How sure can we be that this doesnt turn into another Spacebase?

First of all, sorry for the long ass title. Not a good start, I know.

But my problem is, I am a sucker for these kind of games. They draw me in, and I usually have way more /played on them than any other possible genre out there. 621 clocked hours of Gnomoria and all that. I own quite a few of the "city builders" that are out there - unfortunatly, some of them turned out... weak. Castle Story, Towns, Spacebase DF-9 to name some. Castle Story might get somewhere, sometime though (if they fix the UI... its hard to play right now).

I am pretty intrigued by the city builder / ancient horror mix you guys are creating here - it certainly looks like its got great potential. I just want to ensure that I dont invest time (money isnt that much of an issue, its not costing my a kidney or anything) into the game only to see it go the way of the dodo, and remember in a years time that it had so much potential but wasnt going anywhere.

Maybe I am not the first one to ask this question, and I simply couldnt find any confirmation or official statement on it. If so, could anyone /reply a link to this thread? (instead of deleting it outright...)

 

Let me preface by saying I purchased Spacebase DF-9 in quite early in Early Access, and followed its development, and I've also played Dwarf Fortress and Gnomoria (also, people are a bit angry about how Spacebase launched, and a previous thread was locked because it turned into Developer bashing, so I advise everyone to keep it constructive).

Spacebase DF-9 came, essentially, out of nowhere - it was honestly a bit of a pleasant surprise, as not many of their Amnesia Fortnight games graduate to full development. Clockwork Empires, on the other hand, has a long run-up in the form of Dev Blogs. At this point, I've been closely following Clockwork Empires' development for about as long as I followed Spacebase DF-9's.

I was quite happy with the level of Dev communication from Doublefine at launch, which remained reasonably regular, until they went radio silent rather abruptly. At that point, there was something like 6 months of little to no communication, before the very final flurry of patches and notes just prior to release. For the record, I don't think the final product is inherently bad - it's quite decent - it's just disappointing in light of everyone's hopes.

I think some of your concerns are inherent to the nature of Early Access, and some are particular to the colony-simulation genre (is that a thing?). Allow me to define what I see as Spacebase's problems, and how I think Gaslamp Games' approach is different. There are two area I think it will be useful to compare and contrast:

Features and Ambition, Doublefine

You can't blame the Devs for their ambition - the 'maybe possibly' list included things like robots, visiting the bases of your friends, and some kind of holodeck. I honestly don't think it was intended to be a promise list, just Devs spitballing. That feature list wasn't set in stone, but presented as a blue-sky wishlist. It was chopped significantly just before launch, when it became clear to the Spacebase Devs that they couldn't afford to keep working on the game, and players latched on to it (not entirely unreasonably) as an example of broken promises. That leads in to ..

Communication and Transparency, Doublefine

Just prior to the radio-silent period, there was no indication that anything was amiss, things looked like they were humming along nicely. As the silent period grew longer and longer, people started asking things like 'is this game still in development' and 'can we have some sort of update'. When the game saw a rapid series of patches which reflected, in retrospect, 'just get it out the door' finalization for launch, we thought the game had returned to active development.

The two issues combined to generate antipathy and disappointment for Doublefine and Spacebase, resulting in a disappointing final product, and an unhappy player base, and the general feeling was that players had been deceived or lied to (personally, I think this is an example of a truncated development that ran out of money, rather than deliberate bait-and-switch).

In contrast:

CommuniBition and TranspareFeatures, Gaslamp Games

Communication from Gaslamp Games has been orders of magnitude better than Doublefine. In fact, it was the long history and consistency of things like Dev Blogs (a couple of years worth!) and social media activity, on top of a regular forum presence, that convinced me to purchase Clockwork Empires before Early Access launched on Steam (in a phase called Earliest Access, done through Gaslamp Games themselves, and also the Humble Store). They were, and remain, very frank and very detailed about the state of development, and I've seen a very strong commitment to transparency and honestly managing ambitions.

As fans, we tend to let out hopes soar, often unrealistically, without restraint at the prospect of a new thing we can love - and it's tempting for Devs to let it run amok. Gaslamp Games has, in my opinion, done a very good job of tempering expectations by clearly communicating what is possible and reasonable, and laying out the basis, from both technical and design perspectives, for design decisions.

In my personal opinion, Clockwork Empires' development is, given roughly the same amount of time, in a much better place than Spacebase DF-9's was. SB DF-9 came out of nowhere and withered abruptly, like a tasty mushroom. CE has long, deep roots and I expect it will grow into a sturdy tree.

 

Kind of a loaded question, and I don't know anything about Spacebase, but I can offer some thoughts. Gaslamp is definitely one of the most professional and well organized indie devs I have seen. In the Wild West of indie game development, I have way more confidence in Gaslamp than many other teams I have heard of. Dungeons of Dredmor was one of my favorite games, I have enjoyed playing the progress on CE so far, and they have earned my loyalty.

In terms of finishing theirs goals and delivering a complete, stable, and rich game, I have no doubts. You can also expect the devs to keep up their transparent communication and community interaction. I look forward to the dev blogs every week.

Will you enjoy the finished game itself? There's really no way to know for sure, but based on the current state of the game, the progress that has been made, and the roadmap ahead I think it's going to be a good one.

