Candle'Bre Public Demo Version 1 ~ Now Available!

Velociryx · February 21, 2009, 18:32

Announcing the release of the first public demo version of The Courts of Candle'Bre!

Hello to all of you who have been following "Team Candy" over the years, and who have participated in our numerous discussions.

We're pleased to announce (finally!) the first Public Demo Version of the game! It can be downloaded from Apolyton. If you don't have .NET Framework 2.0 or newer installed, you'll need to get that first: download from Microsoft. Just unzip the game's archive into a folder of your choice, and CandleBre.exe will be ready and waiting.

Please see the notes from the some of the members of the creative team for more details, and thoughts on the long road from there to here, and happy gaming!

-=Vel=-

EDIT: Because this is a demo version, we're aware that there will be bugs reported, and we are committed to bringing you regular bug fix updates. That's one of the reasons we wanted this release, to put more eyeballs on what we have so far, so we can be sure it's solid before we proceed further.
-V.

Velociryx · February 21, 2009, 18:33

More than seven years ago, in January of 2002 (January 17th, not to put too fine a point on it), there was a discussion about who the people of Apolyton would like to see on a Civ design team.

I was honored and flattered that my name came up, but I was also enough of a realist that I acknowledged it’d never happen.

From that, however, an idea was born, and that idea was Candle’Bre.

Since 2002, our group of volunteers has grown and shrunk in size as hordes of different people have moved in and out of our halls. At its peak, our team sported more than thirty members, and spanned four continents. At its low point, it sported all of two, so we’ve truly run the gamut.

The project has survived hecklers, naysayers, deaths (including my own! But that is a story for another time), dire illnesses, relocations, dislocations, and a thousand other problems, and through them all, remarkably, it survived. There were days when it survived on nothing more than a dream and some stubborn determination by people who were probably too thick headed to know when they were beaten, but it survived nonetheless. And let me say to all those who warned me about how difficult this was...you were right, and then some. Hardest thing I've done so far, and that's saying something, cos I don't take the easy road.

Anyway, *because* the project survived, more than seven years after the group first got together, we’re proud to present you the first public build of The Courts of Candle’Bre.

What this build is not: Let me stress. This build is not the finished, final, complete version of the game. It is not graphically complete. It lacks depth in several key areas and some features are not yet fully fleshed out, but more important than what it isn’t, is what it IS.

What this build IS: It is the first public demo version, presented to you in order to showcase in broad strokes where we are headed, and to solicit your feedback before we proceed further down any particular road. It is playable from start to finish (currently the only victory condition is the conquest of 40 provinces, and there’s only a very basic victory screen, but it IS playable from start to finish).

And it is my hope that with the features currently built into the game, you’ll be able to get a strong, very definite sense of where we’re going with it.

Each successive build after this one will continue to add depth to the models we’ve already got working, and that depth will be, in large part shaped and directed by your feedback, so most importantly, what this build is, is your chance to shape the game directly.

Enjoy.

-=Vel=-

Solver · February 21, 2009, 18:34

Candle'Bre is, first and foremost, a story. It's a story of how an inspired idea and unbelievable dedication can overcome personal and technical trouble. The story could have come to an abrupt end many, many times since it started. But it did not and I'm very glad to see that we have arrived at this point in the journey. We're a bit battered maybe, we certainly took longer to get here than what we originally expected, quite optimistically. But we're here and our spirits are certainly as high as ever.

It is common knowledge that indie projects always have a difficult journey and, in fact, often fail early in development for a variety of reasons. Candle'Bre, in a way, had a more difficult job to do than other projects, or so it would seem. It's quite imperative for success to have a project leader who is capable of either programming or art creation. That was not the case for this project, and Vel admitted as much when first putting the idea forth. Some people noted back then that this circumstance made Candle'Bre even less likely to succeed than the average indie project, and that was a fair point.

As it turned out, though, that wasn't even close to being the biggest issue with the project. Among the many setbacks Candle'Bre suffered were Vel's health problems, which on one occasion all but stopped progress for a while. The most amazing thing of this all, though, is that Vel's faith in the eventual success was never lost. He kept working on the backstory books when nothing else was happening and taught himself the basics of programming so that he could play with his ideas in what became known, internally, as prototype versions.

Even as coding on the game was started from scratch seven times, the quality of artwork remained high thanks to Hexagonian's stylish illustrations and in-game art. He kept cranking out art, including some magnificent Bryce renders, and was also able to remain dedicated to the project even when not much else was happening.

