Upgrade Time: Encounter

[Dbug]

Steam has validated my store page, so the game is not visible on Steam and people can add it to their "wish list"

If you have a Steam account, I would really appreciate if you could go to the store page for the game, and add it to your wish list, apparently that's how the Steam algorithm determine the visibility of a game. You don't have to buy it, it's just for the metrics of Steam.

The link is https://store.steampowered.com/app/3319780/Encounter/

Thanks!

[xahmol]

Done.

[Chema]

Done too!

[ibisum]

Does the purchase price include the .TAP?

[Dbug]

Thanks Xahmol and Chema

Does the purchase price include the .TAP?

Well, the game is for disk systems, so there's definitely no .TAP involved

My current plan is the following:

• Until the release date (December 20th) I keep working on the game, fixing bugs, adding features, etc...
• On Release date, the game will be available on both Steam and Itch.io for $9.99 (the local prices depend of whatever currency value is matching at the time) and what you will get is the equivalent of the other showcased games of the itch.io page with an emulator ready to run and the .DSK file in a subfolder
• The Steam version will (I hope) also come with a launcher front end that allows selecting full screen/windowed mode, software/open gl, etc... and that will try to use the Steam API to replicate the achievements you unlock in the game to the Steam platform
• In addition to that, Oric.org will have the .DSK version of the game, free of charge

The rational is that the usual Oric people can get the game for free (if they have an oric.org account), while other people who get the game on the commercial platforms will have to pay if they want it.

Now, if you are an Oric fan, and you want to support me for the decades of maintaining defence-force.org, the osdk, helping on the various games, the oriclopedia videos, etc... you are very welcome in buying the actual game on Steam or itch.io!

In addition to that, I'm planning to make a very limited batch (20 units) of physical editions, but who will have them is not yet defined... plus I need to make them first.

[ibisum]

the .DSK file in a subfolder

I'm gonna buy it.

[coolman66]

Me too

[retroric]

Hi Mickaël,

Done too, Encounter is now in my Steam wish list and I will of course be pleased to buy the game too to show my appreciation and support!

[Dbug]

Thanks everybody

[Dbug]

Just a quick update, I'm trying to get my Launcher working as fast as possible, mostly for people who need to test/review the game and are not necessarily pros of the Oric and the emulators.

[Dbug]

So today I managed to implement "Steam Cloud Saves", which means normally I should be able to make updates of Encounter without users losing their highscores or achievements.

Internally basically the launcher is finding the location of the save slot on the disk, extracts it, patches it, save it back.

It's horrible, but that works

[ibisum]

Nice! Are you going to include a way to launch just the emulator itself, so that folks can also get a bonus out of exploring the Oric with ease, i.e. "includes free Oric"?

[Dbug]

Nice! Are you going to include a way to launch just the emulator itself, so that folks can also get a bonus out of exploring the Oric with ease, i.e. "includes free Oric"?

Not at launch, but the plan is to add stuff over time, knowing that it better be not uncumberred by any ownership issue, like for example no way I could put "4k kong" (that's a Nintendo property) or "Cyclotron" (Disney), but things like FreeCell or some of my game jams games would be possible.

Regarding the "includes free Oric", I guess the issue here is the BASIC ROM, which technically Encounter does not use at all, but it's present in the emulator folder (I did not strip anything).

[ibisum]

I think the BASIC ROM qualifies as abandonware in most places these days.

Would be cool if Encounter became the 'on ramp' for folks to get into the Oric, so I hope you add some means of booting to BASIC and letting folks type in some 10-liners, or so ..

[Dbug]

Less than a month to go!

I'm busy working on the French version and the Steam achievements, I'm thinking of also enabling the Steam "leader board" so people can compete on the best scores... but most probably people will cheat because that would be relatively trivial to patch the DSK save file, so not sure