Development Blog for Project Vega

Happy new year, everyone! I hope you all had a good time celebrating the start of a new year decade! What better way to kick things off than with some screenshots!

A couple of days ago, I began to remake the first demo map. It had some pretty serious flaws with it (an unreachable secret, way too dark of rooms, inconsistent detail due to being worked on by two people, etc.), so I decided to redo it, while trying to keep some of the elements in tact from its previous incarnation. The layout is great this time – it even has some jumping and crouching-related secrets! I’ve only spent a day or so working on the detailing, but so far I’m pleased with the results!

Enjoy!

Just wanted to pass along that Project Vega’s very own Brett “Mechadon” Harrell has won Mapper of the Year in this year’s Cacowards over at Doomworld! He’s been part of a number of large scale projects released this year, such as Greenwar II, Claustrophobia 1024, and is certainly very deserving of the award. Congratulations to him!

In celebration, here are a few new-ish screenshots of what Mechadon has done in Project Vega so far:

I just want to make a quick post to let everyone know that in light of recent events over at skulltag.NET (boy does that feel weird to say), everything will continue as normal here (minus the grand “forum copy+paste” threads, of course!). I’ll have more details later, but the bottom line is that we’re nearly complete with a brand new demo that we plan to start showing to potential publishers. Neat, huh?

Stay tuned!

… well, not exactly. But I had to get your attention somehow, right?

If you follow me on Twitter, you may be aware that I recently picked up a new Diablo-like game called Torchlight (which was actually made by the creators of Diablo). The game is absolutely fantastic – it looks great, and has been a total blast to play – and I’ve been playing it off and on over the past week or so (okay, mostly on!). For someone who’s been anxiously awaiting Diablo III, this game has really hit the spot, given that it’s VERY similar to Diablo (gems, randomly generated dungeons, champion monsters, etc.), and might even – dare I say – be better! It’s certainly more colorful and more interesting looking at this point than Diablo III is.

I’ve been intrigued by a few aspects of Torchlight in how they relate to Vega. For starters, it’s bright and colorful, and just plain great to look at. Also, it was developed fairly quickly, mostly due to the use of great tools. Anyone who’s gotten to take a peek at Vega’s editor will tell you that the rendered view represents your level almost exactly how it will look in the game (well, minus shadows at this point – but that will change!). This allows mappers to work on their levels more without having to pause and load it to see how it looks, letting you create maps much faster, and with fewer annoyances.

Finally, it’s smaller in scope (no multiplayer), which has allowed them to get it out the door a lot faster (read: you get to play it a lot sooner), and has allowed them to sell it for a mere $20! That’s pretty similar to what I’d like to do with Vega – release something that focuses on giving you great single player/co-op so we can release it faster and more cheaply, and then focus on other aspects (deathmatch) later on.

Anyway, if this sort of thing is of interest to you, check out the interview with Max Schaefer (the CEO of Torchlight developer Runic Games) for more great insights, and for more information about a great game:

http://www.incgamers.com/Interviews/225/max-schaefer-talks-torchlight/1

You may have been aware that we were recently looking to make some additions to our team (and if you weren’t aware of this, then seriously, what rock have you been living under? For shame! Tsk tsk!). Anyway, we were successful in finding both a beta tester and a mapper, and I would like to both officially welcome them to the team, and introduce them!

• Morpheus: Hailing from Italy, Morpheus is a mapper whose main experience comes from working on the GZDoom/ST project Stronghold.
• Wartorn: A beta tester who has both been very involved with the Skulltag community, and who has done some actual real-world beta testing at a major game studio.

Let’s all give them a big warm welcome to the team!

Now, mean does that we’re done hiring people? No way! We will still continue to look for mappers (especially ones living in the US), so don’t hesitate to send in an application (there’s even a chance we’ll make an additional hire based on the applications already sent in).

To everyone who sent in an application: A number of you were under heavy consideration for both of our positions, and I will keep your applications around in the event of a new opening. In other words, if something opens up, then you will be the first ones I go to!

That’s it for now! Time for us to get to work making a better, less buggy Project Vega!