We have returned safely from PAX in Seattle, which was an absolutely awesome event for us. In revealing Bastion in playable form at this show, we wanted to get the game into as many players' hands as possible so that they could experience it for themselves. The response was everything we could have hoped for. We were already fired up to keep pushing forward in the particular direction of our game, and now we're even more excited to build out the rest of it to the level that will live up to players' highest expectations as well as our own. To those of you who played the game at PAX, thank you so much for your vote of confidence. The looks on many of your faces as you played has validated all the work leading up to this point.

The hand-painted artwork, the real-time narration, and the tight responsive feel of the combat stood out to many of you. To get an impression of what the show was like for us, visit our Facebook page and view our PAX 2010 photo gallery. There we have images of players flocking to our booth area as well as some of the special guests who showed up looking to play what we've been working on. We demoed the game for three days straight, and both of our demo stations were full pretty much at all times. For those of you who waited patiently for a chance to play, we hope you enjoyed our delicious home-made Scumbag Cookies (which taste better than they sound).

So thanks again to everyone who made PAX such an outstanding show for us. All of us on team agreed that the show was among the greatest experiences in our professional careers. We're doing more than just hoping that this was a a sign of things to come: We will continue to do our absolute best to make Bastion live up to the potential that so many of you now have seen in it.

In addition to the incredible response we got from players, we were fortunate to receive a good amount of media coverage during the show. What follows is a list of all the coverage we've read – if we missed anybody, please let us know!

• 1UP.com • 4 Horsemen Studios • Astringent Gaming • Crude Pixel • Eurogamer • Destructoid • DIY Gamer • EGMi • G4TV • Game Guide World • Game Informer • Game Infomer [Hands-On] • Game Set Watch • Gay Gamer • Gamers With Jobs • Geek Span • GiantBomb • IGN • IndieGames.com • Indie Games Channel • Joystiq • Kotaku [Hands-On] • Kotaku [Announcement] • Machinima.com • Machinima.com [Best New IP at PAX] • PSN Stores • ScrawlFX • Talking Ship • Thought Soft 2g • Video Games AWESOME! • Video Games Blogger • Would You Kindly

We know PAX was a busy time for the gaming press, so we really appreciate that dozens of outlets took time out to cover the game. To all of you who gave us your time and attention at the show, we hope it was well worth your while.

You've seen the game. Now... experience the press release. But seriously, here's the official word on our first game. We're so excited to finally raise the curtain on what we've been working on! Even if you've been following us closely thus far, you'll want to read this for some exciting new details. Note: If you'd like a PDF copy of this announcement, you can download it here. For screenshots and our official trailer, check our media page.

. . . . FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Supergiant Games Unveils "Bastion", an Original Action Role-Playing Game 

Set in a lush imaginative world, the digitally-distributed title invites players to create and fight for civilization's last refuge as a mysterious narrator marks their every move. 

SAN JOSE, CA – September 2, 2010 – Supergiant Games, an independent start-up studio founded by ex-designers of the hit Command & Conquer franchise, announced today that it is developing Bastion for digital platforms. Featuring a unique interactive narrative style and hand-painted environments in dazzling full-HD, Bastion challenges players to build a new world from the broken remnants of the past. 

The goal of the game is to construct a safe haven in the wake of the Calamity, a cataclysmic event that shattered the world into a series of floating islands. As players journey into the wild unknown in search of survivors and supplies, they will confront strange beasts, forge an array of customizable weapons, and gain new powers from specially-brewed spirits. The entire play experience of Bastion is dynamically narrated, gradually revealing a rich backstory as the narrator reacts to the player's actions in real time. 

"Our goal with Bastion is to hit players' emotional chords in unexpected ways, in addition to delivering highly responsive gameplay that rewards finesse and experimentation," said game industry veteran Greg Kasavin, Supergiant Games' Creative Director. "We're pushing to make it so that players become absorbed in the game's distinctive setting and narrative tone from the first moments." 

Bastion will be shown in playable form at the PAX Prime event on September 3-5 in Seattle, where it is being featured among the PAX 10, an exclusive selection of the most promising upcoming independent games. "It's an honor to be selected for the PAX 10 from among all of the inspired and great-looking indie games currently in development," said Amir Rao, Co-founder of Supergiant Games. "We're very excited to show Bastion for the first time at PAX, where thousands of people will be able to get their hands on the game and see what makes it special." 

Bastion will also be featured in a new video series chronicling the making of the game, exclusively at GiantBomb.com, the world's largest editable video game database. In the ongoing series titled "Building the Bastion", viewers will receive unprecedented insight into the trials and tribulations of independent game development through the story of Supergiant Games. "People all over the world invest countless hours into playing video games, but so few of us ever get to truly find out how they're made," said Giant Bomb Editor-in-Chief Jeff Gerstmann. "With Building the Bastion, we're going let our community ride shotgun with a mix of behind-the-scenes footage and regular live broadcasts that let you interact directly with the developers as they take Bastion from early prototypes to a full and final product." 

Bastion is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2011. The game is not yet rated by the ESRB. For the latest information on the game, visit www.buildthebastion.com.  

. . .

Founded in 2009, Supergiant Games is a small independent developer with big ambitions: to make games that spark players' imaginations like the games they played as kids, while enabling them to share the experience with those they love. Prior to forming the company, the founders spent years working together in key design roles on successful, big-budget productions for major publishers, but walked away in order to take bolder creative risks crafting games for people who love gaming. Supergiant Games is headquartered in San Jose, CA. To learn more, visit www.supergiantgames.com. 

