Action Alien News

In the last update, one of the main feature which has been added was the perk system and the upgraded weapons unlockable with points earned when defeating aliens. To make this feature even more enjoyable, 2 maps with a survival game mode have now been added to the game !



These 2 maps are different from the previous ones in the way that the goal is no more to find and collect some items or complete some objectives, but instead it is to hold on against an endless stream of aliens for as long as possible to achieve the maximum score !



Unlocking perks and upgraded weapons will have all it's sense here since firing explosive ammo with the ability of making high jumps will obviously help you to survive longer !



These new maps are set in a similar environment as the previous one, and are of course fully destructible ! They are however smaller in order to concentrate the action in few hotspots.



Thanks to the help of a Steam user, with this update the game can now also be played with a xbox-like controller ! This will give a different gameplay experience compared to the classic mouse/keyboard combo. Also, a bunch of bug fixes and overall optimisations were made.




http://store.steampowered.com/app/382080


Otherwise, an important thing you may have noticed is that the title of the game has changed from The Alien Wasteland to Action Alien. The reason behind this is simple ; a developer from inXile Entertainment, the company which released the RPG Wasteland 2 has contacted me claiming that titling my game "The Alien Wasteland" was an infringement to their trademark "Wasteland".

Because both games have almost nothing in common and no case of confusion was ever reported for almost two years since my game was first announced, I have been calmly explaining through long emails why we should have no worries about this. But I finally ended up receiving a cease and desist letter from their lawyer asking to either stop using "wasteland" or to prepare facing legal actions against me.

Since I don't have the time nor the strength to deal with legal actions from this developer and its lawyers, or even taking the risk of having my game to be taken down from Steam, I decided to change the title to solve this issue, even though this has been a great loss in time and efforts for a very questionable complaint.

So I decided to choose for the new title Action Alien, which gives a good idea of what the game is about ! This is just one of the many headaches in game development, but at least the game is now much more complete with this update !

Thanks for reading.

UPDATE - 05 MAY 2016 Since my trademark issue with inXile Entertainment has been taking much more attention than I thought, I have written a more detailed post about my exchange with them to clarify the situation : http://steamcommunity.com/games/382080/announcements/detail/840296458592791633
Devdan
http://actionalien.com

In the last update, one of the main feature which has been added was the perk system and the upgraded weapons unlockable with points earned when defeating aliens. To make this feature even more enjoyable, 2 maps with a survival game mode have now been added to the game !



These 2 maps are different from the previous ones in the way that the goal is no more to find and collect some items or complete some objectives, but instead it is to hold on against an endless stream of aliens for as long as possible to achieve the maximum score !



Unlocking perks and upgraded weapons will have all it's sense here since firing explosive ammo with the ability of making high jumps will obviously help you to survive longer !



These new maps are set in a similar environment as the previous one, and are of course fully destructible ! They are however smaller in order to concentrate the action in few hotspots.



Thanks to the help of a Steam user, with this update the game can now also be played with a xbox-like controller ! This will give a different gameplay experience compared to the classic mouse/keyboard combo. Also, a bunch of bug fixes and overall optimisations were made.




http://store.steampowered.com/app/382080


Otherwise, an important thing you may have noticed is that the title of the game has changed from The Alien Wasteland to Action Alien. The reason behind this is simple ; a developer from inXile Entertainment, the company which released the RPG Wasteland 2 has contacted me claiming that titling my game "The Alien Wasteland" was an infringement to their trademark "Wasteland".

Because both games have almost nothing in common and no case of confusion was ever reported for almost two years since my game was first announced, I have been calmly explaining through long emails why we should have no worries about this. But I finally ended up receiving a cease and desist letter from their lawyer asking to either stop using "wasteland" or to prepare facing legal actions against me.

Since I don't have the time nor the strength to deal with legal actions from this developer and its lawyers, or even taking the risk of having my game to be taken down from Steam, I decided to change the title to solve this issue, even though this has been a great loss in time and efforts for a very questionable complaint.

So I decided to choose for the new title Action Alien, which gives a good idea of what the game is about ! This is just one of the many headaches in game development, but at least the game is now much more complete with this update !

