First of all, we want to thank everyone for your generous offerings of anti-Gremlin spells, potions, curses, dances, beseechings to the code gods, and other creative solutions. Many gremlins appear to have been re-assigned to other developers. The overall blood pressure and rate of production of stomach acid at Mage Faire Studios is decreasing. One or two gremlins is to be expected for any software project, and as long as we keep the gremlin population to that size, we’ll be fine. So, please, keep it up!
At the beginning of any game, there is a fair amount to learn. How do you move? How do you communicate? Where can you go? What can you do? What are you supposed to do? It can be overwhelming, trying to figure this all out at once. And it can be un-fun, frustrating, or boring. We don’t want that, obviously. We want to guide you through what you need to know, at a comfortable pace, and in a playful, exploratory way. So, much of our recent effort has been devoted to the first few minutes of your experience, which is all about moving and expressing yourself.
In Mage Faire, your avatar is a painting, so it is very light. You can jump almost three times your height and float softly down. And you can move, spin, and many other things while you’re falling. So, the first two areas are designed to let you explore all these abilities in a place that’s fun to jump around in.
You can also bow, twist, and tilt your body, and move your hands by dragging them. So, for example, you can wave to someone by raising your hand (dragging it up), then dragging it left and right. The third area is designed to show you all these ways to “puppeteer” your avatar. Once you’ve learned to express yourself as only a Mage can, you enter the Mage Faire proper.
All along, we’ve been developing on 64-bit Windows 7 and Vista machines. You always develop on pretty fast machines, because you run the code over and over and over, and you want to be able to do that as quickly as possible. So our development machines are pretty beefy.
We know that many Mages have older XP machines, and we wanted to make sure an older, slower machine could still run Mage Faire. So, recently, we got an old Windows XP machine, with a much slower processor, much less RAM, and much lower video RAM. This past week, we’ve been optimizing the content in Mage Faire so that the elderly XP can keep up with a decent frame rate. By creatively rearranging things now, we hope to save players from being frustrated later.
(And, Mac users, we haven’t forgotten you! We’re just not there yet.)
It’s very exciting. Many hundreds of people have completed our alpha questionnaire. Thank you for taking the time! It’s so helpful! We really need this information to organize our tests.
But, there are currently over 100 incomplete questionnaires. Did you complete yours? Here’s how you can know: Did you see a “thank you” page at the end? (Complete!) Did you get a confirmation email? (Complete!) Did you get a reminder email saying your questionnaire was not completed? (Incomplete!) Check your spam folder if you’ve got nothing (assuming you signed up on the alpha mailing list. You did, right?).
We’d like to avoid the tragedy of someone missing out on the alpha because they didn’t *realize* their questionnaire was incomplete.
We are working hard on the alpha, making it robust, fun, and easy to get started for as many Mages as we can. Thanks again for your patience.
Woo!
Yay fewer gremlins! Yay XP support! Yay impending alpha!
Thank you for the update. I know it’s sometimes hard to take a break from work to make a post that basically says “um, still working,” but it helps us feel connected. Also, sometimes you don’t notice how much progress you’ve made until you tell someone else about it.
Sounds great–even tho as a Mac user, I’ll have to wait longer to jump into this intriguing world!
Thank you so much for the update! I think about Mage Faire often and have been wondering what progress you are making. Although I have WIN7, I am glad to know that you have concerns for older OSes. I am so looking forward to testing!
Thanks for the update. Alpha sounds like it is right around the corner…I can’t wait!
Great news! I’m glad to hear things are coming along well. I’ll keep up the banish-all-gremlins spells!
This is not from me, this is from my computer: “who are you calling elderly??!!??”
I, however, would like to thank you for the update! Whee…
Thanks for update! Love all the ideas, especially for the avatars. Can’t wait to experience Mage Faire. ^-^* Also, happy to see so many familiar names! Hello to all fellow Glitchen *:)
Hey T’nara and ex Glitchen! So glad you are progressing well and also supporting XP machines. I have a 64 Windows 7 machine as well but much prefer using my older 32 XP machine, it runs smoother somehow and I’ve never worked out why.
The introduction to Mage Faire sounds wonderful btw. Stay in touch 🙂
Sounds fantastic guys, the progress is admirable! (Though I have a bone to pick with you for calling XP machines “elderly.” I have a 2006 laptop running XP…the audio and mic are shot, as is the power button. I’ve replaced the hard-drive and added RAM and I’m limping it along, but I’m hardpressed to call it “elderly.” :P)
That being said, I do appreciate the time you’re taking with this game, in making it perfect…that in itself makes me want to play it. My only concern, and I think it’s been addressed….it’s a downloadable, right, not flash-based? Because this “elderly” machine of mine seems to be ok with downloadables, but it totally seizes up on flash…must be an allergic reaction or some such. We’ll see how it plays, I guess, but thanks for thinking of me! 😀
That’s right. Not flash. It has a downloadable client.
Oh, I can hardly wait to jump and spin. And wave at all my friends! Thank you for the updates and congrats and expelling the gremlins!
I will be using Windows 8, will I be able to play on that? I do hope so. New pc coming Monday. It will be great to be able to jump again.
We’re testing on Windows 8 next week. We’ll let you know.
Thank you for the update, waiting with excitement to begin.
“Elderly” was not meant as derogatory. My mother could be considered elderly, and I love her! 🙂
Being the geek that I am… I have a Windows Vista/7 dual boot machine with XP on a virtual drive. I also have a Windows 8 machine and my wife has a Windows 7 laptop and a Mac. I believe we have all bases covered. (Yes I am a baseball fan too). Thanks for the update, patiently awaiting alpha grand opening. You Rock!!!
Gulp… I think I filled out the survey and sent it back but I can’t remember and when I went back to check my email I couldn’t find any confirmation.
Thanks SO much for the update! *jumps up and down ,claps hands, squees with delight* *waves madly at missed glitchen friends!*
I don’t have an XP machine, but optimizing the game to be playable on those means my little netbook will probably be able to handle it (the poor thing only has a gig of ram and no separate video processor). Which makes me very, very happy indeed.
I’ve been killing actual gremlins in a different video game, so that’s hopefully contributing to the pest control over here. 😉
Hmmm sent in questionnaire, but don’t remember confirmation, so guess mine was incomplete :/
Still, look forward to testing opportunity when it happens.
Also looking forward to meeting friends from the past.
@synthesis, I looked you up, and you did complete it.
And for those of you who really didn’t complete it, in case it wasn’t obvious, please go back and complete it. 🙂