By Kieron Gillen on February 11th, 2008 at 6:09 pm.
News reaches us, courtesy of our comrades at PC Gamer, that Audiosurf will be available to pre-order on Steam from later today, with the full version available on Friday for those who fancy canoodling with a Game as a Valentines day come-down. Also, it’ll come with Valve pop hits like Still Alive, TF2′s retro-jingles and the electro-bleeps of Half-life 2. And, tech-watchers should note, it’s the first game including the Steamworks tech.
Our love for Audiosurf remains undimmed since Jim looked at it a few weeks ago. Having played most of the IGF grand finalists, my position is that while World of Goo is the best game per se and probably should be the winner and Crayon Physics is simply the most magical, Audiosurf will make the most money. Getting on Steam’s a good start for making that prediction come true, yeah? Oh – and PCG have an interview with creator Dylan Fitterer too…
In it he talks about his whole experience with the game, what his favourite tracks are (I agree that Daft Punk’s Alive works like a charm) and where he got his inspiration from…
Rez was and still is completely inspiring to me. Many other developers reference it too – its impact has rightly been huge.
Also, highly customizable games like Magic the Gathering have inspired me. It was a while back, but I heard about a game available in Japan where you would scan in bar codes and each one would create a different monster to battle with. The more games allow players to create their own experiences the better.
11/02/2008 at 18:27 essell says:
“It was a while back, but I heard about a game available in Japan where you would scan in bar codes and each one would create a different monster to battle with.”
I had Barcode Battler!
(It was poo.)
11/02/2008 at 18:40 Turin Turambar says:
Mmm 9.95$. I liked the demo, so… sold!
11/02/2008 at 18:43 The One And Only says:
Awww no, I was really looking forward to this but Steam is a big no-no. I assume Steamworks is so restrictive that he can’t publish it elsewhere additionally, right? A shame, really, I would have bought it the second it was available. Oh well…
11/02/2008 at 18:47 Chris Evans says:
I think I will be getting this game :D
11/02/2008 at 18:48 Dracko says:
Valve are just a bunch of corporatist fascists!
11/02/2008 at 18:50 dhex says:
i was pretty disappointed with the demo, all told. it’s a great idea, but it doesn’t really seem to work all that well. the core game outside of the cool intro gimmick isn’t really that substantive.
11/02/2008 at 19:07 Kieron Gillen says:
Audiosurf really depends on the game mode. Some are really much better than others.
KG
11/02/2008 at 19:09 fluffy bunny says:
Machinae Supremacy on Mono Pro. Can’t beat that.
11/02/2008 at 19:11 Kieron Gillen says:
(Mono Pro and Pusher are generally the ones which work best, depending on the record. Really fast stuff on Mono Pro, more sedate stuff on Pusher)
KG
11/02/2008 at 19:30 dhex says:
it’s entirely possible i was doing it wrong.
11/02/2008 at 19:54 The_B says:
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present exhibit A of the prejudgemental ignorance as to what Steamworks is.
Sorry to sound very condesending there – it’s not a dig at you personally, I just get a bit tired of the automatic assumption because you don’t like Steam, but to actually answer your question – it using Steamworks and it being available on Steam are competely unrelated from each other. He can publish it whereever he likes. Steamworks does not effect where/how a game can be distributed.
Man, even reading this back I still sound a little git-ish. I apologise and blame the internet if I come across as really arrogant, but retain my point.
11/02/2008 at 20:01 Prospero says:
Mono Pro FTW. Flogging Molly made for some awesome tracks.
11/02/2008 at 20:17 Turin Turambar says:
Awww no, I was really looking forward to this but Steam is a big no-no. I assume Steamworks is so restrictive that he can’t publish it elsewhere additionally, right? A shame, really, I would have bought it the second it was available. Oh well…
And why the hell would the author put the game in another site if it is in Steam? I mean, if he put the game in his webpage, simply, the game would sell a few thousands of copies, thanks to the positive mouth-to-mouth in the Net. In Steam, he potentially can sell 10 times that.
