Check out our beautiful new wallpaper image design by our artist Jen Zee, something we cooked up in preparation for PAX East. We have it in 1920x1080 and 1680x1050.

If you study this image closely it will give you an impression of some of the different places you'll go in this new world of ours.

We knew this month was going to be crazy so at least it's all gone according to plan. We are in the thick of things over at Supergiant HQ, and here are the highlights: Bastion @ PAX East: It’s pretty much official, we’re going to PAX East. After the awesomeness of PAX Prime in September, how could we resist? Besides, all you folks on the east side of the nation haven’t yet had a chance to play Bastion, but soon you’ll be able to fix that. What’s more, we’ll have a little present for you for your trouble -- the official Bastion team bandana. There’s something special about this bandana that we’ll reveal closer to the event, but for now, check out this bad camera-phone photo of one of our early comps for the bandana. The final version will be brighter red.

New Web site: Check out our fresh new coat of paint! This new format is meant to put Bastion front and center, let us update more frequently, and provide easier access to our presence on Twitter and Facebook since that's where we post daily updates. We hope you enjoy the new site, and in honor of the occasion, we've got a new Bastion wallpaper that Jen cooked up (available in 1920x1080 and 1650x1050. Set-as-Background this sucker! We're Alpha (just about): At the end of this week Bastion will be content-complete. That means every environment, every story moment, all our RPG systems, and all our thousands of lines of reactive narration will be implemented, and that the whole thing's playable start to finish. We've pushed hard to get to this point, but to be clear, we're far from finished, because now we change gears and start tuning and polishing the holy hell out of the thing until it's as close to perfect as we can get. Then we’ll let it out the gate this summer. Stay tuned for an official announcement about that before long.

Bastion @ GDC: The Independent Games Festival is right around the corner, and we’ll be showing Bastion at GDC as part of the IGF pavilion. If you’re going to the show, please stop by and say hello.

We're still working away like mad for the moment so 'scuse me while we get back to it. Thanks as always for keeping up with us,

-- GregK

We're very happy to announce that Andrew Wang has joined Supergiant Games. Just like that, we've increased our engineering bandwidth by a whopping 100%! As our chief technology officer, Andrew's primary role will be to make Bastion and any other game we make run beautifully on every platform we want to be on. He's well acquainted with coding at such depths thanks to his years spent working at Infinity Ward, on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and its sequel.

Making the leap from developing some of the all-time-biggest blockbuster games to developing a small independent game where an old man talks at you the whole time may not sound like an obvious career choice. But then again, most of us at Supergiant Games come from a background of working on big franchises for big publishers, so we're kindred spirits that way. The difference is... dude Modern Warfare is AWESOME!!! WHY WOULD YOU LEAVE??!

Not that we're complaining. Like the rest of us, Andrew's been playing games practically for as long as he can remember, and his favorites include PC classics like Sid Meier's Civilization, Warcraft II, and Counter-Strike. Born and raised in Boston, Andrew graduated from MIT with a master's in computer science and electrical engineering, which is to say, He Is Smart. And he is worldly! From teaching computer science in China to volunteering at an orphanage in Morocco, Andrew's done much more than his killer monitor tan. Once all that philanthropy was out of his system, Andrew decided to get into game development. He and Amir met years ago in Purgatory, aka Orlando FL, where they were both just getting started with their game industry internships, and later shared an apartment in LA while working for gaming's two biggest megapublishers. It's great to be under the same roof again.

You can get to know Andrew better by checking out his newly launched blog, Coder Optimizations. There he puts it all pretty succinctly: And besides, Andrew says it best: "...in college, making games was just a bunch of close friends working hard, working fast, and making fun. It’s what got me hooked on programming and making games in the first place. So I’m returning to my roots." Also he just might make a cameo appearance in our live show on GiantBomb.com on Friday, January 28. Welcome, Andrew!

Last month we figured we'd be in for a busy and exciting 2011, and based on how January's gone down, we ain't disappointed. It's been a whirlwind last few weeks as we drive toward finishing Bastion and doing everything possible to make sure it makes a big splash when the game arrives this summer. Here's the lowdown about what's new with us these days:

Friday the 28th: Watch Us Live on Giant Bomb The next installment of Building the Bastion will be live on GiantBomb.com on Friday, January 28 at 3:30pm PST, so be sure to tune in. (Edit: Show's over! Watch it on demand right here.) This time around you'll see and hear much more about how we create our reactive narration for the game, and we'll be showing some of the very first examples of it implemented almost a year ago. You'll also get to see how the game's art style evolved from the crude prototypes we've shown in the past, into something closer to looking like a normal game – not that that was good enough for us. We'll be taking questions from viewers so be sure to chime in if you want to know about any aspect of how we're making this game.

