BYOND Strategy Tech Tree: 146

BYOND recently made a slight update to their layout.  The front page should be more clear to new visitors, game lists should be easier to find, and the site is no longer crowded with CSS borders.  Check it out.

Feel free to offer feedback because the staff rarely gets an outside perspective.  If you don't wish to register for their forums, you can comment here and I'll relay the message.

Wishing me a happy birthday Tuesday is fair as well I guess... Frell, I'm old. =(

Tech Tree is a list of links about developer activity in BYOND Strategy, a guild run by unpaid volunteers on a game/development portal and software engine called BYOND.  Those curious about notes or YouTube videos I've cut out can view the original version.

Acebloke updated his featured boardgame, Exploder, with interface changes and Elo ratings.  The skin has mostly improved.  For instance, players can now chat without their eyes jumping around the screen.  However, there are some negatives such as a new verb panel that doesn't meet the feature requirements.  Acebloke says he'll provide another update so I'll give him a chance.

The Efencea team appears to have settled on their next project.  Titled Scorn Earth, they're describing it as "Post Ancient Apocalyptic Turn-Based Strategy Efencea Tribes".  It's a unit-centric empire-building game with multiple victory conditions.  Both single and multiplayer modes are planned.  Read their blog for more design notes.

The Magic Man has begun development of an RTS, continued providing progress reports and might even be ready to host a testing session tomorrow.  I'm a bit wary as it sounds like more of a team-based action game where each player controls one of 30 types of units.  I'm guessing that it's going to BYOND Action unless there are mechanics focusing on a commander.  However, I'm not writing it off yet. =)

As an example of what would go in BYOND Strategy, Tag You're Pregnant is looking into creating an RTS with a mecha theme.  Players will control a single unit like an action game, but they will be giving orders to units controlled by AI...  Hopefully this will be made so I can stop feeling guilty about my unfinished design inspired by Herzog Zwei and Goblin Commander. ;)

Foomer has handed the reigns of BYOND Casual to BYOND RPG's former guildmaster, Tiberath.  This comes after I added both Casual and Foomer's personal Single Player Games guild as BYOND Strategy associates.  I don't know whether we should be gloating about territorial conquest or singing that cool version of Close To You from MirrorMask. ;)-

I released what appears to be the final update to my abstract competitive dungeon crawl, GrimTunnel.  I never added sound, but I hope the interface is more clear.  At issue is the fact that the entire game was an experiment and I only appreciated some of the results.  I'll probably add the good parts to a different game later.