Welcome to the final Game Invention Newsletter of the year, and appropriately it comes with presents and cheer!

Inside you will find news about:

The recent release for Eufloria Classic which is FREE for owners of the original game, you can scroll down to find the details, but have a look at the trailer if you want to get a quick idea of what it entails.

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Also…. A MAJOR long-ranging interview with sci-fi legend Alan Dean Foster, on our YouTube channel

A host of content about our attempt to revolutionise RTS controls on console, and we are sharing the actual unreleased-but-advanced build of our game for which we did this work, as well as sharing our trade secrets in various design docs.

Plus the usual news and resources and giveaways and… well you get the idea.

Hope your enjoy it!

Feature - “Interview With Alan Dean Foster”

We have a bit of a treat for you this time and another indication that our earnest-content-that-offers-real-value approach is the right one for us. Namely: We have been lucky enough to be offered the opportunity to interview the renowned author Alan Dean Foster!​

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For the few of you who don’t know: Mr. Foster is best known for his tie-in novels for pretty much every major sci-fi movie franchise, including Star Wars, Alien, Star Trek, The Thing, and many many more. More than that, he is also a well-loved writer of many original novels and series across multiple genres, with incredible success and durability.

While that is interesting enough for a great interview, we felt extra excited for the opportunity to discuss the overlap between writing sci-fi and making games in terms of World building, with a master of the craft.

Additionally, most people don’t know that Alan Dean Foster also has a strong and important connection to videogames history, as he was involved in several key projects. This includes writing the tie-in novel for Lucas Arts’ The Dig game, writing the very first game tie-in novel in history, and even being involved in the creation of several games himself.

The interview was hugely rewarding, with Allan offering a limitless source of great stories and insights about his career, amazing projects, people and games involvement. In fact; even with the interview lasting nearly 90 minutes, we felt we only got started and were graciously granted a second interview.

Watch part 1 here, featuring all kinds of cool stories and revelations and insights. We talk about Alan's influences, learn very interesting new facts* about his work on the Alien franchise, his meeting with H.R. Giger and tons more.

*one might call it a scoop!

Please let us know what you think and what kind of interviews you would like to see in the future.

Notable Recent Videos

We released A LOT of videos since the last newsletter, too many to mention here. Here are some of them, but there are many others worth watching on our Game Invention channel.

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Bioframe Outpost Stink Lizard Recipe

We are having a lot of fun showcasing the depth of the ecosystem in Bioframe in a series of deep dive gameplay sessions. The fun part of this is that Rudolf is still finding new ways to play the game and have fun with emergent properties stemming from just how weirdly deep the ecosystem interactions can go.

We have released three of these videos so far, all originating from a long continuous session. These are really fun AND informative to watch, producing some real nuggets. The most recent edition contains a recipe for an “Enraging Stink Lizard”. (Genuinely useful!)

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The Return of a Classic

So Eufloria Classic has been released now (See the news here) and in the run up to the launch we have released a whole bunch of videos, many going into game dev and lore and such things.

This video goes into the creation of a whole new game mode/mod that Rudolf has been working on, and will be released soon. You can get it now if you like via our Discord. Come and say hi if you want to play it.

It is an ambient gameplay mode, meant to be used in ways that the player themselves can decide. It’s easier to watch the video than it is to explain in text so if this is making you curious go check it out here.

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Looking Back at the Future

Did you know that Omni Systems has an entire massive RTS game called Neopolis sitting about in its unreleased games retirement home? It was developed over several years and is actually very playable at an advanced beta stage. (Reach out if you want to play it!)

We created some major innovations for this game, including a whole new approach to designing satisfying RTS controls on console joypads.

​This video goes into details pertaining to some of these design concepts. We feel it still stands up and other games could benefit from our work, so we decided to share it with the public. (See the blog post mentioned below for additional content related to this)

Omni News Roundup

As always there is a LOT of Omni news to report on. Here is a small section:

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Eufloria Classic Release

It took much longer than we could possibly imagine, but we finally released Eufloria Classic on Steam and on our website. In the process we learned a lot about effective communication (ouch) so let me highlight a few useful bits of information about the release:

What is it
​Eufloria Classic is an anniversary release of the original, pre Eufloria HD, 2009 release of Eufloria, our intergalactic floral conquest RTS. It makes it available again for the first time in many years, and adds a number of nice bonus content and features to the mix.