 

As a person that too have been dissapointed a good number of times before by development teams both of indie games and AAA titles in terms of communication and transparancy, I feel like I have stumbled upon one of the gems. The devs are very good at communicating with us, and it gives me trust because I know they actually listen, which unfortunately seem to be a problem with many other indie devs that have a vision and no room to stray away from that one even if the community makes many valid points against parts of the vision and ideas how to shape it a little differently to make a better game.

As for the game itself it's right now not a great game obviously, being in early access and all, but during my time here (4 months) it has grown significantly and combining this experience with that is outlined as the plans should make for a pretty good game. Will it be a great game? Time will tell, but I have confidence that it won't be dissapointing and well worth my cash.

Actively contributing to the forums is a great way to also make your own impact as we are dealing with a little developer that do not have a legion of QA, and as such if we actively report issues and give constructive criticism on design issues, we can help them shape the game to become a game we will love.

 

I think the most honest and frank answer to this question is, simply; we can't. There is no way to know what will happen in the future of the development of this game. All we can do is speculate. Currently I would totally agree with the above posts in terms of the openness and frankness of the developers of CE. In my opinion they are the most open and honest developers of an early access game that I have purchased. The weekly development posts and monthly progress reports are fantastic. Feedback from the community is actually considered and discussed by the devs.

I assume that if you have bothered to register on the forum and post a question then you will have been following the development of the game somewhat closely. I can't tell you whether the game will whither and die or mature in to the epic game it could become. What I can tell you is that, if like me, you purchase Early Access games to enjoy the changes that come with a game constantly evolving, I suspect you will enjoy CE. I also have Gnomoria as well as a number of other Early Access games and I enjoy them greatly but CE is a total different experience. Wednesday is quite literally my favourite day of the week, waiting to see what updates will be discussed and whether these make it into the experimental branch of the game is awesome. Every month the game changes dramatically as new features are added.

Welcome to the forums!

 

Thank you all for you answers. It about covers what I think it should be said. The reason I went a bit "bashy" to Spacebase was not because I hate them that they took my money and did not return the thing I expected - it was that they ended it before they tried a different approach. I dont think they did a money grab - if they did that, they should have ended it earlier.

Their game was dangerously close to the "shut up and take my money" territory already. If they had communicated it earlier, I am sure the players could have scoffed up another 100k or more, kickstarter style. Not saying the world needs another Star Citizen, but if the buyers tell you to go another year with their wallets, go another year. But they didnt communicate, and we got a game thats mainly "as is" - if we are up to it, we can try to fix things like the broken oxygen system with a modification though. Big help that is. I cant LUA myself out of a bag if my life depended on it.

To bring it to a close: I dont want my money, I want your game (in an awesome state, not halfway done)! Dont shut up (keep communicating), and take my money? Deal?

 

These devs are tricksey like this, but it is the life of a colonist. The homeland wants payment by Steam, Humble or Swiss Bank yet not cabbages. Cabbages we have. Steam's in the radiators keeping the 1%'ers happy when they're not wandering around contributing valuable resources like 'poetry'. Typical really, we do all the work and all we get back from them is bonemeal.

And there's a strong gas theme. So you're building your first barracks. You throw in a load of cots and dining furniture. You're feeding your workforce mostly cabbages, pumpkins and vegetable stews. Yet your stock barracks kit does not include windows! Luckily it doesn't include naked flames either, so your colonists may just survive until you can create a more balanced diet.

(you may notice colonists running into the wilderness. Management blame this on 'cult' activity rather than poor ventilation and a strong desire for cabbage-free air.)

And having just bought Dredmor, there's something generally fishy about this lot..

But on a more serious note, the game's coming along nicely. Slow and steady catchy fishey! It has moar content, it has moar things fixed and managed to get my colony to 50ish people who mostly survived just over a month.

 

A rather silly question. The basic response should be: You can't. The universe is a whimsical place.

How can you be sure you will wake up tomorrow?
How can we be sure Obamacare doesn't implant microchips in our brains?
How can we be sure tea is awful if served on Tuesdays?

Its a silly question OP. You can't be sure. That is why Early Access and Kickstarters are a lot like gambling.

To assuage your 'worries', all you have to do is follow the blog. Plenty of regular updates. Devs are active on forums. Blah blah blah. No signs of internal systemic collapse at the upper levels of management, wot wot.

 

If you take it out of my Swiss Bank Account though it will be taxed, and as a good capitalist and God fearing 'Merican I believe taxes are Satan incarnate and therefore ushering in the coming Apocalypse.

 

But, being that way, shouldnt you pay taxes like there is no tomorrow? The Apocalypse is supposed to be like your Birthday and Yule together. Only with more jesus and destruction of Mankind.

Silliness aside, I paid by Steam. I do have a Swiss Bank Account (being Swiss myself, there is nothing wrong with it, and means I paid my taxes - Ooops), but I dont actually pay with it much. Steam deducts from there though.

 

After the release of Rome 2 Total war I swore I would never buy a game until it was finished and had read the community forums, after reading up on this game, saw how active the devs are in the forums, and the type of humor they exhibit in their marketing and posts, I broke that promise.

After only buying the game yesterday, I think a day after V36, it now has me eagerly awaiting next months update, after gaming for 31 years now, a game has to have something unique to get your attention, and this game has done just that, keep up the great work