Announcing Wik & The Fable of Souls from Reflexive Entertainment

[James C. Smith]

Announcing Wik & The Fable of Souls, the newst game from Reflexive Entertainment who created Ricochet Lost Worlds, Ricochet Xtreme, and Swarm.


Wik and the Fable of Souls is a dark and delightful action-fable of an unlikely hero and his noble struggle against a mysterious foe. Featuring superbly detailed graphics, enchanting music and never-before-seen game play, Wik and the Fable of Souls will keep you spellbound with amazement. Download and discover the mystery of Wik!

On the official home page (http://www.wikgame.com) you can find screen shots (http://www.wikgame.com/Gallery.html), the download (http://arcade.reflexive.com/downloadgame.aspx?AID=135&CID=4649) and more.

Wik uses a rather unique play mechanic. This means there is a little bit of a learning curve but I think you will find it refreshing and challenging. Just watch the “attract mode” demo to get a good feel for how it is played before you step behind the wheel.

Feel free to let us me know what you like and dislike about it. My favorite is the challenge mode which isn’t accessible until you have played through the prolog and a bit of the story mode. When you do get into challenge mode you can compete against ghost recordings to try to get the fasts level completion times and become the new ghost master.

[Nemesis]

Nice concept and great production values! The story mode makes Wik even more interesting!

[whisperstorm]

It's like OddWorld meets Frogger. Very nice production values. Kinda creepy in a fun way! I see RealArcade in your future :)

[LiquidAsh]

Beautiful little game.

The controls and physics are comfortable, the characters are memorable, and the graphics are enchanting.

Now, I want to take Wik on a scrolling adventure (maybe I didn't play far enought yet).

[Midnight Synergy]

Great look, neat game! It's Boog-a-Boo on steroids!!!

I love the look'n'feel of your games - your artists do a great job.

I did have a weird crash - the game would keep freezing (on a flickering frame). I could un-freeze it by going into the options menu and back again.

[C.S.Brewer]

absolutely gorgeous art, effects, and music.
can you tell us a bit about the development of it, who did the art, sound etc?


I reached the end of the demo, chose to quit the game, and got a message pop up that said
"FATAL ERROR"
"Could not write wrapper integration header"
"OK"

[svero]

As with most of your stuff I really like this title.

However... I have to say that your decision to not allow save game in the demo is imho a really bad one.

I just played through the first part and wanted to get back to work and try it again later. Now I don't want to go back to it because I don't want to play through it again! I will probably buy it but more based on the strength of your past titles than the effectiveness of this title's in game sell strategy. If it were me I'd just limit the number of levels that can be played before you have to purchase and remove both the disabled save feature and 1hr timeout. I'm almost certain you'd sell 3-4x better that way. At least test it because I'd be surprised if the setup you have now isn't going to limit your sales.

[James C. Smith]

...However... I have to say that your decision to not allow save game in the demo is imho a really bad one....

You are right. The player may not have time to finish the demo is one sitting and may want to return to it later. If they are give then impression they will have to start over from the beginning next time that will probably tick them off. Your point is very well taken.

However, you do not need to start over next time. Even if you don’t save your game you can start your next game form the last checkpoint you made it to. In storey mode checkpoints are every 5 levels and in challenge mode they are every level. The save game feature really saves your score more than your progress in the game.

[James C. Smith]

...can you tell us a bit about the development of it, who did the art, sound etc?

Nothing was contracted out or taken out of a library. It was all done in house by our usual crew. We have 9 full time game developers on staff. By the end of this project we had 8 of them working on this title full time. That is 3 visual artists (including one who also did the music), two level designers (including one who also did the sound effects), two level designers (including one who also does the accounting/book keeping for the company), and 3 programmers. Although half the project was done by just one programmer and the other 2 pitched in half way through.

[James C. Smith]

...Now, I want to take Wik on a scrolling adventure (maybe I didn't play far enought yet).

When used inappropriately, scrolling can be one the leading causes of the death of fun. There is no scrolling in Wik. You get to see the entire level at once. Nothing is hidden from view and there is no “camera” for the player to manage.

