Nox Archaist Release Date!

IT'S BEEN QUITE A RIDE

From back in 1984 when our lead developer Mark Lemmert first had the idea to write a tile-based Apple II RPG, to the founding of 6502 Workshop in March of 2016, all the way through today, the journey has been amazing! But now, we’ve got another exciting date to add to that list...

WHAT DATE, YOU ASK?

None other than the official release date of Nox Archaist! On December 12, 2020, all backers will receive a link to the Digital Download version of the game! But that’s not all, on this date we will also begin shipping physical rewards to backers who selected Option 2 (Early shipment with labelled blank floppies) on the survey we sent via email on November 16th.

We estimate 2-7 days for backers in the United States to receive their physical rewards, and 3-8 weeks for backers in all other countries. You will receive an email from pirateship.com when your rewards ship.

Note: For Option 2 backers, this is your last chance to change your address. Please email support <at> 6502workshop.com

THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

It has been a long and incredible journey, and we hope that this milestone is as exciting for you as it is for us. With the release of Nox Archaist, the journey continues as each of you get to play the game for the first time. We look forward to interacting with you, and invite you to join the backer community Discord server where you will be able to talk to the developers, testers, and fellow players. We are sure that you will have plenty of questions to ask, and tips, tricks, and cool discoveries to share!

As promised, our work on the floppy disk version of the game will continue, and we are striving to release it to you as soon as we possibly can. We will continue to provide regular updates to our backers on our progress.

Thank you for your support, and enjoy the game!

Sincerely,

Mark Lemmert, Lead Programmer and Game Designer, co-founder of 6502 Workshop 

Mike Reimer, Game Design and co-founder of 6502 Workshop 

Chris Torrence, Game Design, Logistics Manager Extraordinaire 

Jarrod Kailef, Game Design, Community Manager, Vocals 

Bill Giggie, Graphics Development, Game Design 

Robert Padovan, Graphics Development 

Gordon Mackay, Artist 

Electric Moo, Music Composer 

Peter Ferrie (Qkumba), Programming, Project Advisor 

Elizabeth Daggert, Project Advisor 

Michael Pohoreski, Programming, Project Advisor 

LIVE DEVELOPER Q&A

On Tuesday December 15 at 3pm US Central Time (GMT-6) the Game Wisdom Podcast is hosting a live Q&A with Nox Archaist lead developer Mark Lemmert. 

JOIN OUR DISCORD SERVER

The backer community on Discord is a great place to ask questions or just talk about Nox Archaist with other players. Click this link to join.

NOX ARCHAIST MERCH

Looking for a holiday gift idea?

Items with Nox Archaist game art are available through Willy’s, including t-shirts, coffee mugs, bags, and posters, including some with Denis Loubet’s cover art! (NEW!)

GAME TRAILER

Check out our updated game trailer!

Nox Archaist Merchandize

Merchandising! 

Merchandising! 

Just in time for the holidays, we now have a variety of items with game artwork available through Willy's!

Nox Archaist, the T-Shirt

            

   Nox Archaist, the Coffee Mug

                                                
 

                                                                           Nox Archaist, the Poster

                

                                                                               Nox Archaist, the Bag

Maybe even some day, Nox Archaist the flamethrower!

SHOP AT WILLY'S

Good News Bad News

Good News

We have made excellent progress on testing and are extremely happy to announce that Nox Archaist is stable on Apple II emulators, as well as on real Apple //e, IIc, and IIgs hardware using hard drive emulators such as the BOOTI, Floppy Emu and CFFA3000.  The feedback on the game has been excellent and we’re really excited to get the game into your hands soon.  However, that leads us to the next part of our update.

Floppy Disk Issues

When we started more extensive testing with the floppy disk version, we discovered that there are subtle issues that cause the game to crash on some models of Apple II disk drives. (see Floppy Issue Technical Details below if you'd like to know more). We are reasonably confident that the issues are solvable. That said, there is a high degree of uncertainty on the timeframe for a fix. It could be a month to several months, or more.

Our original plan was to release all versions of the game (for emulators, hard drives, and floppy drives), at the same time. However, with the uncertainty regarding the floppy disk version, we’ve decided to take a different approach.

Choice for Physical-Edition Backers

Each backer who preordered a physical copy of the game will now have a choice of two options:

Option #1: Wait it Out

This will be the “default” choice if we don’t receive word from you. With this option, we will hold your boxed set until the floppy disk version is ready, and ship the entire game to you, complete with fully-playable floppy disks. You will still receive a link to download the hard disk and emulator version - see Game Release below.

