Harvest: Massive Encounter

[jeb_]

Almost exactly one year after the first prototype, we have completed our second game, "Harvest: Massive Encounter". It's an "arcade RTS" which has been through two open beta periods and received a lot of positive feedback, and will now be released for Mac OS X and Windows.

To prepare for the release, we have made a new game trailer: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KMQIU48WqnA

Some screenshots:
http://www.oxeyegames.com/galleries/.../expansion.jpg
http://www.oxeyegames.com/galleries/harvest/menu.jpg
http://www.oxeyegames.com/galleries/...ghtingwave.jpg

Please read more about the game here: http://www.oxeyegames.com/harvest (the open beta 2 version is still available)

[MrPhil]

Love it! Can't wait to see the full version.

[GeneralGrant]

Looks fantastic!

[jeb_]

Thanks!

Just noticed that GameTunnel has published their preview of the game: http://www.gametunnel.com/gamespace.php?id=406&tab=2

[MrPhil]

I was forced to preorder this weekend. Every night after work, I just kept playing the beta2 over and over and over!!!

[jeb_]

I was forced to preorder this weekend. Every night after work, I just kept playing the beta2 over and over and over!!!

Haha, it will be hard for anybody to top that comment! Thanks, Phil! We are building the release installers now, we'll be sending links out to pre-order customers tomorrow.

[OremLK]

Looks excellent, and "arcade RTS" is a fun idea. I'll be sure to try out the demo when the game is released.

[jeb_]

Yay, it's released!

Get the demo here: http://www.oxeyegames.com/harvest/download-now/

Second release trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE7xhB0EjoI

[chanon]

I tried the demo today. Played a Normal game until I died.

I thought the graphics/sfx/music were great. Lots of great work put into the game.

I love the way energy is handled in the game.

The most dissappointing thing though is that all you can do is build a base and watch it finally be destroyed. It's like there is no way to win it.

It would be a lot more interesting at least for me if there was an enemy base and I could send units out to destroy it. Of course that would make it like most any other RTS out there - but as it is ... I'll just say that watching my base get destroyed without being able to do anything just once is painful enough.

It was fun though building up the base but for me when I realized that there wasn't any other objective .. I felt like - what's the point?

You don't get to expand your territory in a macro level as in other RTS games - you just defend from invasion and finally get wiped off the planet.

I felt like it might be more fun playing the aliens.

Also one thing that frustrated me were laser turrets shooting at aliens further away instead of the ones that were about to get on top of them.
And missle turrets that shot at aliens that weren't an immediate threat instead of shooting at the ones that were almost on top of my buildings.

Maybe I missed somethings while playing the game - but this is my general feeling after playing it.

Good luck!

[Parthon]

Yeah, that's pretty much all there is to do in the game.

From playing both betas the challenge was seeing how far you could get, how high your wave count could reach before you got overwhelmed, and what kind of base strategy would net the best effectiveness.

In the full version there's also a whole host of challenging achievements to reach, like number of aliens killed, number of aliens left alive and highest wave reached.

Definately a good game if you like the "see how long you can last" kind of action.

[BantamCityGames]

Just tried it and what got me to download it was the concept that the screenshots/video sold me. I like the idea! The tutorial was a little drawn out and I was looking for a way to quit it and move on (maybe I just didn't see a way to quit the tutorial after I accepted it initially). After getting into the game itself I really liked it and there wasn't anything that pulled me out of the emersion of playing (which is great). Overall, nice concept, fun game. Hope it does well for you!!

[jeb_]

Thank you!

[Code_wizard]

I blame my lateness in posting this because I was too busy playing Harvest! I have followed the development of this game from the beginning. Ever since a very early prototype was posted on this forum (not sure how long ago that was). I must say I didn't stop playing that little prototype for months! I even made my own "modes" using memory editing. Of course I passed the news onto my fellow developers in my office and we all had a blast trying to beat each other scores and talking about strategies. When the beta came around the office was abuzz with the sound of exploding aliens again. I am constantly amazed at the amount of polish this game has. I personally bought the game on release day and I'm having a blast (My current highest wave is 74). I know all my buddies have or will follow suit.

I shall end this with a question:
Having played the game for so long we have a lot of experiance with the game play mechanics. We see a lot of room for new and expanded content and are wondering if a sequel or expansion pack is planned. We would love to see new "toys" to place in our bases and find new strategies/uses for as well as new game play variables (like the wind and holes on the advanced planets).

Your fan from the start,
~Code_wizard

[jeb_]

Haha, cool!

Yeah, we are planning some kind of expansion, but we haven't decided which "route" to take. Currently it's leaning towards adding scriptable items in the Creative mode. We have already tried attaching Lua scripts to the civilian buildings, and that worked fine. The reason why it didn't appear in the initial release was that we didn't have time to polish it enough... I mean, we didn't just want to attach Lua scripts to some building and tell the player to RTFM, we wanted the mods to be a part of the GUI and selectable in the main menu etc.

A lot of people have been requesting multi-player (obviously), but that's simply too much work So it's unlikely we will work on that... The third option we have is to add more modes, especially "mission-based" modes, but if we made the Lua scripts flexible enough it would already be covered.

Your memory hacks sounds interesting... One player made the following hack in the first open beta:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhBb_m5fTww

Btw, preventing memory hacks have been a long struggle since it's a high-score game. It has been quite entertaining to lurk in the CheatEngine forums to see what people try to come up with, and then countering them again. Corsix, who made that clip, has already managed to decrypt our savestates, though, but he's on our side

[chanon]

I think a missions campaign would be a great way to get people into the game. Add some story and in-engine cut scenes after levels and it could hook people into trying to finish the whole campaign.

Then after they've played the campaign and honed their strategies, they would play the other modes for high scores.

Actually the cool tutorial/intro cutscenes with voice overs made me think that there would be a cool story campaign in the game.

[Code_wizard]

Wow, that auto-link hack looks quite fun.

The Lua script idea is great. There could be a huge amount of user created content created, wow my eye is twitching just thinking about all the fun created by mixing and matching player created buildings...

A few comments on the multi-player component:
I personally stay away from multi-player as well, but there are a few ideas I have that could bring down the work load. It would make everything except the session matching and message sending code very easy...

1) Players play in their own instanced map like single player.
2) Players can build buildings that produce the different alien ships (the more powerful ones costing more CC and energy obviously).
3) When "production" of a ship is complete the player building it is notified but the ship is never created on his map. The data is sent to the opposing players client and the ship appears on the edge of the map, just like singleplayer. You could have the ship be created on the building players map and have it travel to the nearest edge, but I tried to keep it as simple as possible.

About preventing memory hacks, sounds like a lot of work, I'm not by any means an expert on it. You don't have to worry about me trying to cheat.