I am not saying no game should have scrolling or you are wrong for asking for it. I am just saying I didn’t think it was appropriate for this game and neither did the lead designer.

Maybe Wik will scroll in his next advanture.

[patrox]

i've had 2 bugs :
The mouse leaves a trail. ( the mouse graphics ends up filling the screen if i move it everywhere )
When the music reaches the end it loops on the last sample forever. ( like a bad looping string in a mod or something like that)

pat.

[svero]

I see... yeah I definitely got the impression I'd have to play through the tutorial again and didn't run the game again because of that. So I'd have a look at changing that.

The game reminds me a lot of oddworld.

[James C. Smith]

I see... yeah I definitely got the impression I'd have to play through the tutorial again and didn't run the game again because of that. So I'd have a look at changing that.

We have changed it in the new build which will be released later today. I am not sure if it was change to be more clear about the checkpoints, or just enable the save in the demo. But it will diffidently be changed.

Thank you for the feedback!!!

[Dominique Biesmans]

Neat. But there are some annoying graphical bugs on my system. While the character moves fast (like when I let go of the rope) , he seems to freeze & flicker (together with the rest of the screen) on the place where the jump started, and in a flash he's somewhere down there. Sometimes the background flickers away while this happens, showing a plain blue background. This only seems to happen when the character moves fast. I enabled/disabled vsync, but that didn't seem to make a difference.

[Rod Hyde]

Very nicely done. Good animation, good atmosphere, great game mechanic. It plays very nicely and is paced well. I like it, my wife likes it, and even my three and a half year old daughter likes it.

--- Rod

[Valen]

Hats off to you guys! Great work overall, but I have to say that the music in the game is some of the best I've ever heard, ditto. The only music that rivals it is the Tristram theme from Diablo. The theme music (menu) is my favorite. And it goes extraordinarily well with the visuals, which is quite a feat to accomplish! Please give my compliments to the composer.

[Mithril Studios]

Astounding!

Fantastic production values -- and I have to agree 100% with Valen, the music is superb. Well done!

Anthony

[Indiepath]

Excellent graphics and nice idea for the gameplay.

Wik's tongue hanging is a bit similar with a game called B.A.L.L.O ( http://marelwish.uname.info/tiedostot/12/ballo-assembly-04 ) where you move a ball in dungeons.

For some reason Wik reminds me about Gollum in Lord of The Rings :)

Good job team.

[Jack Norton]

I was about to say that... that Wik is Gollum minor brother?? :D

[lakibuk]

The mouse leaves a trail.
Got this effect to when i started to play. There was a black screen with the mouse trails. I think i clicked and the game was starting normal.

[James C. Smith]

We found and fix the bug that caused a black screen with mouse trails then transitioning out of attract mode. Thank you to everyone who posted feedback.

[Sirrus]

I have to agree, some of the best production values I have ever seen on an independant game.

On chapter 12 now, great work.

Alex
weaponstudios.com
dopefarmer.com
injoygames.com

[Mike Boeh]

Wik requires OpenGL? That's a bit surprising to me, considering that it seems like it would work great with your software engine James...

[Jack Norton]

Ahh nice another OpenGL game :)
The more we are, the stronger we became!

[Dan MacDonald]

OpenGL forever! If you are interested in creating a game with openGL you should definatly check out the demo version of PTK (http://www.phelios.com/ptk)


Remember Mike, the mac market is bigger then you think ;)

[Andy]

James,
We got a short trip into the demo of your new game as well.

Surrounding graphics (read backgrounds) is excellent.
Main hero - is strange. That thing when he is shaking on the "rope on his neck"... :eek: :confused: :mad:
Game process is pretty boring. I wasn't able to go further than first two scenes - just tied to do the same tricks again and again.

PS You know my opinion about your company and some of your games. So, I hope you would be able to accept this as attempt to help.

