Welcome to Fury Void

Greetings, soon-to-be galactic saviors!  I write here to introduce you to Fury Void, a student-project game of top-down, space shooting conquest.  Pitch time:

Fury Void is the game of salvation and fire.  This top-down shooter of planet blasting pits you, the survivor of a galactic meltdown far-far away, against the overpopulated denizens of the galaxy set to self-destruct the same way.  Destroy planets, suns, and civilizations to save this galaxy from a similarly dire fate!

Whew – Now a little back-story to the project.  Fury Void started last year as a hastily contrived pitch to become a game sponsored by the game’s projects course of my Game Design major.  The point I built the game off of was to have a title that could, that would, be completed in a year’s time of part-time work by game design students.  I have seen too many student projects fail due to scope/design considerations to want a game of mine to suffer the same fate.  Team Fury was created with this purpose in mind.

So that leads us to Fury Void.  Halfway through the development timeframe, all but 1 or 2 features have been added.  The game has hit alpha (check it out!), with bells-and-whistles being added daily.  The Facebook page is updated weekly.  In comparison, only one other team (Arcana– good stuff!) has made the same scale of progress, so  Team Fury – as I am biased to say – has been doing quite well.

Expect more info coming from Fury Void in the coming weeks and months as the life of this game comes to fruition.  Like and follow on Facebook for regular updates, including new pictures, videos, and alpha links.

In the comments, do let me know what you think of this, or if you have had experience with Fury Void already, I’d love to hear from you, too!  Take care, and happy holidays!

Commander of the War

War Commander

• + Being browser-based allows for access anywhere.
• + Millions of players keep an otherwise bleak landscape interesting.
• + The most dangerous foes are other humans.
• + Excellent point system for immediate player satisfaction. // link to Dave Mark
• - Being browser-based allows for access anywhere, any time.
• A fix: Um... as a player, have self-control?
• - Inconsiderate times for production and collection come during odd hours.
• A fix: Include a standard time during the day for collection or implement standard increments of time for the building/unit timers.
• - Ads are like bad dinner guests; always there, and have a hard time going away.
• A fix: Follow the free-to-play model, relying on micro-transactions for revenue.
• - Unbalanced roster of troop types; some are utterly worthless.
• A fix: Create a rock-paper-scissors style of unit balancing to better play to unit strengths.
• - Lack of any apparent in-game narrative to motivate the conflict.
• A fix: Put up some flavor-text or brainstormed reasoning for the 'war'; possibly open it up to the community to have input on developing a story.

I first heard about War Commander from the KIXEYE info booth at the Game Developers Conference Online in Austin, Texas.  The battles looked cool, so after the Conference, I checked the Facebook game out.  Dozens of hours later, this is what I think of the game.

War Commander is dangerous; being browser-based, I can play it anywhere.  Whether there is time to kill, or important work needs to get done, the game is always present.  The blessing is a game that requires only an internet connection; the curse lies in the self-control to prioritize.

It is a good thing that War Commander can be accessed nearly anywhere, since timing my resource collection had to happen at strangely odd times.  Production was like that too – when trying to keep the base building, setting an alarm would help greatly.  Once the morning comes, it’s time to get ready to catch the game back-up to speed.

Now, it’s a fallacy to say that the game is lonely.  +6 million registered players make this game a top-dog of Facebook games, and each one represents an in-game violent foe or temporary friends.  War Commander is very beginner friendly, with senior players acting almost as ‘bosses’.

Speaking of loneliness, I’m never ‘truly’ alone; ads are always companioning my play.  Whether it be a small icon on my home-base screen, the running sidebars on Facebook, or merely logging in, War Commander advertises both itself and others to a very high degree.

Despite it all, I keep coming back.  The resource point system the game uses is highly effective; the reasoning of which is mention in my Dave Mark blog post.

The resources garnered in game are usually quick to be spend on research, upgrades, and repairs.  The reason for this in-game struggle is utterly nonexistent.  I take that back – the conflict lies in there not being enough resources, enough space, to go around.  Sound familiar to the real world?

To be fair, War Commander doesn’t intuitively demonstrate that it is a good game for any excuse but one: it keeps players coming back.  Progression and gathering are what make this game addicting.  Give it a try; I know I will still be a ‘war commander’ anyway.

Under Promise

It has been a ridiculous school time these past two weeks.  That is no excuse for keeping up with Games of Taste.  To fix this, expect more updates this week.  There will be a spread of games that are played, but mainly, I am going to start posting on the progress the Fury Void game is making.

So, to wet your appetite, Fury Void has just entered the first of the first alpha stages.  To help Team Fury (4 of us designers/developers), please checkout the alpha v.11.  Play it, test it, enjoy it, and give feedback!  Hit-up furyvoidgame@gmail.com with any comments or suggestions; Team Fury loves feedback to make the game you want to play!

Take care, and look forward to posts hitting the web in no-time.