Lately, it has been my pleasure to try and bring Vel's vision of a game a few steps closer to reality. I've been confident that Vel's personality and a knack for imagining quite precisely what he'd like to see would eventually see us through. I can say that every evening devoted to Candle'Bre has been a pleasure, which is largely due to Vel's personality and pleasant working style. I have also been pleasantly surprised all along by Hex's ability to grant my artwork requests switfly and effectively, never complaining when he had to spend time on extremely simple tweaks that I was incapable of doing myself.

The development of this game has truly been a team effort. Only by combining our personalities and efforts were we able to get to this point. And now we are truly excited to present you with the first public version of the game. It's not complete and it's not everything that the game can be, but it's definitely playable and at least we have found it quite enjoyable - hopefully, so will you.

One of the Stubborn Stooges,
Solver

Velociryx · February 21, 2009, 18:35

A letter from Hex:

I'm not going to repeat what has been said above...it sums up the up-and-down nature of the project for the past few years.

Try the game...be critical (but remember that we are not professionals, just 3 guys who are doing a game for free)...but make sure you check out the novel. I'm a reader at heart, and I constantly revisit books that I read 25 years ago (multiple times, no less), so for me, I am most excited about the novel.

I joined the team for the game development, but soon discovered the richness of the backstory. Over time, the story was what kept me on the project, as Chris wrote and posted an engaging tale of the murder of a King and a Realm thrown into chaos. While the game development floundered, the story (and history) continued to evolve.

Best of all, I got to be a sounding board for the story arc, and it is one character (Crestmore) and one extended passage at the beginning of Book III involving him that I had a great deal of input.

It is the one thing that I am most personally proud of regarding this project

I will tell about a conversation I had with Chris 3 years ago right after he had his heart attack. We were discussing the future of the project. At that point in time, both of us had no hope whatsoever that a game would ever see the light of day, because his health was so iffy. Neither of us has any programming skills to speak of. I was rather blunt with him during that conversation, urging him to focus on what he was good at...writing stories, because it was the one area where he did not have to depend on any outside help.

I believe Chris took that advice to heart too

What is more amazing was Chris's continued efforts after that conversation to try to learn programming just to attempt to try to bring the Realm into game format.

Thank you Solver for taking on that part of the project...it probably would have ultimately killed Chris.

End result, we got a game and a story.

Enjoy!

Hex

fed1943 · February 22, 2009, 07:35

Congratulations,Chris!
All of good

Nims · February 22, 2009, 10:44

Getting the following when starting candlebre.exe

Quote:

Exception caught: Das angegebene Modul wurde nicht gefunden. (Ausnahme von HRESULT: 0x8007007E)
Stack trace: bei CandleBre.SoundManager..ctor()
bei CandleBre.Program.InitEngine()
bei CandleBre.Program.Run()
Initiating shutdown...

which would be "The specified module could not be found. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007007E)" in english.

Tried on XP and Win7 (VM), both the same error.

Edit:
Copied Msvcr71.dll into game directory, that solved it.

Velociryx · February 22, 2009, 10:50

Glad you got it working, Nims!

And thank you, Fed!

-=Vel=-

Solver · February 22, 2009, 10:52

Just saw that you fixed it. Thanks, I didn't even know it still depended on msvcr71.

I also think that if you download the .NET Framework 2.0 from the first post, it should work even without that file in the game directory.

Nims · February 22, 2009, 10:56

I've got .Net 3.5 installed, which includes the previous ones, so I'm not sure what downloading and installing .Net 2.0 would do. Or is my thinking wrong ?

Solver · February 22, 2009, 10:59

I'm not sure to be honest. I know that just installing 2.0 was sufficient to run the game, without DLL copying, for people who had no version of the framework at all installed. But this is actually valuable info, we have only been able to test the game on very few different computers.

Now I hope that you'll be able to see how you like the game itself

Dale · February 22, 2009, 21:44

So...........

Where's TCO?

El_Cid · February 23, 2009, 06:24

Hey! when! what! how!

I'm getting this right now and will report back any findings. Congratulations all who took the ride

oh i was 'child of Thor' last time around here, so i know Dale and Hex from CTP2 modding days etc and have always been into this project - just from a distance, well done everyone

Solver · February 23, 2009, 06:41

Ah, so you are Child of Thor? Good to see ya

Nikolai · February 23, 2009, 07:54

I must admit I didn't think you would come this far. I'm happy I was wrong! It's fascinating to read about your dedication, even when in the face of massive health troubles and mostly negative feedback from people on the forum.