Thanks,

[Mike Boeh]

OpenGL forever! If you are interested in creating a game with openGL you should definatly check out the demo version of PTK (http://www.phelios.com/ptk)


Remember Mike, the mac market is bigger then you think ;)
I understand that, and that's why my new game is mac/pc right out of the box (even OS9!). My point was that James' software engine could have handled Wik, so why use OpenGL?

[Michael Flad]

There's a lot of alphablendings, scalings and rotation which is not that fast in software - the game doesn't look like it needs that much texturememory so most PCs able to do all the gfx in a reasonable speed would quite possible have at least a 8/16MB GL card which, I guess, is enough for the game?

Back to the game ... great product - I really like the unique style of the game, it's not the typical clone and that's something I really like, so congrats Reflexive for another great product.

[Mike Boeh]

There's a lot of alphablendings, scalings and rotation which is not that fast in software - the game doesn't look like it needs that much texturememory so most PCs able to do all the gfx in a reasonable speed would quite possible have at least a 8/16MB GL card which, I guess, is enough for the game?
.
I took that into consideration when I asked the question... Only wik himself is doing a lot of rotation (unless there's more later in the game that I didn't see)... And if you look at ricochet lost worlds, it can certainly handle that amount of alpha blending. I didn't notice any scaling...

But looking at the nag screens, perhaps there is a lot more pixel pushing being done later in the game...

[Sunshine]

Great game. I own every reflexive game, and this one will be no execption. I love the graphics and controls. Definitly a Tip-of-the-hat to Andrew Braybrooks [my hero]'s game "Gribbly's Day Out", whether intentional or not :)

The only thing I didn't like was the little frog guy.

[James C. Smith]

I got bored before the end of the demo...

Did you ever try challenge mode or just stick to story mode?

[James C. Smith]

Wik requires OpenGL? That's a bit surprising to me, considering that it seems like it would work great with your software engine James...

The game does push a lot of pixels especially when you get lots of particle effects going. Our software engine can do great alpha blending but not at these full rates and not with rotations. The scaling that is used could have been cached once since nothing changes scale in real time. And there isn’t a tone of rotations. So I am sure we could have done something in software if it was a priority. But we made the decision to just focus on making the game play and let the artists use all the fill rate they waned. We thought we were safe because testing showed it runs great on a vNIDIA TNT MX (or whatever that called the cheap OEM version of the first vNIDIA TNT cards. We figured by now everyone who actually pays money for games has at least that much 3D hardware. Unfortunately, I think we miscalculated how many users have proper GL drivers for that hardware. Now I wish we had targeted DirectX 7 (or ideally DirectX 5) or maybe just stuck to software. It turns out my Wife’s computer has a TNT2 with a driver from 07 of 2003 and it don’t support OpenGL! Nothing you can’t fix with a 10 minute driver download but I am afraid some user’s won’t do that. And we are finding that ATI Radion 9700s with older drivers (how old could they be) mess of the graphics. 3D hardware is a pain in the but! Don’t use it unless you have to. Or always have a software options as backup.

[Dan MacDonald]

Nothing you can’t fix with a 10 minute driver download but I am afraid some user’s won’t do that.

www.phelios.com sells GL games almost exclusively, they saw an increase in sales when they helped gamers update their drivers. What they did when GL drivers weren't detected was to pop up a dialog saying "your computer is not optimized to run this game", it showed those classic "before" and "after" progres bars like they do with DSL and Dialup. The dialog would also provide links to the various card manufacturers (Nvidia or ATI) in most cases prompting them to download the drivers.

I think it was puppygames would also give users a free copy of the game if the went out and bought an OpenGL compatible card (if for some reason they had something not HW Accel)

[svero]

Since I first wrote I played through all of story mode and much of challenge mode (till the demo ran out).

The only comment I'd make is that I think this game will by necessity have to find a slightly harder core audience than the typical purchaser that seems to be browsing portals these days. While it does have a point and click interface it's still quite involved. You have to point click hold swing etc.. And there are lots of different elements to learn. I suspect that the typical click and match 3 colors crowd will be a little overwhelmed.