Option #2: Early Shipment with Blank Floppies

With this option, as soon as the hard disk version of the game is ready, we will ship your complete boxed set with labeled (but blank) floppy disks. Once the floppy version is ready, we will email you the disk images which you can then transfer onto the floppy disks using instructions that we will provide. This option is only recommended for backers who don’t plan to use the floppy disks, or for backers who have experience with (a) notching floppy disks so they are writable on the back and (b) transferring disk images to floppy disks.

Option 2 is an opt-in choice, so only backers that specifically request this option will receive it. See Game Release below for the timeframe.

Physical-edition backers will receive an emailed survey asking which option they would prefer. As mentioned, if we do not hear a response, we will assume that you prefer Option #1 - Wait it Out.

Digital-only backers don’t need to make this decision and won’t receive a survey, as they will automatically receive their download as soon as the hard disk version of the game is ready for release.

Game Release

Our current estimate for Game Release & Early Shipment is December or January. The December date depends upon the turnaround time for the printing of the manual, which is slower than usual due to the pandemic. If it gets too late in December, we would wait to ship until after the holiday season to avoid the increased risk of lost packages.

Early Shipment would include all digital-only backers and those physical-edition backers who chose Option #2.

Moved and Changed Addresses?

If you have moved in the past year and preordered a physical boxed set, be sure to let us know your updated address.

 

We thank you for your patience and support!

-Mark Lemmert, Chris Torrence, and Jarrod Kailef

6502 Workshop

Floppy Disk Issue Technical Details

The Apple II disk I/O architecture is somewhat different from other 8-bit systems in that the disk controller is 100% software based. As a result, code running on the Apple CPU controls the movement of the disk drive arm rather than firmware on the drive itself.

Nox Archaist uses a different disk controller than was used in the 1980s, developed by one of our development team members for use in Nox Archaist and other Apple II games like Total Replay. By taking advantage of this new and advanced disk controller, Nox Archaist is a much larger game with better gameplay.

The floppy version of the disk controller, which is not yet used in any other games, causes Nox Archaist to intermittently crash. The time between crashes can be as short as 5 minutes and as long as 2 hours. The difference appears to be related to the model of floppy disk drives.

The root cause of the crash is likely to be a timing problem. Each floppy drive model takes a slightly different amount of time to move the floppy drive arm. The software disk controller has to compensate for that and “wait” a sufficient number of CPU clock cycles for the drive arm to be in the correct position to read or write the desired data. This "wait" time needs to be fine tuned so that it works on all floppy drive models.

During Nox Archaist development we tested the floppy disk controller many times and it appeared to be working fine on different floppy drives. However, our early tests were constrained by the limited game content available. In addition, although we used several different drive models, the timing differences between other drive models were more significant than we anticipated. For these reasons, we did not detect the problem until recently, when we expanded the number of testers and floppy drive models.

The Haunted Pass

Adventurer's Log

Day 24: Well, the Haunted Pass did indeed turn out to be a shortcut. To death, that is. Grognard the dwarf fighter fell in battle once again, this time fighting hordes of undead. We beat a hasty retreat into the woods, where we stumbled upon a peaceful town. Nox Aetros continues to remind us that we're supposed to be investigating some sort of mysterious cult. Perhaps tomorrow.

Day 25: We're back in Bayport. It turns out there wasn't a healer in the woods. At one point we stumbled upon some old friends and had a great conversation. But alas, no one there knew anything about raising the dead. 

Bayport - Civilization, of a sort

Day 26: We bought a ship! None of us actually know anything about sailing, but Phyrra claims to have had a cousin who was in a boat once, so that's good enough for us. We're currently sailing along in a caravel, off to visit the islands.

Day 30: I think we might be lost at sea. At one point we fought off a pirate ship, the scurvy knaves. Then the sharks chased us right into a thunderstorm. Poor Phyrra tried to duck but, alas, a bolt of lightning got her. I see an island ahead, we'll head for it.

Day 31: I think we've found something. A cave near the beach. Bridgit found lots of footprints near the entrance, and she even found a discarded robe. The cultists for sure! Nox Aetros is busy preparing his spells, while Grognard gathers our torches and lockpicks. We'll enter the cave after nightfall. Hopefully everyone will be asleep by then and we can surprise them!

Tester's Log

Our update for September is short and sweet because we are in full crunch mode, working hard testing, tweaking, and polishing to make Nox Archaist the game we've all been waiting for! In the last month we've done 9 patch releases, addressed 177 issues, and made 347 commits to the code repository. Our beta testers have been playing the latest release for several days now, with no major bugs. Still, we know that we have a ways to go. We have people going through all of the game dialogue (over 4600 lines of it!), and others are testing the quests to make sure they're consistent and solvable, while still other are testing the combat module.

Chris Torrence finishes up the Wax Seals on the 400+ Writs from the Queen

As we promised last month, we have an update on a target release date.  We're shooting for late November. The feedback we've received from backers has been very positive and has unanimously encouraged us to focus on quality rather than rushing something out the door, so with that in mind, we may need to make further adjustments to the target date.

