Random Zeus Oddities
Any conquered city or colony is supposed to pay you an annual tribute, if their respect for you is high enough. This isn't always the case. In "Open Play Sandbox", for instance, there are two cities which should be paying tribute to your city, but never do, no matter how high you get in their respect - even if you hit the maximum. They will do all the usual things, such as honor your requests or aid you militarily, but they won't pay tribute. This is actually a mistake the designers made with this map - they forgot to set the button for these cities on the world map to "Pay Tribute".
March 3, 2008 7:02 PM Gweilo
SOLO Blog Debuts at HeavenGames!

"SOLO: Essays and Commentary on the Art of the Single Player Game" debuts at HeavenGames! This new, semi-regular column on the art and theory of designing single player games will highlight important issues in the development of games, asking challenging questions about the nature of gaming, whether games will ever meet the criteria for art, and offering practical pointers on how the best single player experiences are created by designers.

SOLO is written by Gordon Farrell, a long-time professional designer of single player campaigns for AAA games such as Empire Earth and Empires: Dawn of the Modern World. In addition, he has worked on strategy titles such as Caesar IV, Children of the Nile and BreakAway Games' Middle Eastern city builder, Arabian Lords. He is currently Lead Writer for Reverie World Studios' first game, Dawn of Fantasy, due for release in Fall 2008.

HGS regulars will recognize Gordon's work as a staple of our download sections, from games as diverse as Age of Empires and Caesar 3, to both Stronghold 1, Stronghold 2 and Age of Kings. In addition to his HGS mods, he has highly-rated Civilization 4 mods uploaded at CivFanatics as well.

Gordon is on the faculty of New York University, where he teaches narrative theory for video games, theory of screenwriting, and advanced studies in dramatic art. He also lectures at Marymount Manhattan College in video games, script analysis, and theatre history. In 2002, Prima Games published his essay, "The Theory of Scenario Design." His extensive professional and academic experience promises an exciting column filled with commentary on the art of games that will be both controversial and thought-provoking.


December 15, 2007 11:21 AM Gweilo
New Job Openings at HeavenGames!
With all of the changes at HeavenGames, several have opened up! A job at HeavenGames has great benefits in addition to the resume-building experience it offers, including:

  • Assistance in job/internship placement in the gaming industry.
  • Possible credit for those in university.
  • Personal websites (clouds) for all staff at no charge.
  • Possible access to game alphas/betas.

    The current job openings are:

  • Marketing/PR Department Head
  • Art Department Head
  • Graphics Designer
  • Website Designer
  • Programmer
  • HG Main News Editor

    Head to the the help wanted page for detailed job descriptions and please contact the CEO at socvazius@heavengames.com if you're interested in any of these positions!


    • October 10, 2007 6:59 PM Gweilo
    HeavenGames' Staff System: A Revamp
    Source: The HG Blog So now that things have been settled with HG's identity, it's time to go on to the fun stuff: the staff system! Woo!It's been discussed in a previous blog post that HeavenGames doesn't operate as efficiently as it could from a staff perspective. A lot of issues have already been dealt with in the past several months, but there are two substantial problems that must be taken care of. First, there is no effective way to ensure quality and consistency of work across all of our sites. Second, we do not have dedicated jobs in a number of support capacities, including marketing, sales,and the like.


    Revamped Staff System The owners have thus discussed the issue with the HeavenGames staff and have come up with the following system:

    As you can see, HeavenGames will still be run fundamentally the same: the Exco - chaired by the CEO - makes all of the network-wide administrative decisions andSeraphs work under the Exco as site administrators. What will be added to the system will be a Seraph Liaison and Support Departments. First, the Seraph Liaison...(Readmore!)


    September 22, 2007 9:36 AM Gweilo
    HeavenGames - A New Identity
    After considerable deliberation, the owners have decided that one major inhibiting factor for HeavenGames' prosperity is the simple fact that it doesn't have a clearly defined identity. It has always been a site about games, but that is far too vague for the development of any clear goals and the effective marketing of the site.


    We have thus discussed the issue with our staff and decided that we
    should make HeavenGames a site entirely geared towards community.

    At its core, HeavenGames always has been about building the best communities possible, so it only makes sense that we devote all of our resources to that service...(Read more!)


    February 13, 2007 7:27 AM Gweilo
    Zeus Decrees a Survey
    The years have passed, and the Mighty Zeus is pleased with the usage of the Downloads Section at his heaven. Nevertheless, he is curious how we feel about it, and has decreed a new survey to solicit feedback. We, as mere mortals, are obliged to comply. Show honor to Zeus by sparing a minute or two to participate in the download survey.


    January 24, 2007 9:00 AM Gweilo
    ZeusMapper is Now Available!

    The city of Atlantis minimap, as generated by ZeusMapper.

    Angel Pecunia has just released ZeusMapper. It is a small utility program to create PNG minimaps directly from Zeus scenarios (.pak), map files (.map) and saved games (.sav). The created images look exactly like the in-game minimap. For adventures, the colony maps are also viewable.

    ZeusMapper allows us to add an extra visual element to the saved cities that we share with the world-wide player community. Kudos to Pecunia for providing us with this capability!