Crimsonland is another example of a game with slighly more complex controls and different elements to learn. I'm curious. How did it sell relative to something like Ricochet? Is Wik too complex to sell on the web or is there a big enough audience for games with high production values but more complex controls?

[James C. Smith]

...I think this game will by necessity have to find a slightly harder core audience than the typical purchaser that seems to be browsing portals these days....Crimsonland is another example of a game with slighly more complex controls and different elements to learn. I'm curious. How did it sell relative to something like Ricochet?

Wik and Crimsonland are definitely not targeted at the match 3 crowed. They are not “casual games”. But there are channels for games like this. Hard core gamers will also play “downloadable” games. Once example is PC Gamer cover mount CD-ROMs. Another is hard core gamer web sites like GameSpot. They will mentione downloadable games if they are good enough. Crimsonland had fantastic sales when the guys over at Penny Arcade mentioned it. Those examples may be a little too hard core. We also get great sales from game portals that aren’t as casual as Real Networks and Shockwave.

Ricochet/Round sells great on Real Networks. Crimsonland sells great on Reflexive.com, PC Gamer, and FlyOrDie

There are hundreds of companies all chasing after the “casual games” money all trying to “out match 3” each other. We believe there is a market for direct sales to gamers with more demanding tastes. I am not trying to say we are competing with ID and Valve. But there is something in between “match 3” players and Unreal Tournament players. Maybe we are targeting the soccer dads. ;-)

[Andy]

James,

You are discussing tendences but I'm (personally) talking about very concrete game (your new game).

I'd like to be wrong but read Wayward and I feel the same - that's pretty bad game from gameplay point of view. All positive opinions you are reading here they are going from game developers. But I AFFRAID that have no any connection to players around.

Again, hope I'm wrong with my opinion and wish success to your game and efforts...

[Jack Norton]

Maybe we are targeting the soccer dads. ;-)
Hey, that's my target market!! thief!! :eek: hehehe

[BantamCityGames]

I haven't had time to try challenge mode yet, but have played story mode for 30-60 min so far. First let me say that your production values are great as always.

I think the beginning of the story mode (the tutorial) was a little slow for my taste. For instance: swinging a couple times and spitting a couple grubs/acorns was enough to get me going and I kinda got bored when I had to do it a repeated amount of times just to 'prove' I was ready to move on to the 'real game'.

This is just kind of a personal thing, but I was sadly disappointed to find out that the game wasn't a side-scroller because I thought that the tutorial was building up to a full side-scrolling mission, but never did (*hint - sequel*).

Other than that I thought the game was excellent. I would like to request that you cut down your production values a bit and stop making the rest of us look bad ;) jk of course

[Rainer Deyke]

My overall impression of the game: great decoration, not enough substance. Gameplay was repetetive, both within levels (get the grubs from the same spawn points over and over again) and between levels. Despite the repetition, I managed to finish the demo story mode in well under an hour. I got the impression that the full game is pretty much just more of the same. This might be enough to satisfy some casual gamers, but it's not enough to satisfy me.

[Mike Boeh]

Several times, people have asked me what I think the single biggest factor affecting conversion rate. My answer is always, "audience".

It seems so simple, finding the group of people that your game will appeal to most- but often times it isn't, so we end up making casual games.

Anyway, back to the compatibility thing. After releasing the retro64 version of platypus, i got a ton of emails about the game crashing in level 2.... To make a long story short, it would only happen if people had a 2 meg video card or windows had defaulted to the standard svga driver....

About 10% of purchases reported the problem, and I got the dxdiag report for all of them. And almost every one had no real video driver installed- just the generic svga... The funny thing is that the game played at about 2 frames per second in that mode- AND THEY STILL BOUGHT THE GAME! And if that many bought the game at 2 fps, imagine how many just uninstalled it.

Despite what my gut feeling or common sense would suggest, this situation (and others) keep proving to me that there are a lot of people out there with really crappy hardware.

[oNyx]

It uses OpenGL and it even works on a TNT-ish card? That's a surprise, because it doesn't work on my machine.

