Frayed Knights - Achievement Update

Couchpotato

Couchpotato

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The Rampant Coyote talks about a new Achievement update on his blog for his RPG game Frayed Knights on Steam.


Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon will be up on Steam in a matter of days. It could have been done a lot sooner, but in my stupidity / eagerness, I decided to add achievements to the game.

I don’t know if it’ll make a bit of difference in sales. But I thought it would be fun. I’m stupid that way, I guess. I have a hard deadline of a demo for Frayed Knights 2 that demands my attention, so the timing is bad. I’m futzing about with the old game, getting someone to do the icons, programming the changes in code that I haven’t looked at in over a year, and then… testing. Lots and lots of testing. Even with debug controls, we’re talking double-digit testing to make sure the game runs correctly with the code changes.

Ah, well. Why do I do this? Because it’s fun. I don’t know if achievements will help sell a single extra copy of the game, but I do this because it’ll make things a little cooler. Hopefully. I can’t depend on awesome high-end graphics and visuals, so I’ve gotta do something, right?

It’s a little weird digging through the old code. After living with this stuff for so long, it’s like going back to the old neighborhood but not quite remembering everything. I don’t have all the tools installed that I used when I worked on it originally, so it’s a little bit harder to find where everything is, although it’s familiar enough that I haven’t had to dig around too much.

I decided against creating achievements that required psychotic multiple play-throughs… I already inflicted that on playtesters back in the day. You will definitely need to explore optional content and uncover a few secrets to get all the achievements, and some of the achievements may require you to make certain choices you might not have made on your original play-through (although if you have a prior saved game, it’s not hard to go back and try alternatives). I guess I just don’t feel it should require ridiculous levels of tedium and effort to get 100%
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Is there a reason for Steam achievements? Does Steam offer an incentive to do them?

I know Amazon did. One of their requirements for app of the day is to include Achievements built into the app. I think I might have included finishing it - I'd have to double check.
 
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Achievements will sell some copies, as will Steam Cards. If you check out the forums during sales there's usually multiple people asking about both and often base their buying decision on the answer. I personally don't understand the appeal but to each their own.
 
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As far as I know, there are no external incentives. I will never know if FK would have sold less without achievements. It probably wouldn't sell *more* without them, so I suppose there's that.

But some people like achievements, and they can contribute to the fun. I'm having fun putting them in. And, finally, for a game that was languishing for so long in the eternal Greenlight purgatory (from back when that really happened - I'll betcha if I were to relaunch FK on Greenlight today, I'd be back up to the top and greenlit within three months.... le sigh), this allows me a little bit of an excuse to treat it as a relaunch.
 
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Well *I* like achievements! I don't know if it's ever swayed a buying decision but I do enjoy them when they're in. So thanks for that!
 
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I did the greenlight with intent to purchase before achievements ever figured into it, but I won't complain. Don't know that I'd really consider it a "value add", but they can be fun, as you say.

Now get the shit done so I can finally buy the game! ;)
 
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I like achievements, if they mean something, as Alpha Protocol. It's not bad in anyway to have achievements which are symbolic i.e. you Killed 25 Goblins or Orcs. I have heard players say they only play games with achievements, who knows.

I'll buy it on Steam to have it in my Library, achievements or not.
 
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Unless we run into problems (I'm still testing... and tweaking some "problem areas" for all versions of the game), I'm currently planning on a release on the 24th - so a week from today!

It's kinda frustrating because I've got some major FK2 tasks that need to be done yesterday, but I'm having fun re-playing the game. It's probably a good idea to ground myself in the original after a bit of a hiatus and remember what was good and not-so-good about it.
 
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Jay, EVERYTHING was GOOD about FK1; just re-read my review if you've forgotten!! :D
 
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RampantCoyote said:
Unless we run into problems (I'm still testing… and tweaking some "problem areas" for all versions of the game), I'm currently planning on a release on the 24th - so a week from today!

It's kinda frustrating because I've got some major FK2 tasks that need to be done yesterday, but I'm having fun re-playing the game. It's probably a good idea to ground myself in the original after a bit of a hiatus and remember what was good and not-so-good about it.
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Good news, looking forward to it.

I played the demo quite a while back and was very impressed. Real life got in the way of me getting new games for a while, but I'm back in the saddle and Frayed Knights is very firmly at the top of my list.
 
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