I'll see if I can get the time to check the demo later today, right now I'm studying in my uni's library(writing on my ipod touch, tiresome to write, believe me...

)

El_Cid · February 23, 2009, 12:19

EDIT - Please move this into the correct thread(Demo bugs/issues one?) - sorry!

I found a spare hour or so around lunch time for the demo

I like the sound and music, that part seems the most 'finished'. Art style is very good. I know it's a very simple effect you are looking for and i think you do it better than say EU1 or 2, and better than Dominions. So for 2 titles in your ball park, graphicaly(static map backgrounds wise) yours is stronger imho.

I compiled a quick list of things that apply to the demo, probably most of them are designed out in one of your design documents somewhere, but you ask for feed back so here goes:

1. In the 'overview' screen on a province, when you select a few units to build they are displayed in a single line e.g. : "Training: Siege Engine Infantry Infantry (88/456)(turns left xxx). The 'turns left' number can get obscured by the 'Contains:' info. in my case i had both a watchtower and a barracks in that provence, ant the text for those over wrote the info on how many turns was left for my army build. This may not be an issue in fullscreen mode?

2. Same 'text bleed' out of bounds of viewing area issue in the event box at bottom of screen, again may not be an issue in full screen?(you can call up the whole text line original message by highlighting the particular message and clicking 'view', but imho not the most elegant method - pref ability to see less messeges but whole message line, you can still scroll up and down etc).

3. Mouse over info a little tricky sometimes, trying to get the army info pop upas you mouse over can be hard, especialy near the edges of the map screen - province info seems to have a much higher priority.

4. In general army manipulation is a little confusing, how to best combine armies and even re-organise within armies(moving units in and out of different army banners).

5. Too much income? not needing to build all buildings in all provinces, after you have about 5 provinces you build up gold quick.

6. within the province information screen it would be good to have 'next province'/'previous province' arrows(to the left and right of the province name scroll?) so you can navigate to each quickly.

7. ref the 'extortion' type events that can be 'cast' by a player/ai. the ai seemed very happy to use these against my provinces most of the time. it becomes a bit of a chore to have to individualy counter 'cast' against each province affected. how about using buildings/espionage score to automaticaly counter(at a certain percentage) attempts, and leave the manual option for the player to use in cases where the normal deterants(of buildings/espionage level) don't work well enough?

8. Any reason why the province names are not listed alphabeticaly in the spell/miricle/espionage casting lists? it makes it harder to find the province you want.

9. had a slightly odd battle where by one of my provinces got attacked but i could see no enemy army banner, i then proceeded to throw all my armies into it, over a period of turns so not all in one go, cast lighting strike(killed 2 units), and ended up wiping out about 9 of my own armies(about 5000 men?), still with no sign of the enemy army? maximum army size is 1000 men?(per banner) he must have had a few of them just invisible?(if that is possible)

10. if you use the miricle 'call to arms' in a province under attack you just get the messege that neither side suffered any casulties in the attack, but your army never appears.

11. spells too powerful? lightning strike takes down an army in seconds that took many turns to create.

that was all that stuck out for me in the hour+a half lunch break, but overall i'm just so very happy that you did it - that you got something out that is:

a) playable
b) definately a game

keep it up and i'm not sure how much time i'll get to throw stuff around here, but as the CTP and PoTC modders guys know(from a while back anyway!) i do like to help iron out and solve issues in the design. I look forward to seeing this progress - well done all you Candle'Bre guys again

Velociryx · February 23, 2009, 14:03

I wanted to pop back into this thread and say a big "Thank you!" to everybody who's commented so far.

It's great to have finally reached a point where we felt that we needed direct player inputs before proceeding further!

And to answer Dale's question: I don't know where TCO is, but he too, is cordially invited.

Now...as to El Cid's list...first, thank you again for taking the time to compile it! Shows interest in the project and we take that seriously!

Second, I think it's safe to say we can address pretty much everything on there, so, by the numbers, I'll break it down:

0 - Music & Art - we've gotten two comments so far on this, and I'm glad you like it! My wife and I picked the music out (two of the pieces anyways, with JMarks composing the third for us), and of course, all the art was done by Hex, and anybody who's familiar with his work knows how jaw dropping it can be, so we were sure lucky to have him on the project!