I have a Geforce2MX (classic - it's like the gf2mx400 with 32mb) with perfectly fine working OpenGL 1.3 compatible drivers (30.82) and all I get after the spash is a black screen. No error message or whatsoever. I was able to quit it with something like 2x esc, left, return.

I certainly won't install newer drivers right now, because it's the only game which doesn't work (and adding all that custom resolutions I need is quite painfull).

[James C. Smith]

James,

You are discussing tendences but I'm (personally) talking about very concrete game (your new game).

I'd like to be wrong but read Wayward and I feel the same - that's pretty bad game from gameplay point of view. All positive opinions you are reading here they are going from game developers. But I AFFRAID that have no any connection to players around.

Again, hope I'm wrong with my opinion and wish success to your game and efforts...

This is the second time you mentioned this. It seems like you are looking for a reply. I don’t know what to tell you. We designed a game we thought was fun to play. We play tested it and we had fun playing it. We dragged in fresh eyes for usability testing and most of them liked it. You can tell because they continued to play when their testing obligation was complete and they really seemed to be enjoying themselves. We ignore the positive things they tell us. They always all say it is nice. But if you watch them play you can tell who is having fun and who is counting down how much longer they have to play this stupid game. Most of the testers liked it. Most of our wives play like the game play but wish we had chosen a different theme (they don’t like the art.)

I am sorry you and Wayward were board with the game play. Maybe the demo showed off the wrong parts of the game. Maybe the ramp up was too slow or the levels are just too repetitive for you. Or maybe it just isn’t you type of game. Not everyone likes it (including my wife). But a lot of people to have fun playing it (including my co-worker’s wives)

For some people the fun part isn’t just completing the minimum objective of the level. The fun part is swinging around like a mad man. It is great to do loops or do 12 latch swings in a row without ever landing on a perform and completing the level while you do it. It can be really fun to control once you get really good at it. But I guess we could have come up with a more interesting/challenging objective for you while you are swinging around like a mad man. I guess that is why I like the ghost racing. It not just a question of can you finish this level. But can you finish it more efficiently than anyone else ever has and maybe put in a nice show in the process to have a killer ghost recording to playback later.

[Anthony Flack]

I admit I was pretty bored too. But what you just described sounds great! A shame that disn't really come across so well in the demo, but then again the demo did seem to provide a respectably idiot-proof introduction for the casual gamer, and you can't always have it both ways.

I have to say I dislike the art quite a lot too... while at the same time recognising that it's top quality work. Oh well, can't please everyone...

Anyway, kudos for producing another polished and original game and I'm sure it'll do well.

[James C. Smith]

I would like to once again sincerely thank all those who gave feedback about Wik. I said this before, but I think some people may have thought I was just thinking the people who said “nice” things. I received some private message with people practically apologizing for point out things they disliked. I find all the feedback extremely valuable whether it is praise, bug reports, or questioning the design decisions. If you just plain thought the game was boring and no fun to play then that is very important information to me especially when you give specific reasons.

When I explained why I thought the game was fun I wasn’t trying to disagree with those who founding it boring. It is a fact. You were bored. I can’t argue with that. It is helpful for me to understand why you were bored. Thank you for trying our game and saying what you really thought of it.

[princec]

It's a wonderful little game. Terrible rhymes though!

Cas :)

[Kai Backman]

A very lovable game with a interesting game mechanics. I would have seconded Sveros opinion about the resume, being able to resume made me play through the whole demo (I had to stop in the middle). Production values are top-notch, as expected. :) (Reminds me slightly of Bionic Commando)

In the demo cut-scenes in the beginning you might want to leave the cursors and the buttons visible at all times, maybe in a layer on top of the action. Buttons and cursor fading out made it difficult to select anything in that screen. Maybe also indicate somehow that this is demo material and you are supposed to watch it, people might relax more this way.

[BantamCityGames]

In the demo cut-scenes in the beginning you might want to leave the cursors and the buttons visible at all times, maybe in a layer on top of the action. Buttons and cursor fading out made it difficult to select anything in that screen. Maybe also indicate somehow that this is demo material and you are supposed to watch it, people might relax more this way.

