The Aurora Wager – Version 3

49 Replies

Here’s a sizable update to The Aurora Wager, bringing it up to version 3!

Please consider purchasing and or donating to Volo Airsport (our other game) to support development of both titles. Thanks, and enjoy!

Go to the Downloads Page to get the game!

Changelist

  • Fixed catastrophic wind bug near North Pole, it can now actually be reached
  • Wind is a lot more versatile
  • Intensity and direction vary more as you get closer to the North Pole* Makes navigation more interesting, and quite a bit harder
  • All physical objects are now affected by the wind. (Yes, even you!)
  • Balloon weights and aerodynamics have been tweaked
  • It now falls faster
  • Its ropes have less dampening to them
  • Burner rates and efficiencies have been tweaked
  • Small burner is slow but steady
  • Medium and big burn faster, at lower efficiencies
  • Can now lift off without having to hop
  • Added gauges
  • Vertical velocity
  • Balloon temperature
  • The opposite side of the gondola now also features these gauges
  • Held items are now displayed slightly more towards the center of the screen
  • Cloud layer death zone is now higher
  • Various low-level optimizations
  • Drag now respects rigidbody sleep velocity
  • Added application icon

Update 24-​​03-​​2012:

  • Fixed item spawn­ing on islands some­times being disabled
  • Sig­nif­i­cantly reduced amount of fuel in canisters
  • Fixed burner effects still play­ing when out of fuel

For those wondering what I’m doing working on this instead of Volo Airsport: Please try the game! There is considerable overlap in both the concepts (well, how I’ve planned them anyway), and in the technology that makes them tick. A lot of stuff is cross-compatible!

  • Willem

    I really like both of these games! Since they are so related and you seem to have split your time on them, do you think you will merge the games in some way?

    • Yeah, we are exploring that angle and think it’s very promising. 🙂

  • William C. DiGiacomo

    I was playing the new version 3 and ran into a problem. I found & installed the Grappling Hook, fired it at a hill not far away, and started reeling myself to it. After a bit of this the lines end point shot out to what seemed like infinity and the ride began to get bumpy. Shortly thereafter I was thrown from the gondola only to find that the Grappling Hook was still reeling in. No matter how I tried I couldn’t catch the gondola and get back in 🙁 Did I do something wrong here or did I find a bug? ThanX – DJ

    • Thanks William! Yeah, the grappler needs a bug-fix pass, will get to it this weekend.

  • Brother Phoenix

    Hey, there are times when I can’t light the small burner. I suppose my question is the same as William’s: am I doing something wrong or is this a bug? It will just be randomly that I can’t light it, and I don’t know why. Bit of a game ruiner when you descend into the airstream you were looking for, then descend all the way to death because you can’t light the burner to keep you aloft.

    • That is definitely a bug! Unless there is no fuel canister mounted in the compartment, or the fuel in the mounted canister is all used up, the burner should always work. Other than that, if you stand too far away from the burner will not let you use it (this needs improvement).

      What exactly happens? Do you still hear the whoosh of a flame igniting and then dying, or do you just hear the click?

      Will try to replicate this.

  • Sam

    Really enjoying this! However, when I look at those islands slowly approaching out of the fog (and think of the roguelike origins of the game) I imagine how exciting it would be to see a few animals (dangerous or not) roaming around. Any plans?

    Also wondering: Approximately how long should it take to reach the North Pole?

    Thanks for your work!

  • Dr.Arielpro

    I Cant Sprint For Some Reason, Some One Can Help Me?

    • To everyone experiencing this issue: It’s a bug, which I’ve now tracked down I think! The next version will fix it for you hopefully.

  • Dr.Arielpro

    Im Moving So Slow! Like A Snail

    • same

      • Budehgong

        Me too, like there was some kind of really heavy gravity especially for me.
        I also got some major pushback in while in the air.
        In the end my game crashed, so where would you like the crash report sent to?

  • Omnifade

    Will developmental be continuing for this game

  • James

    every time i download this it is downloaded as a word document, how do i fix this

    • Strange! Have you tried forcing it to open with another application? With something like right-click -> open-with. Alternatively you can first open your unzip application (like the free and open source 7-Zip) and open the file from that.

  • NyanStar

    Grr, I cant launch the game. It just says “TheAuroraWager_Data folder should be next to the executable”. That folder is there, next to it. I tried moving the exe. inside the data folder but it still has an error.

    • got the same problem

    • Which unzip utility did you use to extract the files?

  • crashtestbill

    Im not good with this kind of download, can anyone give me a how-to on this plase?

    • Vaan

      what i did was i created a new folder on my desktop to hold the data, extracted all three items out of the .rar file into that folder, then created a shortcut to the “TheAuroraWager” file and dragged that to my desktop to run the game with

  • Jackson

    Help plz I can’t download it it refuses to let me on the ramjetanvil site and on mediafire HELP!!!!

    • I also have a torrent link up, have you ever used that before? I’m also trying to figure out what could be causing the ramjetanvil links not to work for you. What browser are you using?

      • Jackson

        I figured out why it wouldnt let me on the ramjetanvil site (just me being dumb) but it will only let me download the torrent nothing else and I cant figure out what program to open it with and now i tried some default programs and it keeps being opened by windows media player and then shuts off I have also been using Firefox

  • MBlanchard

    Tried to play it on Ubuntu 12.10 game crashes when loading does anybody know the dependencies to make it run in linux

    • Sorry about that! I haven’t tested rigorously on Linux, and am unsure of the required dependencies. I’ll look into it!

