I am very, very sorry to have to say that I am canceling Project Vega.

The bottom line is this: In my search to find a publisher, I have discovered that it is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible to find one willing to team up with us. From what I’ve read, I would basically have to a nearly complete game and/or have an established game company to have any hope of landing a publishing deal – in other words, to get funding from a publisher, I would have to be in a position in which I don’t need their funding. At the very least, I would have to have something that looks much, much better than what we have right now.

So what’s to stop me from just finishing this up and self-publishing it over Steam? Unfortunately, I can only do so much. I can only program, do the game design, and make crappy levels. I can’t model, animate, texture, make HUD graphics, write music, create sound effects, etc., all of which are absolutely critical to making a quality game. Unfortunately, getting outside help has proven time and time again that it simply will not work. People simply have other priorities (work, school, social lives, etc.) and cannot devote the time necessary to a project of this magnitude. Either I’m the worst manager in the world, or this model is simply doomed to failure. Maybe both.

I knew this would be tough from the beginning. But, I thought that any obstacles could be overcome with hard work and passion. I was wrong.

So, it is with a heavy heart that I am canceling this project. I’d like to thank all of the fans of this project – it’s good to know that there are others out there who are as sick and tired of modern shooters as I am. I’d also like to thank everyone who’s been a part of this project over the past two years. Without your support, there’s no way I could have gotten this far. Finally, I’d like to give a big thanks to Mechadon for designing and setting up the blog, and to WastedYouth for being there in the very beginning to help get the initial technology off the ground.

It’s been a pleasure knowing all of you, and I wish you all the very best of luck – I certainly wish you more luck than I’ve had. Take care, everyone.

–  Brad Carney

After 10 months of being codenamed Project Vega (and even longer being known internally as Strike), I’m very pleased to announce the true, permanent name of this game! I was planning on waiting and doing this with a little more fanfare (with the launch of a new website, logo, etc.), but I figure I better do this now before the anticipation and expectations builds to a level at which we can’t possibly reach!

And so, the name of this game (drumroll please) is…

Last Bastion

So what the hell is a “bastion” you ask? According to the dictionary, it’s “anything seen as preserving or protecting some quality, condition, etc.: a bastion of solitude; a bastion of democracy.” And this makes sense HOW, you’re asking? Basically, in the game, you’re the only one standing between mankind and annihilation. You serve as mankind’s last hope… mankind’s last bastion!

I hope you guys like it! It rhymes, it’s easily abbreviated, and most importantly… it sounds cool!

The good news just keeps coming! I’m following up release of 12 new screenshots with the only thing better (besides the release of a demo of course) – a video!

I’ve put together a video of gameplay footage from the 3 maps in our “let’s get this baby published” demo. It’s all direct capture and in full 720p HD! This should give you a very good taste of what Vega both looks like and plays like right now! You ought to notice several improvements over the QuakeCon demo including new and improved maps, cel-shading, powerups, a fully functional health, armor and ammo system… well, you get the picture.

I sincerely hope you all enjoy this! A ton of work has gone into this without a doubt.

Anyway, enough blabbing from me! Enjoy!

With the last map in our next demo complete, we’re finally ready to show it off! Here are 12 new screenshots from the 3 maps in the demo we’ll be showing to publishers!

Enjoy!

This past week I’ve been working on the second redone map for our publishing demo. It’s been coming along great, but along the way, I’ve hit a snag or two. A couple of areas… no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get them to look good! One of the areas in particular was a long hallway. No matter what I did to it – no matter what kind of ceiling/wall decoration I added, no matter how intricate…

… it still looked boring.

So I decided to do something different. I decided to break the hallway up into different sections, and shape it differently overall, while still keeping the same basic idea. I added a couple of inlets to a curved room with some steps, which ended up being a lot more interesting than a hallway. See for yourself:

I don’t know about you, but I think that looks a lot better!

So what’s the lesson here? Sometimes a design idea can be so flawed that no amount of detail, texturing, lighting, etc. can save it. All you can do it scrap it and start over. If you find yourself frustrated while trying to make something look nice, ask yourself if the underlying idea is fundamentally flawed. (Is it too simple? Too complicated? Is it not consistent with the rest of the map?) If it is, scrap it and start over, and quit banging your head against the wall trying to make something work that can’t! You’ll free yourself to come up with something much better, and save yourself lots of frustration.

EDIT: You can now click on the shots for a higher resolution version!