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