      • Koso2032

        Same error here, here is the message if it helps; I’m running Ubuntu 13.04 (Sorry replied to wrong thread)

        koso2032@koso-CM673:~$ ‘/home/koso2032/Downloads/TheAuroraWager’
        /home/koso2032/Downloads/TheAuroraWager: error while loading shared libraries: libGLU.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

  • Www

    I still find my self occasionally having to jump in order to lift off.

    • Thanks, noticed that too. Very peculiar thing going on there, where it can seem like the gondola is stuck to the floor.

      • Koso2032

        Same error here, here is the message if it helps; I’m running Ubuntu 13.04

        koso2032@koso-CM673:~$ ‘/home/koso2032/Downloads/TheAuroraWager’
        /home/koso2032/Downloads/TheAuroraWager: error while loading shared libraries: libGLU.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

  • NSminecraft

    I managed to play the game two or three times, dying each time 😀 Now when I start the app it crashes immediately. I am running it on a mac. Any advice would be appreciated. Other than that, thanks for an amazing game, I love it!

  • Jack1788

    For some reason the game will not start. I’ve tried everything I can. I’ve uninstalled and re-installed, but it just won’t start.

  • StarKeep

    I had an… interesting bug earlier.

    If you managed to get a hookgun, attach it to one of the bottom mounts, and aim it strait up. After a few tries, it can, and will, attach to the ship itself.

    Now, the major part of this, is if you do this multiple times, the claw will grow in size, and continue growing in size, until it’s so big, it hits the ship no-matter where you aim it. Attempting to remove the hookgun, and trying to place it down, results in a crash.

    A suggestion, also, would to include like a mini-hook that you spawn with. With a range of like 20 or something, so that you aren’t screwed if the first 3 islands are super hilly, and the wind decides, “Welp! You see that strait clearing on that island up ahead? I’ll go ahead and turn right, making you crash into that mountain.”

    While I do understand difficulty is important in a game with rogue-like elements, and I do play a couple different ones like that, without a hook on an early island, landing becomes such a luck-based endeavor, I just restart, and attempt to get an early flat-island, with some goodies on it.

    • I just reproduced this and will fix it. 🙂

  • Luke M.

    It gives me a 404 when I try to open any of the links.

  • Bloody

    “* Fixed catastrophic wind bug near North Pole, it can now actually be reached”
    I sadly seem to either have that bug, or a new version of it, I just heard about the game and just got, got now for my 2nd time to the north pole (first one crashed shortly after seeing it for the first time) and I’m stuck in retarded winds that go back and forth between the pole and an island before it and then there’s that layer that I can’t get below, it’s almost like water.
    When I release all air from the ballon it still won’t go past that weird layer and instead I could even get it to tip over midair rather than starting to drop.

    Win 7 HP 64 for the case this only seems to show up with the win versions, if it shows up for anyone but me in the first place. It also doesn’t wanna save the settings for resolution and fullscreen, only the details get remembered O.o

  • Owl209

    I was wondering if maybe in the next update there could be a save feature, I find it a bit annoying that if I have to leave my computer or turn it off I have to restart. Other than that I think this a wonderful game!

    • Agree, save feature would be awesome.

  • TheDoctorFinder

    This is a very unique and fascinating game, Never in a game have I had to climb a mountain with 2 Hook launchers in a Hot Air Balloon while holding on for dear life. 😀
    I have some Ideas about what could be implemented.
    *Day/Night cycle with a lantern to light up our ship. (Night could make Landing harder? Or make the fog rise?)(Maybe a clock as a new device?)
    *More devices like measuring your height relative to the fog, current wind direction, damage?, etc.
    *Treasure finding device (Maybe make different types of it? For example : One that finds fuel. While another could find special items : Hook Launchers, Burners, etc.
    *Make fuel a bit more scarce, I found 3 Big (Green) fuel tanks on an island.
    *Volo air suit? (Find it on a random island, allows you to do what you expect)
    *Crates = Mountable storage devices? Maybe you can make it so you can store stuff inside

    Bug I found
    *The Hook Launcher grabbed an Island that was far away and pulled me towards it. My ship started to tip until I removed the hook.

    Great Game! And great idea!
    Keep up the great work!

  • Jan

    This is a really nice game to play relaxed and sitting back. I’m really enjoying it but I’d love my controller to work with it. I know you can program it but that only reacts to buttons not to the joysticks.

  • Connor

    how do you use the grappling hook.

  • x-ray

    how do i save or cant you save cuse i cant play more then 10-15 mins and i found some good stuff and then when i went off and come back in again it resets… pls make a saving thing (if it isnt eny in the game)

  • x-ray

    cuse i REALY love this game its wonderfull its the game i always have wished for 😀

  • Dr.Arielpro

    When Version 4 Will Come Out?

  • Dr.Arielpro

    If The Bug Is On V3?

  • Joel Sweeney

    Hello, i played the game shortly after watching Nerd Cubed play it on YouTube.
    One feature i think that would be great are optional balloon models which have different features, speeds, weight, ect- and a steerable (yet still mostly effected by wind) steam-punk airship… that’d be cool
    an alternate world that has water instead of fog, and the mountains are replaced with mountainy islands

    But perhaps the greatest feature, 2 player, lan/internet where two players need to share and maintain the balloon together… making it both better, and harder, and or two players start nearby each other with two balloons, where they need to fly to the north pole in an attempt to beat the other player.

    I may donate if you decide to add multiplayer, i hope to see multiplayer at some stage
    -Joel Sweeney

  • Mavi

    I am totally in love with this game. I would love to see more updates and I will donate if I see that this game gets new updates 🙂 It’s really awesome, thanks for it! :3

  • Joel Sweeney

    yeah i agree, and multiplayer will TOTALLY be brilliant!!

  • Vaan

    alright something funky happened with the site(for me at least) and all the comments disappeared so im testing to see if commenting still works since they still havent piled up