Riders of Asgard on Steam...

quintond · 11:38am 22 Mar 2017

18 months ago, @karl182 and I started working on this project and I am happy to announce that the game is finished and ready to be released on Steam on the 31st March 2017. We have learnt a lot on the way with regards to Unreal Engine 4, Steam Integration, and other things ... but most importantly we have learnt a lot about ourselves ... but that is a story for another time.

So where are we with regards to the game?
The game is complete and includes all the features we initially planned to include. From a game mechanics point of view, the primary driver of the game are the Secret Crates and Gold Chests ... these drive all other features of the game. The player is able to choose from a host of visual upgrades, new special tricks, new players, and of course BMX upgrades ... each of these are unlocked by finding Secret Crates or racking up some gold. Once they are unlocked, they can be purchased with your gold and equipped in the profile screen.

Gold also plays another important driving factor in the game, it allows you to unlock new levels and thus allows you to experience the journey of your Viking Biking from their home Village of Ugadale all the way to The Floating Hills. We are planning on releasing more levels after release but as of now the game includes 10 levels of varying difficulty and theme.

We have catered for new players and experienced players by not only providing a tutorial that takes you through the basic controls but also the ability to enable Auto-transfers and tweak your riders Auto-leveling. The game also has full controller support for those of you that have a game controller equipped on your PC.

What about Steam support?
The game not only supports Steam Achievements and Steam Trading Cards, but it also supports Steam Cloud for your save files, so you will never loose your progress.

We have 21 Steam Achievements with plans to add more achievements in future updates and these range from landing on your head the most times to completing your first challenge level.

We have 10 trading cards that can be collected which will lead you to achieve "The Viking Explorer" badge. These Trading Cards will allow you to unlock 8 Profile Backgrounds and 9 Emoticons. There are the usual 5 levels of badges as well as the ultimate foil badge.

Do you have other features?
We have our version of leader boards. Due to the different type of game modes available, we have created our own leader boards and these can be viewed inside the game. The game modes include: Score, Survival, Challenge, and Free Ride.

In Score mode, you have two minutes to rack up the most amount of points on the level. A continuous run is the key here as it will ensure you keep the points rolling in. At the end of the 2 minutes, your highest scoring continuous run will be kept and pushed on the leader board. The trick here is combinations and not crashing.

In Survival mode, you have a full special bar that you need to keep filled up as it depletes over time. Perform tricks and combinations to keep the special bar full and as long as it is full and you don't crash your time will count up. The rider that can survive the longest will get on to the leader board. The trick here is making sure you don't crash and performing enough combinations to keep the bar full.

In Challenge mode, you have to complete the four challenges on the level in the quickest amount of time. Each level has 4 challenges and some of those challenges are unique per level. Achieve the four challenges in the quickest time and you will get on the leader board. The trick here is making sure you know what challenges are for the level and then doing the bare minimum to complete them.

In Free Ride mode, you can freely ride around the level and practice your tricks and runs. In this mode you are not able to get on the leader board.

What about social media?
After every run, no matter what mode (except Free Ride) you will be presented with the end run screen, it is on this screen that you will be able to share your score on our official Twitter page ... just look for the button.

As with any project we do, we have an official Twitter account as well as an official Facebook page. The game also has a Steam Community page and we are contemplating adding Steam Workshop support in the future. There will also be extra features added to the Social Media support eventually.

What about updates?
We will always support bug fixes and will ensure that the game is the best that we can make it. We have also decided that we will provide new content and updates for at least 6 months after the launch of the game, if the demand for the game is good than this update window could be extended indefinitely.

Even if the window does pass, we will still do our best to provide new content and updates on a semi-regular basis.

How much will the game cost?
The base game will be launched at R159.00 and will include a 15% discount for the first week after launch.

We are also going to provide a DLC for the soundtrack that will be released for R47.00 and we will also include a bundle that will incorporate the base game and the DLC and will save you 20% on the total package.

Where to from here?
Besides looking at our next project, we have also gotten in touch with Microsoft and signed up to release the game on Xbox. We are currently negotiating to also support the Playstation framework and hopefully these will become an option in the near future ... so yes ... we are planning a console port.

We hope that everyone will enjoy the game as much as we have enjoyed making it and I hope to see your name on the leader board.

karl182 · 10:46am 23 Mar 2017

@quintond It has been a pleasure and an awesome learning experience! I can't believe we ready for launch!

quintond · 4:00am 25 Mar 2017

Our new trailer is ready and @karl182 did an awesome job with it.

edg3 · 4:44am 25 Mar 2017

Nice guys and congrats! The trailer looks fantastic so its perfect for sharing it!

quintond · 7:05pm 31 Mar 2017

The game is now live on Steam .... get it now with a 15% discount for the first week. We also made it on to #EpicFriday - https://twitter.com/UnrealEngine/status/847785174154723329

Get it now on Steam - http://store.steampowered.com/app/552370

roguecode · 11:35am 3 Apr 2017

Massive congrats!