Steam has millions of users, all gamers, it has communities and friends lists and centralized achiviements, it has a good and konwn digital download system, it is all the game needs to be a hit, at least for an indie game.
11/02/2008 at 20:21 Andrew says:
Just tried the demo of this.
It seems like a brilliant concept, especially as you can use any of your own tracks (I noticed that The Divine Comedy’s National Express seems to work pretty well). Think I’ll be getting this when it comes out.
11/02/2008 at 20:37 dartt says:
I got the beta a week or so ago, racing THROUGH Naxalite was just incredible.
11/02/2008 at 20:47 Dylan Fitterer says:
Why did you credit it to my Dad (in the tags)? That’s a funny mistake.
11/02/2008 at 20:57 Optimaximal says:
lol… Kieron = Tag loser
11/02/2008 at 20:58 The_B says:
To thank him for creating you which in turn created this game of course!
Phew, I think you might get away with that one guys…
On a more serious note: it’s here! Or rather: the link on the Steam store is finally up!
11/02/2008 at 22:03 The One And Only says:
Steam may have millions of gamers and I’m all for getting it up there to sell as many copies as possible. That doesn’t mean it has to be the only place to distribute the game. And I’d rather get it from elsewhere.
Reason? Steam first and foremost has an extremely restrictive system where you have to log in regularly to be able to play your games. This is worse than any other kind of DRM for games out there. Even Starforce lets me play my games without having to go online and verify them constantly. Also, the centralized method means that they can (and they do, they openly admit it) collect heaps of data on you, your playing style, how much you play, what you play, when you play it etc… in this case they could even collect info on what mp3s you own and/or like. They probably won’t do the latter but they can. I shouldn’t have to tell you all this stuff. Totalgaming.net or GamersGate are “good download systems”, Steam is not.
So I will not get it if it’s only available from Steam. What you do is your business.
Oh, and even though Steamworks might not be restricted to Steam, I bet there are no plans to publish it elsewhere. Feel free to prove me wrong.
11/02/2008 at 22:17 Sam says:
…once again, you can use Steam in “Offline Mode”, and you don’t need to log in regularly at all. Indeed, for about a year and a half, I used Steam only in “Offline Mode”, and never had any problems playing the games I’d previously verified…
11/02/2008 at 22:23 The_B says:
Not being the developer, naturally I can’t disprove that at the moment, but even so, your point that made out as if Steamworks handcuffs a developer to use Steam to sell their game is an erroenous one, and only manages to make people demoize Valve as some sort of faceless coporate evil corporation.
As for your other points, there is an offline mode – granted it doesn’t always work for everyone 100% of the time – but it is getting better, so it’s not as if Valve intend for that to be the case. The main point of the copy protection services that Steam offer is to stop Day Zero piracy, not to prevent you enjoying your games you already own.
It’s not so much the actual “I hate Steam” that gets me sometimes, but the demonizing of the thoughts behind it. Consider it a backlash against the backlash, if you will.
11/02/2008 at 22:47 King Awesome says:
Man I hope Valve don’t use that data on my playing habits for some kind of dark nefarious purpose!
11/02/2008 at 23:26 Ed says:
What? Like blackmail?
“We’ll tell your boss/parents that you spent the entire week playing Counter Strike unless you buy Counter Strike: Source within 2 hours!”
12/02/2008 at 01:11 Zaptrack says:
“We’ll tell your kids that daddy isn’t having an important phone conversation, but playing Gmod unless you buy the entire store within 9 minutes!”
12/02/2008 at 05:54 James says:
“We’ll reveal that you’ve been playing Peggle instead of going to the park with your kids. Or sleeping. Or eating. Seriously, we’re worried about you.”
12/02/2008 at 06:21 The One And Only says:
Lol, you can make fun of me as much as you want but I think it’s fairly sensible to be interested in protecting one’s privacy.
