Quite a few people have now played the preview version of Driftmoon, and I've received about as much letters and feedback as Santa Claus gets this time of the year. Thanks for every one of them, it's been great discussing game design with all of you, since most of you seem to know much more than I do. These past few weeks I've been thinking about one thing in particular. That is the sense of urgency in roleplaying games. I mean of course the feeling that you get when you see a timer running out, a bomb is about to explode, and you have to find a way to disarm it. In Ultima VII there was a quest, where someone poisoned you when they met you. The game just told that you were poisoned, now you have to find a cure or you'll die. At first I frantically searched every clue I could find, skipping much of the side quests and exploration, both of which I normally loved to do. But then I realized that I wasn't losing health points, there was no timer anywhere, maybe I was just poisoned within the plot, not in any real sense that would affect the game. So I took my time to do the poison quest, and nothing happened, nobody told me I was dying, I got on with the plot and went far away. All of the sudden, I start losing health, and I drop dead within minutes. That was a good lesson to me as a game developer. Not only did I hate the sense of urgency at the start of the quest, I also felt that I got cheated - that the urgency wasn't real. And then the worst bit, I dropped dead without a warning a hundred miles away from where I could find the antidote - the bomb was ticking after all, but there was no visible clock on the screen. I don't want to spoil the Driftmoon plot for anyone, so I'll just say that one of the motivations for the player to beat the enemy is that he'll die otherwise. I don't know if that bit fits the game, since it gives you pressure to be quick to solve the main quest, but it cheats you, nothing ever actually happens to you and you won't die no matter how slow you take it. If you've had the chance to test the game, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. I've got a couple of ideas on how I could improve the plotline there, but I'd love to hear how people have felt about it. PS. Our second child was born yesterday. He came a month too early, but he's in fine health now.

Reputation is something I've been pondering on and off for the last few months. Good deeds giving you a positive reputation, killing innocents giving you a bad reputation. At first I disliked the idea, thinking it was another useless number that modern RPG's could do without. But then I changed my mind. First we have to think about player choice. Whether it's allowed or not.

• There are games where you don't choose what your character says or does. What makes these games great is that they have the ability to tell a story about the main character. The game can show what your character says and does without the player interfering. In my mind I've always put most Japanese RPG's to this category.
• Then there are games where you get to choose what your character does. In a sense the character is an extension of the player. What matters in this kind of a game is the choices you make. Some say the choices have to be big, do I kill the king or do I spare him. Or the choices can be a grey area, do I spare the king's life, knowing it will kill the princess. I think Driftmoon falls into this category. It's always been very important to me in any roleplaying game that you can choose what to do. I always play a good guy, but being a good guy means nothing if the choice to be bad is not there.

We want to thank all of our preorderers, and all those who have given us feedback - we value it greatly! I've just released the second version of our alpha build. Preorderers can access it on the secret download page. This release is mostly fixes and small features. Changes in this version include the following (plus a few small things not mentioned here):

Did I mention this awesome game we're making? I guess I must have talked about it a few times. I updated the Driftmoon page with new screenshots, so have a look! To those who have missed those rare occasions, here's a recap: Driftmoon is an adventure-oriented RPG, with focus on storytelling, exploring and quests. Driftmoon takes up roleplaying from the days when dialogue and plot mattered, and grinding wasn’t the main point. In Driftmoon there are always plenty of things to find and people to meet, and instead of killing all of your enemies, you can sometimes talk your way through.

Features:

• Filled with personality, wit and goodwill!
• Explore the dungeons, wilderness and villages of Driftmoon, you never know what you might discover!
• Driftmoon isn’t an action RPG – you don’t kill creature after creature and collect a ton of loot. You don’t need to have catlike reflexes to be able to control the character. In Driftmoon you talk with the people you meet. You may make new friends, you may find quests to solve, or you may encounter a hostile cultist of Ixal.
• Driftmoon comes with the full editor tools used to create the game. We have our own easy scripting language, a great level editor, animation tools, the complete set!
• You can drag things around!
• Memorable and melodic music by the talented Gareth Meek.

Here's something you might find interesting, bits of random gameplay from Driftmoon. We've been working nonstop all month to get the second level completed, I think it's finally ready. Now we're on to the third area!

Some of you may remember that we changed the way food works in Driftmoon last spring. Now your food is slowly drained away while regenerating you health. I think it works pretty well, you can keep your health up, but it doesn't work so fast that you could eat yourself healthy in a battle. Also it gives the food some extra meaning in the game, a good reason to find it. As I added a few more food types during summer time, they started taking more and more inventory space, as they couldn't be stacked. Combining them into one fixed the inventory space problem. After that I noticed there was an extra layer of complexity in place here, you first picked up the food, then opened the inventory, then clicked the food to eat it, and it went into your food meter. Now, after my recent change, all your food goes directly into a counter whenever you pick it up, no more opening inventories to click on Evil Berries and Food Cans. Saves inventory space and mouse buttons!

I found myself adding a few rocks and bigger stones by hand, so I decided to make automated rocks. I actually made the rocks 3D. It doesn't show in the picture all that well, but each is a 3D object. The rocks work just the same as the trees, I can define terrain types that have them, their sizes and probability. The AI also knows to go around them. If I want to add a couple of rocks to an area, all I need to do is draw some strokes of terrain with the Rocky terrain type, and randomized rocks pop out of nowhere!

Whenever I show Driftmoon to people who have never heard of it, the discussion always starts with me explaining why it has a top-down perspective. You know, the fact that you see the game from a bird's eye view. I usually try not to write defensive posts like this, but maybe this will save me some time whenever I demo the game. Here are a couple of the more common questions: 1. Isn't top-down perspective unnatural, people don't usually see other people from the sky? We're accustomed to seeing people sideways. That's true, the only people who are accustomed to seeing people from a top-down perspective are people who fly hot-air balloons. Historically most roleplaying games have been top-down perspective, even the isometric view of Diablo is top-down. And why is that? Because a roleplaying game doesn't benefit from the skywards dimension, it doesn't have jumping (Ultima VIII did, but it was a bad idea). So Driftmoon is top-down because it's a roleplaying game. 2. Then why don't you just turn the camera a bit, make the game more like an isometric game? Actually, I have done that since the preview version. In recent versions the camera is about as far south as I can make it without things starting to look weird. Turning it south even more would mean we need 3D models for the characters, which I won't do since I want people to be able to mod the game easily. I've saved the juiciest question for the last: 3. It would improve your visuals if you used a sideways perspective, maybe make the characters silhouettes. Honestly, I've actually heard this from a guy reviewing games for a living. I think this was before Limbo, but after some of the first silhouette games, so I think he had something going there. Have you seen how many platformer games have that distinct Unique Silhouette Style? I think it's about 50 percent of all new platformers, so I rest my case. I like top-down. It's very rarely used these days, so it's a bit more unique than any other choice. I like how I can make tiny ants litter the floors, and almost see secret treasures hidden behind walls. As a developer, I love how I could make this Professor Dore in fifteen minutes, and not the ten days it would have taken in a 3D program. PS. If you've ever gotten disoriented or even lost in a 3D game, as I often do, you'll love the top-down view of Driftmoon.

Someone called Nathan wanted to interview me for some schoolwork he had. Normally I would say no, since I'm really focused on making Driftmoon now, but he seemed like a nice person so I took the couple of minutes to answer him. This is for you Nathan.

How have advancements in technology influenced your creation of games?

What is the most satisfying aspect of creating games for you?

What is the least satisfying aspect of creating games for you?

Why did you decide to become a game programmer?

What would be the favourite game you have ever made and why?

Where do you see the game industry in 5 years?