Can you explain the reason for setting the current discount of the normal and deluxe copy to make them basically the same price?

(p.s. I'm not saying that is a good or bad thing, just interested in the reason)

quintond · 11:38am 3 Apr 2017

Thanks.

The 15% launch discount was decided before we decided to do a Bundle. So once the launch discount is finished the prices won't be virtually the same ... and the Bundle would be 20% off the normal price of the game and the dlc.

This is a bit of an anomaly on the side of Steam.

watson · 8:22pm 3 Apr 2017

Hey man just saw your game on ue4 sizzle reel ...awesome

quintond · 5:05am 4 Apr 2017

I kind of missed making this update, but over the weekend we got an answer to our request to join ID@Xbox!

We wanted to reach out and let you know that Riders of Asgard has been approved for release on Xbox One, assuming that you maintain feature and ship date parity with competitive console platforms.

The game has also been approved to include Xbox Live in your Windows 10 Store release.

Now we wait for the final legal paperwork and our dev kits to arrive (or to fetch) and then I can attempt to do an Xbox port. @roguecode, I might be asking you a few questions along the way. 8-}

roguecode · 11:52am 4 Apr 2017

@quintond, I'm not able to choose my screen resolution (2560x1440)?

karl182 · 12:17pm 4 Apr 2017

Hi @roguecode we will look into this. When I first set up the options I was very new the process and used a set of preset Resolutions. It would probably be better to detect the supported resolutions and use that instead of a predetermined few. Thanks for the feedback! :)

Karl

roguecode · 12:39pm 4 Apr 2017

@karl182, thanks!
Detecting supported resolutions would also let you support other aspect ratios like 3:2.

karl182 · 12:44pm 4 Apr 2017

@roguecode awesome, thank you very much! I just looked into it and it seems that it is very easy to do! :)
Thanks again!

quintond · 7:27am 5 Apr 2017

@roguecode this has been rectified now and will be made available on the next release. I just need to check with @karl182 what he wants in the next release.

We now have a roadmap for future updates which includes more content. 8-}

quintond · 7:07am 9 Apr 2017

@roguecode this has been released in version 1.0.6. Please can you test for us, we have another user who is using a 4K resolution and he said it was working. Thanks.

roguecode · 11:06am 9 Apr 2017

This is working great, thank you!

One thing I ran into, which I can't reproduce, and isn't a big deal anyway: I hit the quit button and the window sort of flickered each time. The little confirm menu didn't drop down.

quintond · 11:42am 9 Apr 2017

@roguecode we will investigate that. I haven't experienced it myself, but we will keep an eye out for it. What screen where you on when this happened?

roguecode · 11:46am 9 Apr 2017

The exact steps I took:

- Open game (windowed 1920x1080 from last time)
- Change resolution to 2560x1440, fullscreen
- Notice it was lagging a LOT, so wanted to restart it
- Hit quit, screen flickered each time
- Alt + F4 worked

Subsequent quits correctly brought up the prompt, and quit fine.

p.s. The lag wasn't anything to do with you, I found that it was because of NVidia Shadowplay set to record the last 5 minutes of gameplay.

quintond · 11:47am 9 Apr 2017

Okay cool ... thanks for the steps, we will try and recreate it on our side. Thanks for the feedback.

PS89 · 2:35pm 9 Apr 2017

Charming! X

konman · 6:56pm 13 Apr 2017

I just LOVE that chuckling Viking with beer in his beard. I cannot believe how much you have added since I first tried your prototype at a very early stage and I love all the polish you've added since. Awesome job. I cannot wait to see what new IP you come up with next. Yes, new IP. Wait, is this too early for us to have expectations like that? I hope not :D (or do you have more in store for Riders?)

quintond · 4:00am 14 Apr 2017

@konman, thanks for the kind words.

We definitely have new content in mind for Riders of Asgard which will include more levels, more players, and more unlocks. Internally we committed to providing content updates for at least 6 months after release and maybe more depending on the player base.

As for other IP, we have a few ideas in mind. Basically we will work on a couple of prototypes and then vote for which one we tackle next and move on to the next project.

quintond · 4:22am 22 Apr 2017

Just a few updates on Riders of Asgard.

The concept has been accepted to be ported to XBox One and after signing all the contracts and stuff, I was notified yesterday that my Dev Kits are on their way. Yay. 8-}

We just released v1.0.8 which includes a few more bug fixes and a new Dragon Pack: http://steamcommunity.com/games/552370/announcements/detail/1288436421447354380

Geek Node (who initially did a preview review for us) have now done a full review: http://www.geeknode.co.za/2017/04/riders-of-asgard/

Riders of Asgard on Steam...

Comments