Have We Mentioned We're IGF Finalists? Very few independent games are chosen as finalists in the annual Independent Games Festival, and fewer still are honored with nominations in more than one category. So you can imagine we were thrilled to learn we got the nod in the categories of Excellence in Visual Arts and Excellence in Audio. In addition to all the things we're doing to make the game a great-feeling, responsive, exciting play experience from moment to moment, we're doing everything we can to make the world of Bastion deep and interesting, filled with rich and meaningful detail – so to be recognized by the IGF judges for the work we've done thus far on the visuals and audio of the game is a real honor. Keep your fingers crossed for us come Wednesday, March 2 when the winners of the IGF will be announced during the live awards ceremony. And by the way, us getting nominated in the IGF means...

We're Going to GDC If you're planning on going to the Game Developers Conference, please come visit us in the IGF pavilion during show hours, where we'll have a playable build of Bastion for you to check out. GDC has long been an exciting and inspiring show for us so it's very exciting to get to go to it in this capacity.

Bastion Development Update The next few months will be critical for us, but so far so good. We're about a month away from our next major internal milestone, at which all our game content will be intact and the entire game will be playable from start to finish. We're very close already, just building out some of the final areas of the game, as we've been building it out sequentially. Gavin is pretty much there from an engineering standpoint and will be polishing the game from here on out (we polish as we go anyway and now it'll happen even faster), while Jen, Amir, and I are pushing forward with the remainder of the content. Meanwhile Darren and Logan are plenty occupied with all the new voiceover, sounds, and music going into the game. We've got a lot of hard work ahead of us still, though day by day, all the pieces are falling into place according to plan, to ensure we can release the game right when we want to. We'll keep you posted on any official announcements.

And That's Not All! We have an exciting bit of news to share about our studio coming this Friday, so check back again in the next day. I keep wanting to make a "care package inbound" joke – you'll know what I mean tomorrow. Still more cool stuff brewing beyond that. Thanks for keeping tabs on us!

-- GregK

What an amazing way to start a new year. This morning we were thrilled to learn that Bastion is a finalist in the 2011 Independent Games Festival in the categories of Excellence in Visual Art and Excellence in Audio. Congratulations to all the other finalists and honorable mentions -- IGF finalists and winners are deterimined by a distinguished panel of judges from the independent game development community, and earning their recognition is a real honor considering all the many outstanding games they evaluate as part of the process.

We're happy to see that the work we've done so far on Bastion's presentation has struck a chord, as the game's audio and visuals are so key to creating the atmosphere and world. All the more reason for us to keep on pushing as hard as we can on these fronts and in all our areas of focus. Now then, it's back to work for us!

Here's to a great 2011. Thanks again to all of you who are already excited about what we're doing. Next year we will do everything we can to make it up to you.

That's us up there, from left to right: Logan Cunningham, Darren Korb, Amir Rao, Jen Zee, Gavin Simon, and Greg Kasavin.

As the year draws to a close, we're steeling ourselves for what promises to be an even more exciting 2011 for all of us at Supergiant Games. For now let me give you a quick update about what we've been up to and how our game's coming along.

Bastion named a Top-5 Best Upcoming Indie of 2010 in Indie DB's Editors' Choice Awards: This was awesome. Out of all the independent games now in development (that have been announced), Indie DB's editors named Bastion one of the five most promising ones. We're humbled to be mentioned in the same breath as games like Fez, Overgrowth, Dustforce, and of course Monaco.

Bastion in the news: Also check out new previews of our latest build on GameSpot, G4TV.com, and even Multiplayer.it for all you Italian speakers out there. They've all had great things to say about how we're doing so far. Plus you can check out new interviews with some of us on Dead Pixel Live and Big Download, with still more coming soon. There's always a lot we want to say and show about our process and about our game, though of course there's much more we intend never to show or talk about when it comes to the game content itself, since we don't want to spoil it.

Bastion development update: Right now we're putting the finishing touches on the last remaining game systems, including some of the later structures you'll gain access to and creatures you'll encounter, and forging ahead on the last third-or-so of the game's content. Darren's recently composed a bunch of great new music and Logan's delivered an awesome performance on hundreds of new lines of narration we've since plugged into the game, so the game content has been growing at a good clip.