Thanks for reading.

UPDATE - 05 MAY 2016 Since my trademark issue with inXile Entertainment has been taking much more attention than I thought, I have written a more detailed post about my exchange with them to clarify the situation : http://steamcommunity.com/games/382080/announcements/detail/840296458592791633
Devdan
http://actionalien.com

With the idea of extending the playability of the game, I have added many features that will enhance the overall gameplay and make the game more integrated into Steam !

Here are the main features coming with this update :


About 19 Steam achievements were added and are now unlockable ! These achievements vary from making distinguished actions during combats to completing levels and killing a number of aliens in a specific manner like with grenades or leg kicks, etc...




The game has now 6 trading cards on Steam which will unlock many backgrounds related to the game to customize an user profile on Steam, as well as many emoticons usable on the forums. There are also 6 different badges starting from "Armed Hitchhiker" to "Legend of the Wasteland" !




Now each time you play and manage to defeat some aliens, you will earn at the end of the game an amount of points based on your actions during combats. Then with these points, you can increase from the menu your health, speed, jumps, melee kicks, etc... up to 3 levels making it possible to beat larger hordes of aliens !




With these same points, you can also unlock more powerful versions of the weapons of the game. There are 2 unlockable levels for each weapon, the first being the "upgraded" version and the second being the "golden" version. Upgraded weapons often consist of simply greater magazines, fire rates and damages, but golden weapons can have some real powerful abilities like the golden shotgun firing a large amount of explosive shrapnel or the golden grenade launcher firing multiples grenades in one shot !








All these progress will be saved on the Steam cloud when you are online so if you change your computer or if your HDD had an issue the progress won't be lost !

All these features will be of course improved over the time !

So it's pretty much all for this update, apart of some minor fixes and some improvements for the menu, the website has also been updated too.

What is now coming next is a bunch of small maps with a new game mode named "Survival", where the goal consist of resisting as long as possible against waves of aliens by using the increased perks and the new powerful unlockable weapons !

This next update should come soon.

Thanks for reading.

Devdan http://actionalien.com

With the idea of extending the playability of the game, I have added many features that will enhance the overall gameplay and make the game more integrated into Steam !

Here are the main features coming with this update :


About 19 Steam achievements were added and are now unlockable ! These achievements vary from making distinguished actions during combats to completing levels and killing a number of aliens in a specific manner like with grenades or leg kicks, etc...




The game has now 6 trading cards on Steam which will unlock many backgrounds related to the game to customize an user profile on Steam, as well as many emoticons usable on the forums. There are also 6 different badges starting from "Armed Hitchhiker" to "Legend of the Wasteland" !




Now each time you play and manage to defeat some aliens, you will earn at the end of the game an amount of points based on your actions during combats. Then with these points, you can increase from the menu your health, speed, jumps, melee kicks, etc... up to 3 levels making it possible to beat larger hordes of aliens !




With these same points, you can also unlock more powerful versions of the weapons of the game. There are 2 unlockable levels for each weapon, the first being the "upgraded" version and the second being the "golden" version. Upgraded weapons often consist of simply greater magazines, fire rates and damages, but golden weapons can have some real powerful abilities like the golden shotgun firing a large amount of explosive shrapnel or the golden grenade launcher firing multiples grenades in one shot !








All these progress will be saved on the Steam cloud when you are online so if you change your computer or if your HDD had an issue the progress won't be lost !

All these features will be of course improved over the time !

So it's pretty much all for this update, apart of some minor fixes and some improvements for the menu, the website has also been updated too.

What is now coming next is a bunch of small maps with a new game mode named "Survival", where the goal consist of resisting as long as possible against waves of aliens by using the increased perks and the new powerful unlockable weapons !

This next update should come soon.

Thanks for reading.

Devdan http://actionalien.com

Participating in the weeklong deal of the 12/07, The Alien Wasteland is currently in a 17% discount ! A lot of improvements were made for the game and more will come soon !

The website has also been updated, with an entire new design and with more links. It is a nice place to look to know more about the game ! http://thealienwasteland.com

Thanks

Devdan