defender's quest

A collection of 51 posts

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

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&

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.

defender's quest

Nobuo Uematsu to work on Defender's Quest 2

So I promised everybody some news. I was originally going to post this yesterday, but that just happened to be Liar's Day [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day], so we decided to wait one more day. Here's the press release we sent out

defender's quest

Defender's Quest 2 March Update

Alrighty! Time for an update on where we are in Defender's Quest 2 [http://www.defendersquest.com/2/]. Those of you who follow me on twitter [http://www.twitter.com/larsiusprime] know I've been active, but I sometimes forget that our followers are spread out over

defender's quest

Playing Defender's Quest with the Steam Controller

So I got back from Steam Dev Days. You might have heard that everyone who attended got a Steam Controller prototype from Valve, as well as one of the many Steam Machine models (courtesy of Intel). Bottom line -- it's pretty good! Read on for more details. This

defender's quest

The Stegosaurus Tail: when "The Long Tail" grows spikes.

You may have heard of "The Long Tail [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail]." For games, it means your sales start off strong and quickly taper off.  This force drives the retail marketing cycle -- launch a game to extreme hype, sell it like crazy, then immediately

defender's quest

Defender's Quest II's "UnKickstarter" approach to crowdfunding

Kickstarter is the go-to solution for crowdfunding these days, but I'm a control freak so I designed a custom solution for our upcoming game, Defender's Quest II: Mists of Ruin [http://www.defendersquest.com/2/]. No solution is one-size-fits all; we're in the unique

defender's quest

Story-telling as Problem Solving: Defender's Quest (GDC 2013 Narrative Summit)

We (Writer James Cavin and Programmer/Generalist Lars Doucet) initially gave this talk at GDC 2013 in the Game Narrative summit. I'm posting the slides and script here as a blog post, but if you prefer a video, you can watch a recording of this talk here [https:

defender's quest

Steam Linux Sale : Results

Shortly after we published our giant sales report, Defender's Quest: By the Number, part 2 [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/186940/defenders_quest_by_the_numbers_.php] , the Steam Linux client officially went public and was accompanied by a site-wide sale. The Linux sale featured every single

defender's quest

Defender's Quest GOLD launches on Kongregate

[http://www.files.fortressofdoors.com/images/Kongregate_logo.jpg] The Kongregate version [http://www.kongregate.com/games/LevelUpLabs/defenders-quest-prelude/] of Defender's Quest GOLD edition is now live.  If you are a registered Kongregate user, we've expanded the demo to give you access through all of Act

defender's quest

Defender's Quest GOLD launch

Hey everyone! Time for an official blog post announcing the launch of Defender's Quest version 1.0, or "gold" edition. I've finished the deployment, and the new version of the game is live. If you've already bought it, just run the old

defender's quest

Defender's Quest gold launches today

Hey everyone, a quick heads up - barring unforeseen insanity, Defender's Quest GOLD will launch today! I wanted to make sure the new version of the game would be public before Anthony and I head to PAX tomorrow.  James will be manning the customer service account while we&

defender's quest

Defender's Quest coming to Steam!

Before I give you guys the big announcement I've been promising, first thing's first - yes, we've heard all about Steam Greenlight [http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight], in fact you've all been emailing us pretty much non-stop about it :) Now for the announcement.

defender's quest

Defender's Quest: By the Numbers

[http://www.files.fortressofdoors.com/images/tdrpg_dragon_fire.gif] So, in case you haven't heard yet, Gamasutra posted our first ~70 days of sales stats as a featured article today: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/168303/defenders_quest_by_the_numbers.php [http://www.blogger.com/

defender's quest

Details on upcoming GOLD version

EDIT: For everyone who's been asking, YES! If you have bought any version of the game so far, you will most definitely receive the GOLD edition as a FREE udpate. With Level Up Labs "Free Updates" does indeed mean free updates :) Hey Defender's Quest

defender's quest

New patch 0.8.4 coming today!

Just sent out this newsletter: Dear Defender's Quest fans, An auto-update patch is coming later today! We've tested this feature extensively prior to release, but never with so great an audience. There's always the chance something bad might happen so I want to alert

defender's quest

Defender's Quest Deployment Strategy

We just launched our new game, Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten [http://www.defendersquest.com/], for PC/Mac/Linux, a few days ago, and have been pretty surprised at our initial success.  Only time will tell if that trend continues, but for now we've seen

defender's quest

Defender's Quest is RELEASED

[http://www.defendersquest.com/] You can buy defender's quest RIGHT NOW at:www.defendersquest.com [http://www.defendersquest.com/] We have a new demo version out too at:www.defendersquest.com/play_demo.html [http://www.defendersquest.com/play_demo.html] Also, please note we're also

defender's quest

Nearing Release

Sent out this newsletter just now: ************************************* Hey Defender's Quest Fans! We've got some news! The game is basically finished - while we clean up a few things on the technical side, we're waiting on our lawyer to finish the paperwork that will allow us

defender's quest

A Status Effect Stacking Algorithm

(Cross-posted on my Gamasutra blog [http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LarsDoucet/20111101/8786/A_Status_Effect_Stacking_Algorithm.php] , which usually gets more comments) [http://files.fortressofdoors.com/images/poison.png] Status effects are a cool way to add strategic depth to both Tower Defense games and RPG's,

defender's quest

Lessons in Demo Launching

EDIT: Hillariously enough, my host's servers just went down. You can still play the demo with these links: Windows torrent [http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4196349/DefendersQuest/DefendersQuestDemo_v_0_5_0_3.exe.torrent]  (dropbox) Linux torrent [http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4196349/DefendersQuest/DefendersQuestDemo_v_0_

defender's quest

RPG's, challenge, and grinding.

Cross-posted on gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LarsDoucet/20110822/8248/RPGs_challenge_and_grinding.php] . As part of an ongoing series on our upcoming tactical RPGDefender's Quest [http://www.defendersquest.com/], I'd like to talk about RPG's, challenge, and "grinding." Let&

defender's quest

RPG's and Suckage

(Cross-posted on gamasutra.com [http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LarsDoucet/20110412/7413/RPGs_and_Suckage.php]) As part of our ongoing series on our new game Defender's Quest [http://www.defendersquest.com/], I'd like to talk about suckage. When you say "This SUCKS!" you&

defender's quest

Upgrades, Equipment, and Skill Trees

Cross-posted on gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LarsDoucet/20110401/7351/Upgrades_Equipment_and_Skill_Trees.php] . As part of my continuing series on the design of our new tactical tower defense / RPG hybrid Defender's Quest, I'm going to talk a little bit about upgrade systems,