Steam Crossworld completely messed up

[malcolmm]

I've had it with Steam. Sure, I got Crossworlds for $10, I would rather have paid the full price at Gamers Gate. Unfortunately, I had no choice as I already had Armored Princess from Steam.

When I started Steam this evening, it downloaded something for Crossworlds. I then launched Crossworlds and saw a completely different main interface than a friend who also had it. My main screen only says Armored Princess, the background never changes. There are no buttons down the left side of the screen, only a crude looking popup on bottom right side.

Since it looked like the wrong version, I validated my files. Steam reported about 30 bad files, and automatically started a much larger download. Now, when I click on either Armored Princess or Crossworlds I get a message that says "This game is currently unavailable".

I'm not sure if this is Steams fault or the developers, but I would guess it is Steam

[Zhuangzi]

Yeah, it does seem like Steam have messed this release up in a number of ways. Really, they aren't worth using if you can help it. I trust Gamersgate far more. Read City Builder's other threads hereabouts for some info on the automatic update business.

[malcolmm]

I think I figured out what happened, and I got it working again.

I deleted the local content of both Armored Princess and Crossworlds. I then downloaded AP again, and after that Crossworlds. It is now back to working fine, with the correct main screen. Where the heck did that other main screen come from?

I believe that my problems were caused by using the verify integrity of game cache option in Steam. It flagged lots of files as bad, and I was never able to get either AP or Crossworlds working after that.

Crossworlds looks like lots of fun. Very tough, which is a nice change.

[Aesir]

Unlike any other game + expansion in Steam's catalogue (that I'm aware of), AP and CW share the same ..\steamapps folder structure. Verifying the integrity of game cache files (GCF) is a sure way to break both games at the moment.

If anyone wants to play just Crossworlds and do not ever intend to run AP again, you can fix any issue as follows:

Install AP, verify GCF.
Install Crossworlds, and (to be certain) verify GCF.

Play only Crossworlds from this point and you should be fine.

If you launch AP and/or have received an auto-update from Steam for AP, crossworld will be broken again.