At the beginning of January, we're planning to hunker down and polish up everything we've built in recent weeks, and stitch it all together, since our development process involves keeping the game in a stable, shippable state at all times. These kinds of milestones are intense, as the whole game feels like it levels up noticeably in the space of a week or so.

We're not too far from being content-complete, after which we intend to spend months polishing everything up well in time for our planned release date in the summer of next year. When we squint, we can see what looks like it might be the light at the end of the tunnel, not that we want out of this tunnel anytime soon since it's cool in here.

New screens of new areas: Just posted in a separate update, we've got images of two new areas from the game, the Workmen Ward and the Hanging Gardens. These are 100-percent-jen-u-wine screens taken from our real levels at our native full-HD resolution.

Happy Holidays! Also just wanted to wish you all a happy holiday and best wishes for the New Year, since our next update here will be in January.

It's been an amazing year for us and for Bastion, and we have you guys to thank for a good part of it. When we talk to publishers and platform holders who can get our game onto console platforms like XBLA and PSN, they don't need to take it from us that Bastion has the potential to be something special, they need only look at what everyone else is saying about it. That's been incredibly helpful, and so is the sense that what we really need to do with this game is overdeliver on the positive first impression it's created in people. We're lucky we get to work on something like this and we're going to do everything in our power to make the most of it. Glad you could join us for the ride.

-- GregK

To commemorate reaching more than a thousand followers on Twitter, or maybe by sheer coincidence, we're releasing two new images of some of the environments from Bastion's first chapter. Click for full-size and read on for more details.

Hardly anyone had ever heard of Supergiant Games until we announced Bastion just a few months ago. We wanted to take a moment to thank you for supporting us -- I mean, we haven't even released a game yet so we hardly deserve it. We're better off for it, that's for sure. One of the many important aspects of independent game development is having the courage of one's convictions to keep pushing in directions that may not be proven or obvious, and having that courage all the time is easier knowing lots of people out there are interested in what we're making here. We'll continue doing everything in our power to make sure the game lives up to all the promise you see in it, and then some. For now, here's a look at two new locations:

Top - The Workmen Ward: Even the industrial areas of the City of Caelondia were pristine, thanks to the windbags working the Workmen Ward. This is one of the first areas you'll visit in Bastion, and it's the first time the game starts to open up a lot more in terms of where you can go. You'll learn more about the windbags and why they're being none too social these days. Also here you can see the Kid wielding the War Machete, a weapon that's faster and in some ways even more versatile than his trusty Cael Hammer.

Bottom - The Hanging Gardens: The Hanging Gardens used to be one of Caelondia's most popular recreation areas, with its stunning views and colorful flora. But that was before the Calamity. Here we begin to learn more about the impact of what happened. As you can see the area contrasts sharply with a place like the Workmen Ward, though the areas are in relatively close proximity. Imagine where we're going to take you from there...

By the way, we promise not to spoil any aspects of Bastion's story when showing you these glimpses of the game. Let us know what you think!

-- GregK

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who tuned in for the live show! In case you missed it, you can watch the episode on-demand right here. Witness the surpassing luxury of our workplace!

Be sure to tune in to GiantBomb.com today at 3:30pm Pacific and join Amir, Gavin, Jen, and Greg for the next installment of Building the Bastion, in which our team will take you behind the scenes of the game we're working on and provide a rare glimpse into the world of game development.

This time around we'll be showing the earliest version of Bastion's story-driven campaign, back when it was basically stick figures, text screens, and scanned D&D monsters. Then we'll be showing you a much more recent build, including a first look at a never-before-scene level and our overworld map. Let us know what you think after the show!

Also in case you missed it, Greg gave a live demo of Bastion's prologue earlier this week on GameSpot, so check it out if you want to see the latest version of the game's opening sequence.

We're in the thick of production on the game, building lots of new environments, creatures, weapons, challenges, and stories. Here's a quick glimpse at some of the new encounters we have in store. These are two never-before-released full-HD screenshots taken straight from our custom game engine.

Top Screenshot: If you've been following the game, you've probably seen the Kid pounding away at foes and obstacles alike using the mighty Cael Hammer he once used as a construction tool. The shot on the left is a first look at one of the other melee weapons in the gane, the War Machete. It's much quicker than the hammer and can also be thrown so it doubles as a ranged weapon in a pinch!

Bottom Screenshot: This second shot shows the Sundown Path, one of the more precarious environments early on in the game. You'll have to watch your step throughout Bastion, but even more so than usual in this deceptively pretty-looking locale.

We've got plenty more where these came from. We'll never release screens containing spoilers though we'll be showing you more locations, weapons, and creatures in the months to come.