About Giant Bomb 

GiantBomb.com is a website about video games for people who love gaming. The site features the world's largest editable video games database, and is also the definitive source for gaming information, news, and reviews. Led by veteran games journalist Jeff Gerstmann, Giant Bomb's editorial team produces hours of original video each week and a regular podcast that reaches over 100,000 listeners each week. At the heart of Giant Bomb is its passionate community that contributes massive amounts of user-generated content and actively participates in site quests and forum discussions. Giant Bomb is a Whiskey Media property located in San Francisco, CA.

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We're very pleased to announce that Mr. Greg Kasavin joins us today as Creative Director. He'll be writing all the words you read and hear in our games, in addition to conjuring up our gameworlds, characters, and stories, among many other things. Greg is best known for his years working as Editor-in-Chief of GameSpot, though he's been quietly making a difference in game development since 2007.

Greg met Supergiant Games cofounders Amir and Gavin at EA LA, where they worked together on Command & Conquer 3 and Red Alert 3 and became fast friends. Now that they've reunited, their first act together again will be to drive for 14 hours to Seattle. PAX awaits!

Giant Bomb continues its pre-PAX coverage of Bastion with an exclusive reveal of our official trailer for the game, plus a brand-new slew of screenshots from the build we'll be showing later this week!

To coincide with this, we've just launched our Bastion Media Page, featuring our official trailer plus eight screenshots in full-HD glory. These screens are the real deal, taken straight out of the silky-smooth playable sequence we'll be letting people get their hands on at PAX.

So have a look at all this Bastion madness and if you're planning to go to PAX this week, be sure to come visit us to experience the game for yourself! There's still more news in store this week leading up to the big show, so keep your eyes peeled. And let us know what you think!

The good men at Giant Bomb ran a story on Bastion's forthcoming debut at PAX Prime this week: Exclusive Glimpse at a PAX 10 Selection. As you'll glean from the story, there's going to be lots more to come...! The article features a never-before-seen screenshot of the game. To the dude who posted the comment, "Wow, if that's a screenshot and not a mock-up, then I really want to see it in action!" -- we can confirm that's a 100% pure screenshot taken straight out of the game at its native full HD resolution, from the sequence we'll be showing at PAX. The game looks at least as good in action since it runs silky smooth! But now we're getting ahead of ourselves. Stay tuned!

We've been radio-silent in recent weeks but behind the scenes it's been a wild and exciting lead-up to the upcoming debut of our first game, Bastion. Our whole team's been heads-down putting the finishing touches on our first production level, which will be playable at PAX Prime starting Friday, September 3. So get ready for a slew of info about what we've been working on for the past year. We're so happy to get to unveil what we've been working on at a place like PAX, where people will get to experience it firsthand and tell us what they think. Expect lots more news from us this week, and if you're going to the show, be sure to drop by and visit us at the PAX 10 floorspace. Until then, we leave you with a small sample of one of the many scenes we've created for this game.

We're excited to announce that we got into the PAX10 and that we'll be at PAX Prime 2010 in September!  We'll join nine other independent games that were hand-picked by a panel of judges to be showcased at the event. We'll be revealing more information about our game leading up to PAX. We hope to see you guys there, so you can get hands-on with the game.

Thank you to the judges and Penny Arcade for selecting us!

We're super excited to welcome Jen Zee to Supergiant Games to be our artist! She joined us in June and came to us from Gaia Online. She's does all the hand-painted 2D art work in our game and 100% of the cosplaying that happens outside of our house.

Her talents include creating beautiful, lovingly crafted art and fighting Akumas. We're really lucky to have her!

I am trying to get her to play in my D&D campaign. I think she might also be a nerd, but I'm not sure yet. What do you guys think?

~ Amir

Our friend Greg Kasavin, who we worked with at EALA, has started an awesome blog about games and narrative featuring exactly the kind of  insight and wit that made him one of the sharpest developers we've ever designed with.  His most recent post covers video game villains,  the "bad guys who overcompensate for their flat desires with huge lifebars."

He covers notable bad guys from Bowser to Mike Tyson and even the garden-variety undead in Plants vs. Zombies about whom he observers "the zombies are sincerely hungry for brains -- you'd want to give them your brains if you didn't need them."

Is Mario the only game with an awesome jelly fish enemy?

This is all relevant because we've been thinking a lot about antagonism, antagonists and enemy design.  It's true - our game has enemies - you heard it here first.  I have learned from enough Will Wright talks that a lot of the best game designers take their inspiration from places outside of games.  With that in mind, and probably thinking too literally, I went to the "Extreme Mammals" exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences to comb mother nature for our very own set of goombas, zombies and cliff racers. They wouldn't let me take pictures inside so instead I ended up sketching pictures of improbable primates and prehistoric armadillos.

Speaking of inspired creature design, Max from Unknown Worlds - the guys working on Natural Selection 2 - played our game recently at Thirsty Bear in San Francisco.  Thanks again, Max!

GDC 2010 was our company debut and it went really well. We showed up with nothing but our game in a backpack and some cookies and ended up hitting the front page of Gamasutra, and previewing to lots of really insightful people including business luminaries like David Edery and Kim Pallister. We also got to show some really experienced game developers like Jake Kazdal (Zombie Studios's art director) and Bruce Straley (Uncharted II's game director).

[Not an actual game screen...pictured: Justin Hall, Kim Pallister and Austin Grossman]

Lots of our friends were around to check it out too, like Austin Grossman (Soon I Will Be Invincible) Bernie Yee (Cafe Mom), Amir Rahimi (Instant Action), Jim Vessella & Matt Ott (LucasArts), Darius Kazemi (Orbus Gameworks), John Graham (Wolfire Games), Ramiro Corbetta (Powerhead) and some people we hadn't met until the show like Justin Hall (ngmoco) and Peter Jones from Retro Affect.

We got lots of good feedback on the game and can't wait to show it to everyone!