Why is it
​It is the ONLY moddable version of Eulforia, and we thought it was a shame that it was no longer available. Also, we want to thank fans who stuck with us, and therefore…

What does it cost
​It is FREE for people who own the original game. Check out this thread to see how you can redeem your free copy, if you are one of the original fans. Additionally, it is crazy cheap if you own Eufloria HD as part of a complete-the-set bundle.

What is in it
​New game modes, new music from Brian Grainer, speed up buttons and it is backwards compatible with all mods and customs levels. In fact, we are working on new mods ourselves with fans on the Discord and will likely announce a modding competition in the new year, so go check out what we are up to and join us in the fun. 🙂

What will be in it
​More mods will be added, more community levels, and there is a secret mode… to be revealed in the new year. :-)

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THIS CONTENT GOT US BANNED!

So, we have been generating these lovely Euflorian trees videos, and figured it would be nice to give them an Instagram account of their own.

Attempting to do so… resulted in an insta-BAN. And that was that.

No idea why. Do let us know if you have a theory.

In the meantime, here is a supercut of the footage we were trying to share there, but are now happily sharing elsewhere.

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Blog Posts

“Console RTS Holy Grail - Satisfying Joypad Controls”

In our main blog post of recent weeks we go into a LOT of detail on a set of innovations and designs that we developed some time ago, meant to revolutionise joypad controls for Console RTS gameplay. (Yes, it IS possible and we have the receipts!)

It ties into our “Looking Back at the Future” series of videos, and offers all kinds of design content the video itself could not offer. Have a read here.

NOTE: The game in question is actually very playable, and feature rich, at an advanced Beta stage. It contains:

• All key features implemented, although some are janky
• 90 % complete menus
• A single player campaign with a lot of content
• Several game modes
• Potential multiplayer (This is an old Unity build and the servers may or may not be deprecated by now)

Even if so, LAN play might still work…

Gamedev Resources Roundup

This Month's Pick: Map of Reddit​

As we ranted about last time in our mission statement; one of the worst aspects of the modern internet is that mega corps push their annoying algorithms between creators and people who creators are trying to serve. These days it is INCREDIBLY hard to even locate the people who would enjoy our content, let alone share valuable media with them.

That is where Map of Reddit becomes invaluable, at least insofar it concerns finding the right subreddits.. It offers a free tool that lets you map out communities by keyword, but also generates a whole web of related subreddits. The latter is sometimes more valuable than the former as these are connections that aren’t always obvious, yet can be strikingly interesting.

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For artists: Wally Wood’s 22 panels that always work

We came across this super interesting exploration of how these specific comic book panel designs are incredibly useful and practical, and gives examples of their application in all kinds of comics over the years. Give it a look here.​

Grab Bag

(Where we share random stuff with you)

Stolen

Rudolf contributed to this extremely detailed video about the forgotten Stealth game Stolen:

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He still has lots of the old design docs and level designs and it is all kinds of fascinating to look back at this era of games releases.

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What we’ve been watching/playing/reading

Noita

Yes it has been out for some time but Rudolf has become completely obsessed with it. It is INSANELY deep, full of emergent design madness (Wand construction! Alchemy!) and once you go down the rabbit hole it is hard to come up for air. Do a search on videos and guides and be amazed.

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Star Ship Troopers OVA

Did you know there was a Japanese anime OVA released even before the Paul Verhoeven movie? It’s pretty good!

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Fan Submissions of the Month

Kittybit from our Discord server recently shared these awesome 3d models of a Eufloria Seedling and we love it!

Goodies

Our super secret (not really) goodies page has received a small refresh since the last newsletter, and now has a bunch of Trees of Eufloria (That thing that got us banned from Instagram...) wallpapers. Check it out here, the password is LOVEGAMES

Signing off for now

“ Intergalactic Hat Thief wishes you a festive season filled with delight. — Rudolf Kremers