I ordered a UTOPEN stenoboard [http://utopen.com/] recently and this is what it looks like fully assembled (and with masking tape "training wheel" labels): At this point you're either thinking: > "um... why would a game developer want

Game Maker, Security, and Freedom

So Game Maker just got bought by a gambling company [http://gamasutra.com/view/news/236574/GameMaker_Studio_creator_acquired_for_164_million.php] , and as the ancients have foretold, the gnarled old Lars has duly appeared from his hermitage with semi-inflammatory opinions on the subject: > XNA: abandoned. Flash:

I Wish Upon a Steam

defender's quest

I Wish Upon a Steam

I write about Steam [https://www.fortressofdoors.com/tag/steam/] a lot, because they hold my fate in their hands like a tiny bird. (Photo by Chris Yarzab [https://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisyarzab/], link [https://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisyarzab/8074925450/in/photolist-diy71A-ajB9tp-4qMdBp-b56P1e-9QBnfy-9QBmBC-jzZxLe-74RvCN-bancLz-NYNVB-9QBog3-tCeRa-89Dr6d-26LDkx-84kQDT-6YTsCN-84oTdS-ff4ULS-6VSHX2-38x8Eb-3vg1r-6pE8r8-6pJg2A-amryiH-6pE8q4-2pHNuS-88RCYx-cxTsZm-ac2Hr1-b5at9Z-2JXgSt-49VyuH-8yRdA

Steam Traffic Patterns Deep Dive

defender's quest

Steam Traffic Patterns Deep Dive

So in a previous article [https://www.fortressofdoors.com/brave-newsteam-world/] I talked about the Steam Discoverability update [http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2014/09/22/steam-introduces-improved-discoverability-so-you-can-find-more-games-to-buy.aspx] (which I'm calling "NewSteam"). One of the big new features was a detailed traffic analysis, which Steam

Why are we releasing DQ1HD as a free upgrade?

We recently announced an HD re-release of Defender's Quest 1 [https://www.fortressofdoors.com/dq2-update-and-announcing-dq1hd/], and that it will be a free upgrade. Some people want to know why. Specifically, two things prompted me to write this article: 1. This thread [http://steamcommunity.com/app/218410/discussions/0/

defender's quest

DQ2 Update and DQ1-HD Announcement

So, it's been a while since we last talked about Defender's Quest 2 [http://www.defendersquest.com/2]. I have three big things to talk about today: 1. General updates 2. Announcing Defender's Quest 1 HD re-release 3. Progress on Defender's Quest

Fixing Steam's User Rating Charts

Recently I wrote a big article [https://www.fortressofdoors.com/brave-newsteam-world/] about the new changes in Steam, and rendered my judgment: cautiously optimistic. After further reflection, my position is unchanged -- most of it's very good, but some things need work. NOTE: Although my tone throughout is quite

defender's quest

Brave NewSteam World

Over two years ago I wrote an article called The Holy Grail of Digital Distribution [https://www.fortressofdoors.com/the-holy-grail-of-digital-distribution/] where I described what an ideal digital game store might look like. In the last two weeks, Steam launched their long-anticipated storefront overhaul (which I'll call "NewSteam&

defender's quest

Optimizing Tower Defense for FOCUS and THINKING - Defender's Quest

The design philosophy for Defender's Quest [http:www.defendersquest.com] boils down to two guiding principles that play to the Tower Defense (TD) genre's strengths: 1. Let the player FOCUS 2. Test the player's THINKING Note the verbs. We don't want to

defender's quest

The Quest to Upscale Pixel Art

Hey everyone! So, we are currently looking very seriously at a console release for Defender's Quest II [http://www.defendersquest.com/2/]. Of course, PC is our top priority, and don't take this as an official statement of specific platform choices or anything just yet, we

Follow Your Dreams!...Or Maybe Don't.

I am filled with absolute terror whenever I get a message like this in my inbox: > "You inspired me to quit my job to make indie games!" (emphasis mine) For those of you new to this blog, my name is Lars Doucet [http://www.twitter.com/larsiusprime]

defender's quest

Was Localizing Defender's Quest Worth It?

Let's find out. First of all, our total sales to date, across all PC portals for the original Defender's Quest [http://www.defendersquest.com/1/] are: $656,000 USD gross 195,000 units sold Next, our monthly sales on Steam: (No y-axis label because Steam doesn&

Automatic Progress Tracking

I have two jobs: 1. Make a video game 2. Tell people about it I'm much better at the former than the latter. Until recently, the "news" section of Defender's Quest 2 was conspicuously bare, not exactly a huge vote of confidence. That didn&

Will that crowdfunded game ever actually ship?

So you come across a neat-looking new game on Kickstarter. It's got fancy concept art, it has some big names involved, and their pitch is really convincing! Surely this will be the game of our dreams? Well, maybe not. The failure of the Yogscast game [http://www.polygon.

Dear Adobe: Support Haxe, save your Tools

Dear Adobe, My name is Lars Doucet, I'm a game developer [http://www.defendersquest.com]; I can proudly say that I have been using your tools, and Flash in particular, for over 15 years. I love your tools, I think they're great, and I would be

Doubling Down on Community

So pretty much everybody is talking [http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-indie-bubble-is-popping.html] about this [http://gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertFearon/20140526/218535/Popping_The_Indie_Bubble.php] Indie Bubble thing [http://gamasutra.com/blogs/MeganFox/20140527/218539/Indie_Bubble_Buts_What_Do_We_Do_Now.php] and how it&

defender's quest

Defender's Quest 2 Engine progress - resolution!

A big thing I'm trying to work on for the DQ2 engine is robust support for multiple resolutions, particularly HD. The previous game was hard-locked to 800x600. Here's a screenshot from today's build of the DQ2 engine, using the DQ1 data set: [http://www.

An Algorithm for Discovering "Hidden Gems"

So you've probably seen that Ars Technica article [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/introducing-steam-gauge-ars-reveals-steams-most-popular-games/] that has magically reverse-engineered every steam game's gross (sales+free-key-redemption) numbers. Everyone's talking about this graph: [http://www.bugs.fortressofdoors.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/steam-meter-graphs-4.001.png]