Arvoesine

By: Derek Yu

On: July 27th, 2010

Arvoesine is a new platform game from Alastair John Jack, the creator of the entertaining platformer RPGs Ainevoltas 2 and Final Vision. The game puts you in control of a little Roman soldier who can attack with a sword or spear, and has a shield to defend himself with. The goal of the game is to make your way through five short stages, fighting a boss at the end of each stage.

The full version costs $5, which may be surprising, considering the brevity of the game (even compared to some of Alastair’s previous freeware releases). However, it’s clear that Arvoesine is meant to be played repeatedly for high score, like a traditional arcade game. To this end, the game incorporates a simple scoring mechanic where the player receives extra points for defeating an enemy with his second or third sword swing (the third swing, a stab, offers the most points). It took me around 7 tries to win the first time, but timing your swings to achieve a high score increases the challenge dramatically. The player also receives bonus points for clearing a level in the shortest amount of time.

In a way, Arvoesine is like a “lite” arcade game – players that might be interested in the scoring mechanics of face-melting bullet hell shoot ’em ups and the like but would prefer a warm-up should give it a try (a one level demo is available for download). It’s certainly a very polished and fun platformer.

TIGdb: Entry for Arvoesine
Playthrough: Ortoslon (version 1.0)

Posted in Platformers, Windows | Tags: AlastairJohnJack

Jumps

This looks like wonderment
Guest

A $5 donation would be good, but I think making a sale price of $5 is a little ridiculous for this game.

I do enjoy supporting indies, and do feel they deserve contribution for their work.

Speaking of the game, however. The controls are good. The artwork is nice, and the music is good, too. So it's definitely something to check out. Reminds me of Ghosts and Goblins.
fishyboy

5 dollars is about two good cups of coffee. I'd hardly say that's unreasonable.
Skofo

The demo was surprisingly fun! The combat system has that rare quality of being simple, yet requiring skill and experience to take full advantage of it.

I don't expect this game to get many buyers, simply because when people see low-res pixel art, people think “cheap”. But I feel that the gameplay and polish of the game is worth the $5, so I bought it. =)
http://www.derekyu.com Derek Yu

I agree, and maybe I should edit my post to sound more encouraging about people trying to sell small games (which I am). In the end, the developers should charge how much they think their work is worth and not base it on the “market”, which is a race to the bottom.
Guest

Tried the demo. Seems like a nice enough game, but the window size is extremely small. There's a scaling option in the config, but it doesn't work.
Radix

Yeah it's probably about time we stop being surprised at people selling their work.

It's not like the kids who bitch about this stuff are able to form their own opinions so just tell them it's fine.
Phubans

I think my work would be worth more than $5 if finished… In the past Madhouse was pretty much donationware (even though it was only about 70% complete) and that didn't really work out… I probably got about two $5 donations in the 3 years of its development.
anthonyflack

Now that is a game.

I love the old-school black background too. It looks great.
Andy

This game is amazing! I bought a copy the other week. I love it so much! :D
Yve

Hmm arvoesine.. is there some meaning of naming this game by finnish word? :D arvoesine means precious thing/object. Anyway, gotta try this
Xeno

Uh, fake it, “Skofo”..
Vania

I would like to know how much money the game finally makes.

I think if this were a flash game it could be sponsored for at least 6000$, and make some extra money on ads, more than 4000$ probably cause it would be on the frontpage of a lot of sites.

Or a combination of monetizing options: get the game sponsored with 3 free levels, and charge 1$ for the last 2. Again, the exposure from being in a lot of frontpages would ensure millions of possible buyers.

The window size is right, graphics are simple, and there's nothing that looks processor heavy: a perfect candidate.
Ben Foote

Its made with a game construction kit though, I'm not sure its suitable for Flash.
MegaLeon

Yup, it looks made with Multimedi Fusion (correct me if I am wrong).
However, I love the retro-feel of this game. Imho it would look perfect as a donationware.
cactus

Awesome game! I bought it, well worth the money in my opinion. Love the graphics, sound and music, and the gameplay is a lot of fun.
W3R3W00F

It's made with MMF2 I believe.