(the rest of these will be addressed by Solver, with me riding shotgun, learning more about the code with each passing day and helping with testing)

1. In the 'overview' screen on a province, when you select a few units to build they are displayed in a single line e.g. : "Training: Siege Engine Infantry Infantry (88/456)(turns left xxx). The 'turns left' number can get obscured by the 'Contains:' info....

Yep, this segment is still very much a work in progress, and ultimately what I'd like to see here is that it reports the INFANTRY, INFANTRY, INFANTRY as just "300 Infantry" The inidividual buildings don't give trouble (at least not that I have seen), but when interacting with the troop training line it can lead to some space issues, but those are on the list to be ironed out as we go along!

2. Same 'text bleed' out of bounds of viewing area issue in the event box at bottom of screen, again may not be an issue in full screen?(you can call up the whole text line original message by highlighting the particular message and clicking 'view', but imho not the most elegant method - pref ability to see less messeges but whole message line, you can still scroll up and down etc).

Right...I see that on my monitor too. We've got a longer term plan in place to fix those kinds of display issues, so bear with us...it's coming!

3. Mouse over info a little tricky sometimes, trying to get the army info pop upas you mouse over can be hard, especialy near the edges of the map screen - province info seems to have a much higher priority.

Solver will kill me if I get this wrong, but the primary reason that the mouseover info is a little tricky--and the reason why grabbing armies on the eastern edge of the map is likewise tricky-- has to do with the engine we're currently using and a lack of a z-order. We're looking at migrating to a different engine, and issues like this will go away.

4. In general army manipulation is a little confusing, how to best combine armies and even re-organise within armies(moving units in and out of different army banners).

Yep. Total agreement. This is our first gen. army manipulation tool, and I think we'll be seeing steady tweaks and refinements to it as we progress the game down these next several iterations.

5. Too much income? not needing to build all buildings in all provinces, after you have about 5 provinces you build up gold quick.

I think what you're seeing here is that not everything is in place yet, so there's not as much stuff to spend money on (yet) as there will be. But you are right, balance (whether it's income or spell, or whatever) is something we always want to keep a sharp eye on...I suspect that as more features get added, the income dilemma will begin to fade, but stay tuned on that point!

6. within the province information screen it would be good to have 'next province'/'previous province' arrows(to the left and right of the province name scroll?) so you can navigate to each quickly.

Kachow! Why didn't I think of that!?

An excellent call and excellent catch! I'll bring it up with Solver and see what magic he can work!

7. ref the 'extortion' type events that can be 'cast' by a player/ai. the ai seemed very happy to use these against my provinces most of the time. it becomes a bit of a chore to have to individualy counter 'cast' against each province affected. how about using buildings/espionage score to automaticaly counter(at a certain percentage) attempts, and leave the manual option for the player to use in cases where the normal deterants(of buildings/espionage level) don't work well enough?

I like this idea as well...maybe we can set up some kind of "auto purge" parameter with your manna points to reduce MM. We'll start talking this up internally, I think it'd be a great add!

8. Any reason why the province names are not listed alphabeticaly in the spell/miricle/espionage casting lists? it makes it harder to find the province you want.

This is another one of those "why didn't we think of that." moments. We've had three people mention it, and we agree. It's on the list!

9. had a slightly odd battle where by one of my provinces got attacked but i could see no enemy army banner, i then proceeded to throw all my armies into it, over a period of turns so not all in one go, cast lighting strike(killed 2 units), and ended up wiping out about 9 of my own armies(about 5000 men?), still with no sign of the enemy army? maximum army size is 1000 men?(per banner) he must have had a few of them just invisible?(if that is possible)

Hmmm...now this one is interesting. I've had a couple of my units become invisible before, but I've never encountered an invisible enemy force. If you have a save game file and/or log, it would be extremely helpful to us in chasing that down!

10. if you use the miricle 'call to arms' in a province under attack you just get the messege that neither side suffered any casulties in the attack, but your army never appears.

I had never tried that!

This is why I'm glad we're getting more eyeballs on the game now...we'll definitely look into it!

11. spells too powerful? lightning strike takes down an army in seconds that took many turns to create.

I was waiting for someone to bring that up! I think you're right that the spell is powerful in its effect, but I'd be reluctant to say that it's too powerful. Further testing might reveal it to be so, but what I'd compare in looking at the two (armies vs. the spell) would be how many turns, on average, to get the manna for the spell vs. how many turns to train troops (with the acknowledgement that you can train troops in theoretically every province you own, while the spell draws down a singular, common manna pool). I think we got that about balanced, but continuing discussion on the topic is DEFINITELY welcomed!

that was all that stuck out for me in the hour+a half lunch break, but overall i'm just so very happy that you did it - that you got something out that is:

a) playable
b) definately a game

keep it up and i'm not sure how much time i'll get to throw stuff around here, but as the CTP and PoTC modders guys know(from a while back anyway!) i do like to help iron out and solve issues in the design. I look forward to seeing this progress - well done all you Candle'Bre guys again

Thanks again, El Cid, and all of you, for sticking with us and believing in us, even when there wasn't much reason to.

