Design Notes

April 23, 2012

Save the World or Blow it Up!

Return to DoomWood!

Previously In DoomWood: The tale of DoomWood Part 1 is packed with puns, reveres vicious villains, and is overrun with undead, all while revealing the secrets of Artix's past... and future! This Friday, watch a "Previously in DoomWood" cutscene to revisit those memories of your journey with Artix to the deepest reaches of DoomWood!

If you haven't finished the zone (or started it) yet, then you should /join lightguard RIGHT NOW! You won't be required to have finished Part 1 to play, but when Part 2 REALLY starts next week, having that background knowledge is going to make the zone feel a lot fuller.

DoomWood Part 2: Whispers of the Shadow Lord will be available for ALL players and continues the story of Artix, Vordred, Sally, and Gravelyn, taking it to darker, more undead-ly places than ANY of us could have imagined!

DoomWood Member-only Mid-week!

PALADIN PUNCH! (Not the fruit drink.) In this week's member-only mid-week release, Cysero sets up your return (or introduction) to DoomWood but, as in any quest, your companions are the key to success! To unlock all the rewards this week has to offer, you'll want to make fast friends with Michtem, the Paladin Loremaster you'll meet on arrival.

When a misunderstanding pits you against one of DoomWood's Guardian Spirits, though, if fate is not kind, you won't have a ghost of a chance to survive! Rewards will include the Paladin Loremaster armor as well as a wide assortment of helms and capes, since we heard you guys wanted more of them!

SkyGuard: Things that Make You Go BOOMMM!

In the latest installment of the SkyGuard storyline, SkyPirates invade the High Command's mountaintop base, seeking to sabatoge communications and searching for access to their secret weapon. And that secret weapon just happens to be the all-new, high-powered battle-tech war mech, Project M3cha-d34th!

But when Stratos goes rogue, disobeying the High Command's orders, you'll need to deal with the SkyPirates on your own! Something's rotten in the High Command, and it will take all you've got to save the base and all of Lore without blowing it all sky high!

Dark Caster X, Knave1 Rares Shops leave May 7th!

Join Dage's Legion... or try to infiltrate it! Speak to Dage in Battleon to access the Dark Caster X shop. Talk to Knave1 in Swordhaven to browse his show of slayer-ful gear! Both shops leave May 7th, so all of you asking for extensions to the shop can rest easy, you've got time left... but not a lot!

Cerberoz Livedraw this Wednesday at 4pm!

Join us this Wednesday at 4PM server time for Cerberoz's in-game live-draw event! We'll be taking your suggestions over Twitter about what he should draw so that you can see your input shape the item as it appears on the screen!

If you haven't joined us for an in-game LiveDraw event yet, here's what's going on:

You'll want to /join stream once the event starts and you'll be able to watch as one of AE's epic artists draws an item based on your real-time suggestions! That item will go into the Black Market shop in the /stream map and, once the art is polished up, the item will turn into the weapon you've just seen created.

AQW Action Figure Video Premiere after Livedraw!

And make sure to stay in /stream after Cerberoz's drawing event ends to watch the world premiere of the AQWorlds Action Figure video! Created using stop-motion animation, you'll watch the Artix and Sepulchure action figures comes to life before your eyes! Look for more details about the premiere as the event draws closer!

News about the action figures?

The action figures are on their way to the Lab as we speak! We'll have prices and release dates to you guys as soon as they are finalized!

One of the Good guys!

We've got a sneak peek of one of HeroMart's newest items! Drawn by Cerberoz, this poster features all-new, dynamically-posted character art of some of AQWorlds' most well-known Good characters!

We'll have more information on this poster and all of the other new HeroMart items as the decisions are made. Keep an eye on HeroMart's Coming Soon page for more news!

AE heads to Relay for Life!

The world is made up of everyday heroes, and this weekend Artix Entertainment is joining a whole group of them as we race to find a cure to save lives in Relay for Life! We'll be walking, running, /stepdancing, and even /sambaing our way up, down, and around the track for 18 hours from Friday  to Saturday.

If you're in the area, /party up with us at the Charles S Rushe Middle School from 6PM Friday night to 12PM Saturday! We'd love to see all our local players there!

Ludum Dare Update: Kitty.coli

This weekend, Cysero, Samba, Rolith, Thyton, Warlic, Epic Duel's RabbleFroth, and I participated in the Ludum Dare, a timed game-making competition. Scroll down to see more details about our infection-themed top-down shooter called Kitty.coli (takes place inside a cat's gut)!

Although we didn't finish on time for the contest - thanks to some unforeseen bugs (how appropriate!) - we have the beginnings of an awesome minigame with absolutely SICK art (literally)!

Thanks to all of you who supported us over this weekend with questions and encouragement! Making games is something we love to do so much that sometimes it's hard to stop when Friday's releases are over.

Coming SOON in AQW!

If you were in-game earlier this month, you might have seen Artix share some secrets about what's coming in AQWorlds over the next few months. But now we're going to tell EVERYONE! So here's what you have to look forward to:

• DoomWood Part 2 - Whispers of the Shadow Lord starts NEXT WEEK!
• Alchemy Tradeskill - IN TESTING NOW!
• Dage vs Nulgath War THIS SUMMER!
• The next Chaos Lord - a Chaorrupted Chronomancer explores your destiny... and the timelines which combined to form AQWorlds!
• We are working every day to get Guilds ready for release, BUT we really want to do this right, so testing and time are of utmost importance before it can release. /Cheer Yorumi on as he commands the code to make it happen!

April 21, 2012

Rocking Out the Ludum Dare

What do we do on the weekend? Make more games!

It takes a lot of guts to make a videogame!  This weekend, a group of AE staff members and guests (like One-Eyed Doll!) are rocking out in the Ludum Dare Game Jam* to create an all-new, functional game in 48 hours! Last night, all of the game teams got the theme, "tiny world," and our brainstorming began!

OED's sound effects are SICK!

We're going to explore one of the most important, but smallest, worlds - the universe of a virus! In this infectiously-entertaining top-down shooter, called "Kitty.coli"** for this weekend's prototype, the player IS the virus on a journey into intestinal exploration... and total cellular annihilation is its goal!

Wish us luck as we battle through the night in our game-making quest! We'll be tweeting throughout the rest of the Jam, so keep an eye out for progress reports. Get even MORE details about AE's progress during the Dare at Artix.com!***

* Ludum Dare is an international game-making competition. We're in it for fun and to see if we can beat last year's AE Game Challenge time limit. Then, we had one week to make a game. NOW we have 48 hours!
** First draft of the name "Journey to the Center of the Cat"
*** And make sure you check out this weekend's AQW release, Assault of the Banished One, Knave1's storyline!