I've yet to try this; right now I'm afraid I need to focus on making my own games. :|
Nope

I'm sorry, but I have no interest in achieving a high score.
It is a fine game however.
joehonkie

I just can't play games for score anymore. There's too many games and when I'm done with one I want to move on to the other billion I haven't played. I understand this is more of a personal problem/issue than a criticism of that model, because I totally dug Pac-Man CE and several other games like them, I just don't feel compelled to try to get high scores like I used to.
http://yawma.net/ JasonY

Love the art.
5qu1dd1sh

so does anyone know what the difference is between blue and red version? (reminds me of pokemon :))

also, if you liked the demo, buy the game!. seriously, it's five bucks, this bitching is probably coming from the same people who don't even think twice about throwing away 50 dollars on the latest xbox shovelware
Andy

Multimedia Fusion 2 can export to flash.
SSSsss

“also, if you liked the demo, buy the game!. seriously, it's five bucks, this bitching is probably coming from the same people who don't even think twice about throwing away 50 dollars on the latest xbox shovelware”

This is a silly assumption.

I work a minimum wage job, and I wouldn't bag groceries for rude people for forty-five minutes to play the full version of this game. I certainly wouldn't bag groceries for 7 hours to own “xbox shovelware”

I also do not own an xbox.

long live free games.
Anon

Great game, but old news. Was on Indiegames 3 weeks ago…
Jason

Loved this game! But Tigs is a bit late on the news. :P
Mike Hunt

It's pretty good. I'll probably buy it someday.
http://www.derekyu.com Derek Yu

Yeah, definitely read IndieGames.com if what you want is timely news. Sometimes it takes me a while to pick up a game and play through it.
Del Duio

Well as for how much money it's making it has to be doing pretty well as I've seen no less than 15 comments from people saying they've bought a copy on a couple different boards & places.

Unless they're lying, but what's the point in doing that?

P.S: I submitted this to the Indie DB, I haven't checked to see if it got in yet but if it's frontpage news I hope it has!
Radix

Generally only if you intend to do so from the beginning, though. And it's a phenomenal pain to integrate with flash APIs.

Pod completely remade Streemerz using Flashpunk in like a week, though.
rinkuhero

actually, home address and phone number are necessary to verify that it's really you using your credit card. if we didn't ask for that it'd be impossible to prevent fraud from stolen credit cards.
rinkuhero

in this case being late on the news is possibly good for the developer, it's better for sales if reviews are spread over time out rather than all at once everywhere.
rinkuhero

that could just mean 15 sales, which isn't very much at all (it's 75$).
alastair_jack

Yeah I guess flash stuff is more profitable, but I'd rather make $10 than have it on a flash site.
alastair_jack

Thanks for the kind words people.
http://www.playthisthing.com Dustin Smith

No worries Derek, I've yet to review this gem myself. *blush face*
Vania

And what's the reasoning behind that?

I'm aware there's some kind of hate towards flash games in the indie community, but I thought it was related to the poor quality of such games, not to the medium itself.
michaelstearns

I think there is something wrong with the world (first world countries anyway) that $5 for a video game is not “cheap,” even if it is a small one.
Dave

It's really odd that people are willing to buy mediocre games yet find it so much more difficult to donate to a quality freeware game.
Raigan

I really can't wait for a follow up to Ainevoltas 2 or Final Vision.. please! :)
Del Duio

It is for me!
rinkuhero

i heard a comment that's funny recently: someone said he was going to make his game commercial because commercial games are pirated and played by far more people than freeware games are.
http://twitter.com/newobject Brian Long

Derek, I don't think of the front page of TIGSource as “news”. I get really excited for every front page post because I know it will contain something important and special. If I wanted a firehose of press releases I could go elsewhere. Don't change anything :)
fishyboy

Finally bought it and it's brilliant. It feels like it belongs in an arcade, especially with the tricks that one can find. For instance, you can get behind the second boss and just wreck him with your sword for a ton of points. Definitely worth the coffee.
Cesque

Okay, so… most people willing to buy games from indie game developers are other indie game developers. Doesn't that make the whole money thing run in circles?

Loved Ainevoltas and Final Vision, not a big fan of this one.
Radix

That's really not true at all.
Pomian

Have you heard this one?

One indie game developer meets another one at a party. He says “I bought your game!”. And the other one goes “Oh! So it was YOU!”.

Just kidding :-)
Radix

True story: Evil-Ville bought the only copy I sold of the only game I have ever sold conventionally.
Guest

I've never paid more than 20 cents for a cup of coffee.
Fuh

Well fuck you right back.
alastair_jack

I'm sure lots of indies like it, I just prefer being able to run a game from an .exe without any of the browser stuff getting in the way.