We know that she's still bare bones in a lot of ways, and we're committed to making her better.

That's why we brought her to you now, cos we needed advice and player inputs.

Here's to Candle'Bre!

-=Vel=-

El_Cid · February 23, 2009, 15:19

Hey Vel, nice to be able to put my 2 pence in

All/Any of the points i bring up over time are not to criticize and i suspect many you already have penciled down(as you've shown), i just will be as upfront about things as i can be and try to bring to your attention anything that 'feels' might be worth looking at.

So far i really like what you've got. I know it is a very trimmed down(feature wise) version, but that is a good place to start. My time is much more limited these days compared to the CTP modding years, but i'm certainly more than happy to playtest your Candle'Bre effort as it developes and drop a few posts here and there.

I'm quite looking forward to it infact......oh and i never did actualy doubt you would get it done - some things get in the blood and under the skin and it just always seemed one of those kind of things to me. Congrats to all again

Ref the save for the invisible army thing - i didnt have a save from my first game i'm afraid, I died around 250 turns in(i think that number is the turns right? on the top left above the game year?) as the second player to get stomped. The AI is quite good i think - you(programmers!) can be proud of that

Solver · February 23, 2009, 15:34

Vel has already addressed most points, so I won't add much. I really like the fact that some of your feedback matches stuff that other people have said - means that those improvements would appeal to numerous people. Very good idea touch on those prev/next province buttons.

Quote:

3. Mouse over info a little tricky sometimes, trying to get the army info pop upas you mouse over can be hard, especialy near the edges of the map screen - province info seems to have a much higher priority.

Yeah, that's a nightmarish hack. We'll see how it can be made more user-friendly.

Quote:

4. In general army manipulation is a little confusing, how to best combine armies and even re-organise within armies(moving units in and out of different army banners).

It's not very convenient that you can't move individual units between armies now, it's just merging or splitting. In that sense, you may want to stick just to merging them into large groups for now.

As for invisible armies, we have now received reports that Mourngrym sometimes has those. Looking into that issue!

Balance problems we definitely have now, and tweaking will continue... but of course Vel is the lead man on everything that deals with in-game effects.

Velociryx · February 23, 2009, 15:35

Solver will be thrilled to hear the comment about the AI, for sure! I think you just made his year!

And any time you have to spare, we'd most definitely enjoy spending it with you in the Lands of Candle'Bre, so head back this way as often as your schedule allows, and we'll be looking forward to it!

No need to preface your comments, either. We have seen, through everyone's support over the years that you guys all very much want us to succeed, so we know that anything you bring up, it's cos you genuinely believe it'll make the game and the world, better on the whole. And we really, REALLY like and appreciate that!

So...if something's broke, don't be afraid to tell us! We're nothing if not willing listeners!

-=Vel=-

Solver · March 2, 2009, 13:48

An update has been released! Link to thread. If you haven't downloaded the game yet, you only need the full package, which now includes the update.

Solver · March 15, 2009, 12:35

We've been informed of numerous problems with the game and Windows Vista. That includes commonplace crashing and non-functional shortcut menu for casting effects. Sadly, the engine we're using really dislikes Vista, but we've now fixed a bunch of issues and are planning to release a second update for this version, which will include not only the Vista fixes but also province coloring based on ownership, to make the game's interface more convenient.

El_Cid · March 16, 2009, 07:44

I wonder what Vista was all about still to this day

Sounds good, looking forward to it and hopefuly Vista only owners can get in on the action a bit more

DarkCloud · April 2, 2009, 01:00

Don't worry, vista will be gone soon with the arrival of Windows 7- I wouldn't worry about vista compatibility too much.

I have vista but the demo hasn't crashed on me- I did have some issues with some of the menus though.

Solver · April 2, 2009, 04:50

7 is in many ways similar to Vista, so Vista compatibility is a good idea for that reason as well

And I can say that the second public update to this demo will improve Vista stability further, that one is still in the works.

Kuciwalker · April 2, 2009, 12:10

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!