And like I said, my main concern is the DRM system that needs me to log in every now and then to make sure that I can still play the stuff on Steam.
Edit: I missed some comments: First, you cannot play in offline mode for one and a half year, that’s simply a lie (or you didn’t notice Steam doing its verification). Secondly, I am not demonizing Steam/Valve. I don’t care why they do what they do, I only care *that* they do it and that’s bad enough. You can say what you want but a system that uses such a restrictive DRM, forces you to run stuff through their front end and generally behaves very intransparently is per definition bad, I don’t have to demonize it further. And it’s entirely possible to do it differently, as I mentioned, just look at totalgaming.net.
12/02/2008 at 11:12 Matt says:
Audiosurf is already on Steam’s current top sellers list. Steam handle payment, distribution and give the game some much needed exposure (a hard thing for an indie developer to get.)
With all the subscribers on steam, the advantages to a small indie developer are huge, and Valve’s willingness to take on board these small independant titles is one of the big positives of the Steam client. Personally I hope many more indie titles get the chance to be sold through Steam.
I have to say I like Steam, I don’t do a lot of gaming on the move so having to be online never bothered me, I actually prefer it to having to use the disk most of the time. Connectivity is only going to increase as technology continues to progress and that aspect of Steam is only going to become less and less of an issue I would imagine.
12/02/2008 at 14:05 Rodafowa says:
Sick squid? Sold!
I firmly recommend Roam by the B-52′s for Audiosurfing fun, by the way.
12/02/2008 at 21:47 terry says:
Missed the beta, so at the cost of a packet of coffin nails, this is a no-brainer (like the coffin nails).
13/02/2008 at 14:02 Bruut says:
Beta is still available over here: http://www.fileshack.com/file.x/11638/Audiosurf
I bought it on steam, but the preload servers are overloaded :)
16/02/2008 at 01:23 Jonathan says:
Just got it. It took my Steam cherry you might say, it’s my first download purchase. Brilliant as everyone else has said, though I have a few problems with the interface and would have liked a wider choice of backgrounds. But for a one man project it’s incredible.
Still, I’m the first person to have played any Badly Drawn Boy so I am at the top of 12 global high score boards. This pleases me greatly.
17/02/2008 at 01:54 The_B says:
Firstly I’m going to say that Audiosurf is indeed awesome and has lived up to the hype.
But I’d like to address this:
He’s not lying. I myself and my brother also had to make do with Steams Offline mode for about eighteen months, and had no problem with it (we didn’t get the internet at home until 2006 and had to activate Half Life 2 – which we got on release- at a friends house)
I agree, it’s not been that simple for everyone. But as I said, saying that people who say that it does work is a lie is incorrect.
19/02/2008 at 08:11 malkav11 says:
I don’t think there’s been a single game previously where I’ve gone from trying the game to plopping down my cash as quickly as Audiosurf. It took me all of two songs worth.
One of the things it’s excellent at doing is reinforcing just how much I love the music I love. “Inner Universe”, and “Rise”, off the Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex soundtracks are beautiful, wonderful songs on their own. But transformed into psychedelic puzzle game tracks they are supremely excellent. Also fond of Novakill’s “Why Won’t You Die?!?” and The Endless’ “Not a Man of God”, whose lyrics I finally made out when playing it in Audiosurf.
I also love that you can abuse it by loading absolutely any MP3 (or supported audio format, come to that), music or not. I accidentally played a round to a chunk of the audiobook of Neil Gaiman’s wonderful YA novel Coraline, for example. I won’t claim it worked terrifically well – too many slow patches – but it might be a way of getting myself to listen to audio content at home instead of getting distracted by a thousand other things.
19/02/2008 at 09:03 sigma83 says:
yay for Neil Gaiman!
Me has no credit card, how then do I purchase this tremendously awesome piece of thingo off my steam?
24/02/2008 at 07:42 Mario Granger says:
If I’m not mistaken Steam supports paypal now, if you have an account.