As always, we will keep you informed.

We hope everyone is staying safe and well.

-Mark and the 6502 Workshop Team
Website - http://www.6502workshop.com
Discord - http://discord.noxarchaist.com
Twitter - @6502Workshop
Forums - http://forums.noxarchaist.com
Facebook - http://facebook.noxarchaist.com
Kickstarter - http://kickstarter.noxarchaist.com

Our Heroes Make Progress in a Cruel, Unforgiving Land

Adventurer's Log

Day 20: We bid farewell to our companion, the dwarf fighter Grognard. He fell to the swamp dwellers, pulled down to a watery grave. We'll bring his axe and shield to Ghrodwir, the mountainous home of the dwarves of Wynmar. We heard they make better ale than even the Captain's Quarters pub, so we'll raise a toast to our friend as well. (In addition to being an awesome pub in Nox Archaist, Captains Quarter's is a fun BBS run on an Apple II computer, accessible by telnet)

                                                          Swamp Dweller (Robert Gomez)

Later that evening: After resting and regaining some of our strength and magic, we continued our journey. To save time, we took the coast road. Alas, that proved to be a mistake. The pretty brig that sailed up alongside turned out to be a pirate ship! Poor Thomas - his leather helm was no match for the cannon fire. Another companion gone. We'll bring his body with us, in the hopes of finding a healer.

Day 21: We reached Bayport a little after midnight. The guards glared at us as we approached. Fortunately our writ from Queen Isa made quite an impression and we were permitted entry to this busting port city. We discretely asked around the docks to find out what is going on with the pirates. It turns out that loitering around the docks of Bayport at midnight is not a good idea. Down went Phyrra with a knife in her back. More gold to the healer. Our porters are starting to grumble from carrying the bodies.

Pirates! (Gordon Mackay)

Day 22: Good news! Thomas, Phyrra, and even Grognard are back, as good as new! The healer in Bayport was most kind, although she declined to give us a group discount on resurrection. After a day of rest we'll head back out. We have heard tell of a Haunted Pass through the mountains that promises to be a shortcut to our next destination.

Tester's Log

Earlier this month, Nox Archaist entered the playtesting phase. An intrepid team of sixteen volunteers from our community answered the call, and are working hard to put the game through its paces. So far most of the identified bugs have been minor, such as text corrections and user interface changes. The team also uncovered a few significant hidden bugs as well which we are glad to have behind us!

While we're making excellent progress, there's quite a lot of content to test in Nox Archaist. Our initial estimates are that Nox will have available up to 100+ hours of quests and side quests!  Performing a thorough test is quite an epic undertaking! We expect to need at least one more month of testing to make sure the remaining game content is carefully evaluated for issues.

We know how excited everyone is to finally get their hands on Nox Archaist, and we're happy to announce that we are definitely in the home stretch. By the end of September when we do our next update, we will have a much better idea of the timeline for finally releasing the game to you all! There's a lot of logistics involved in the physical release. For example, we want to wait to print the physical game manual until testing is done, since the content or screenshots might change based on what happens during the testing phase. Plus of course there's the nearly four thousand floppy disk sides that we can't start copying until we know the bugs are squashed. (In case you were wondering, as excited as we are about releasing the game, the team is not exactly on the edge of our seats with joyful anticipation as we near the floppy disk copying phase of this project)  ;-)

Hundreds of boxes and thousands of floppies...

More Testers Wanted

Are you interested in helping us test Nox Archaist? We are recruiting additional testers now. If you are interested and can dedicate the time, please email mark<at>6502workshop.com.

Virtual KansasFest Recap

If you missed our Nox Archaist talk at Virtual KansasFest 2020, you can watch the live stream on the KansasFest YouTube channel.

Moved and Changed Addresses?

If you have moved in the past year and are getting a boxed set, be sure to confirm your address is correct in the Backer Survey:

For changes within the same country: Log into Kickstarter, click on your name in the upper right and navigate to the Nox Archaist kickstarter page. Click "View Survey" and then "Edit Address". You can also change your address in your Kickstarter profile and select "Apply to all" projects.

If you have moved to a different country: You must send us your new address "manually" (changing your main Kickstarter profile address will not update your Nox address). You can send a message by clicking on the "Messages" tab in the "View Survey" window.

As always, we'd love to hear your comments and thoughts!

-Mark, Chris, Jarrod, and the 6502 Workshop team

Website - http://www.6502workshop.com
Discord - http://discord.noxarchaist.com

Twitter - @6502Workshop

Forums - http://forums.noxarchaist.com

Facebook - http://facebook.noxarchaist.com
Kickstarter - http://kickstarter.noxarchaist.com