I forgot to mention it in my last reply, but I was thinking the same thing. The buttons kept fading away before I even had a chance to read what was on them because I kept moving my eyes back up to read the demo text. I second leaving the buttons and mouse overtop of the fading previews.

[Nutter2000]

Those rhymes remind me of Dr. Seuss! :D
I'm sure Cas can lend you a large red and white striped hat :p

Well I liked the game, but I do agree it got a bit repetitive at times.
I think this is a good example where a level limited demo including some of the later levels rather than a time limited demo might have been better.

just my opinion.

[dan]

When I explained why I thought the game was fun I wasn’t trying to disagree with those who founding it boring. It is a fact. You were bored. I can’t argue with that. It is helpful for me to understand why you were bored. Thank you for trying our game and saying what you really thought of it.

You've got the right mentality, James. It's hard to have that labor of love get criticized and look at it from 10,000 feet.

If I had a choice between everyone liking my game vs. 50% love and 50% hate, I'd take the latter. Love = $ale$

The production values are outstanding. I wonder a bit about how much variety is in the full game.

I definitely like the freedom of executing loops or other spiffy tricks to finish screens in style... you know, one thing that some newer games in this genre do is award huge bonuses for fancy moves (with immediate feedback as you do them). Viewtiful Joe comes to mind.

Personally, I'd prefer a scroller, but I understand the decision to do it this way.

[Sunshine]

Well, the timer finally ran out, just in time to make me want the full version, in my opinion.

Although there are of course many ways that this game could be diffrent, better or worse. There were a few errors that I noticed:

1> When the game very first starts the screen is black and I had to click the mouse to make it start (right after the little LOADING%99 thing dissapears.) :confused:

2> :mad: I use windows 98, and the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen does not disappear when you goto full screen. This is annoying as if you move the mouse to the bottom, the game freezes for a second or more. :mad:

Other than that Great Job! :)

[Reactor]

I really enjoyed the game, and the artwork (I've read a bit about how the art was done, elsewhere). The only thing that confused me the first time I played it was how you have to click on what it is you want to swing on. In most other bionic commando type games, whatever your 'grapple' hits in flight is what you can swing on. Sometimes in Wik it seemed to happen this way, but a fair amount of the time, even though I threw my grapple at a ledge it just didn't stick to it.

Is this what you guys wanted (so you could shoot your tongue past ledges), or...? Also, I didn't find the music suited swinging around like a madman. I wanted to, but the music (being quite passive in nature) tended to make my actions a little more conservative.

Otherwise, Wik took me back to the days of good ol' 2D platform gameplay! Big thanks for that :)

[James C. Smith]

Did anyone notice that Wik & The Fable Of Souls has been hanging out in the top 10 sells list on Real Arcade for the last few weeks? Admittedly it has been near the bottom at the #7 and 8 spots in the list, but I am surprised to see it in the list at all. Obviously I think Wik is a fantastic game, I just never expected it to appeal to Real’s customers. It just proves that you can’t put too much confidence in the perceived stereo types and categorizations that some people like to impose on a web sites customers or a game itself. In other words, don’t believe anyone’s definition of a “casual gamer” or a “casual gamer”.

By the way, if you didn’t see the news in a separate thread, before launching Wik in Real Arcade we rewrote the rendering engine to not use Open GL or any 3D hardware acceleration. It looks almost identical to the GL version but run on practically any Windows machine. We also fine tuned the tutorial to make it a little easier to learn.

[Sirrus]

Congrats, noticed that as well...

Definately can't put limits on what people may want...

[svero]

I noticed. I was surprised as well. I think real's audience has a few more hardcore players than some of the other portals, and quite frankly what has real offered them in the last few months? I remember a few years back when games like jetboat superchamps and a few other more mainstream style titles were popular on real. So perhaps its partly to do with an underserved segment of real's audience.

[Greg Squire]

Congrats James! Yeah, what does "casual" mean anyway? I don't think anybody really knows. Take it all with a grain of salt.