TX RTS Kit, IMGDC Updates
by Jonathon Stevens · 12/23/2008 (6:51 pm) · 3 comments
Hey Everyone. It's been a busy year for Last Straw Productions and I'm happy to say 2009 is looking to be an even busier year. We've now completed a couple contracts for virtual world/MMOG development projects and have a few more bids in on a few more projects that would start early 2009.
I wanted to give everyone a quick update on a few things going on at LS and since I haven't posted a blog in quite some time, thought now was the time.
We had to shelve the TorqueX RTS Kit to work on paying gigs, but I'm happy to report we've pulled it back off the shelf and it'll stay that way until the 2D version is completed and possibly until the 3D version is completed shortly after. We are around 90% feature-complete and should have something ready for open beta by the end of February.
The Indie MMO Game Developers Conference is coming along nicely and we've got a pretty incredible line up of speakers again. We've moved the show to Las Vegas to be more accessible and the response has been fantastic. We're announcing keynote speakers after the new year, but one of the keynotes will be led by a woman who was named one of the most influential in the entire industry recently, so needless to say, it's going to be another spectacular year. If you want more information, please visit the IMGDC website: www.imgdc.com
Simian Escape is in a review stage at Microsoft to become (last I checked anyway) the first TorqueX game published fully on XBLA. This is very exciting to us and we're working diligently to get the issues worked out to make this happen.
Fowl Prowl is still in a limbo state as we just haven't had enough resources to devote time to it, and probably will stay that way for the foreseeable future. It really is a fun little game so we hope to circle back around to it as we get closer to the middle of the year.
Forbidden Dawn development has resumed again and we've been making some huge progress. The entire world history has been revamped and written with a lot more detail to support consistent story lines as we move forward. The design documents (we have about 6 - 8 design docs, around 50 - 100 pages each) are all completed and the entire game design has been mapped out on paper. We will be cutting features and design specs as we go into development, but we have an incredible base to work from.
We've got a team of around 12 which will be growing to over 15 in the next 2 weeks working diligently on the foundations of the game. We've chosen to write the entire MMOG in C# and will either be using TorqueX as a client and rolling our own server or will be using a C#/XNA game engine that already exists. We're evaluating our options at the moment and will be making a decision just after the new year.
Last Straw Productions has grown it's infrastructure from a hosted subversion server online and no bug/ticket/time tracking at all to having it's own web, sharepoint, subversion, and project servers hosted internally at the company. We're transitioning to project server just after the new year to complete our infrastructure upgrade. We're now a fully virtual game development studio with around 20 total employees. We're still looking for people interested in breaking into the industry who want to join our 3-month internship programs in the areas of art, sound or programming. For information, please email jonathon@last-straw-games.com.
I wanted to give everyone a quick update on a few things going on at LS and since I haven't posted a blog in quite some time, thought now was the time.
We had to shelve the TorqueX RTS Kit to work on paying gigs, but I'm happy to report we've pulled it back off the shelf and it'll stay that way until the 2D version is completed and possibly until the 3D version is completed shortly after. We are around 90% feature-complete and should have something ready for open beta by the end of February.
The Indie MMO Game Developers Conference is coming along nicely and we've got a pretty incredible line up of speakers again. We've moved the show to Las Vegas to be more accessible and the response has been fantastic. We're announcing keynote speakers after the new year, but one of the keynotes will be led by a woman who was named one of the most influential in the entire industry recently, so needless to say, it's going to be another spectacular year. If you want more information, please visit the IMGDC website: www.imgdc.com
Simian Escape is in a review stage at Microsoft to become (last I checked anyway) the first TorqueX game published fully on XBLA. This is very exciting to us and we're working diligently to get the issues worked out to make this happen.
Fowl Prowl is still in a limbo state as we just haven't had enough resources to devote time to it, and probably will stay that way for the foreseeable future. It really is a fun little game so we hope to circle back around to it as we get closer to the middle of the year.
Forbidden Dawn development has resumed again and we've been making some huge progress. The entire world history has been revamped and written with a lot more detail to support consistent story lines as we move forward. The design documents (we have about 6 - 8 design docs, around 50 - 100 pages each) are all completed and the entire game design has been mapped out on paper. We will be cutting features and design specs as we go into development, but we have an incredible base to work from.
We've got a team of around 12 which will be growing to over 15 in the next 2 weeks working diligently on the foundations of the game. We've chosen to write the entire MMOG in C# and will either be using TorqueX as a client and rolling our own server or will be using a C#/XNA game engine that already exists. We're evaluating our options at the moment and will be making a decision just after the new year.
Last Straw Productions has grown it's infrastructure from a hosted subversion server online and no bug/ticket/time tracking at all to having it's own web, sharepoint, subversion, and project servers hosted internally at the company. We're transitioning to project server just after the new year to complete our infrastructure upgrade. We're now a fully virtual game development studio with around 20 total employees. We're still looking for people interested in breaking into the industry who want to join our 3-month internship programs in the areas of art, sound or programming. For information, please email jonathon@last-straw-games.com.
About the author
Torque 3D Owner Josef Rogovsky
I'll be one of the first in line to check it out.