Our Next Iteration!

Finally got this blog linked to our main site. So it seems fitting we add some more news from behind the scenes. First off we decided to take the two projects we were working on and merge them into one. The RPG lost quite a few members and was going to take longer to develop than expected. "Visions of Zosimos" our web based board/card game needed more talent and was entering it's Alpha phase of development so rather than spend months recruiting for 2 projects and training them it made sense just to merge them together. This decision sped up our development milestones for VoZ by being fully staffed with people who already understand the agile virtual model. This led to another decision to create a fighting game using a design doc we already had created and using the assets we created from the RPG we shelved. This team took two weeks to build and will require a shorter dev period with a smaller team of 5-10 ppl. So now we have two projects with smaller dev cycles that are fully staffed and running on all cylinders.

We are now affiliated with the Wisconsin chapter of the IGDA. This is awesome news and further secures our position in the Game Development field here in the Midwest. It also directly mirrors the IGDA in their commitment to enhancing a quality of life for game developers and our Agile Virtual dev method.

In other news, I am helping MATC (Milwaukee) train it's 3rd semester CSG students in using UT3 to create a mod in an Agile Virtual environment. There is a link to this project directly on our site. So far it has been real rewarding seeing how they are embracing this method. There is no doubt they will have something truly amazing to show in their portfolios at the end of the program.

Alot of updates coming this month as we will be doing live Alpha Testing for VoZ. The game is now live on our servers. New fighting game site will be live off our main site showcasing updates and video. We will be delivering some podcasts pertaining to FI build and VoZ development. These next few months promise to be pretty amazing! /onward!

News up until now

Well it certainly has been a long while since my last post but I feel now I can sit back and free up some more of my time to post regularly on my blog and twitter pages. I suppose I should start from the beginning of the year now that we are 6 months in. As of January first we decided to split our team in two and take two seperate approaches to the games we are creating. This required we put Infernal World on hold and focus on two smaller projects. One a web based board/card game using micro-transactions and a single player RPG set in the same IP as Infernal World but before the events leading up it. This approach allows us to get a game into market with very little to no outside funding in a very short amount of time. It also focuses on two huge markets. Web based micro-transactions and RPGs both are huge markets and have very little competition. We feel we have a lot to offer in these areas and can compete very well against the competition. During this transition I have been recruiting heavily to staff each team adequately and it always consumes the most of my time. It is something I feel I have gotten very good at over the years. Now that we are ending our recruiting season I can focus more on my Development resposibilities and have some fun creating games. Currently we are in full-production on both projects and hope to be in a strong Alpha by summers end. Then be at a strong Beta by the end of 2009.

We are also refining our business plan for both projects while improving our Milestones so we can better showcase our teams/projects to Angel Investors, Publishers, and Venture Capitalists. We have also signed on for two major contests coming in 2010 so our teams have something to strive for. The last contest we entered we won so I have no doubt we can do the same. Out of this transition we lost some great members, we lost some bad ones, but in the end I feel we have never been stronger. The tools and pipelines we are currently using have been refined into a well oiled machine that keeps getting better and better. Our teams are very well rounded and SUPER ambitious and so far have not found a hurdle they can't cross. I would like to thank Milwaukee Area Technical College for being such a good partner in our Companys success thus far and allowing us to use their new MOCAP Studio. Thank you to all the schools who see great potential in us and are grateful for the business model we offer their graduates.  The Art Institute across America but mostly the Illinois Intstitute has been especially helpful in both finding recruits and giving their graduates an outlet in this amazing feild. The American Academy of Art has been a great partner as well as Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. The list goes on and on of great schools that are linking amazing recruits to us. I hope to continue to work with them every year! 

Over the next few months our goals are clear. I will be enriching our sites with the amazing media and art that our outstanding members are creating. Building relationships within our chosen industry to develop great games for emerging platforms. Refining our Company to become more efficient and successful than ever before. More than anything else we will be fighting to create something that will be the benchmark of Game Developement for the future. Thanks! /Onward

Post Hero Blade!

Use of the Hero Blade taught us a lot about our pipelines. This is a VERY robust tool and one we loved to use. I would love to get the funding needed to obtain the license for this Engine. It directly plugs into our development methods and virtual studio with ease. It was a lot of fun creating and testing our ability sets for Infernal World. I loved seeing our whole team in there and creating all at the same time. We were able to get a ton accomplished within the short time with it and now have a video on InfernalWorld.net showcasing our final output.Once again thank you Simutronics for this rare and wonderful opportunity.

Post GDC!

Well ALOT has happened since last years GDC. We left with a ton of positive feedback. A great review from MMORPG.COM and some excellent leads for VC. We continued to build for the Multiverse platform but began to outgrow the technology. The feedback we were continually getting from VC was they wanted to see more gameplay. We could not accomplish this with the current iteration of MV so we looked for another engine to showcase our combat. This led us to Simutronics and the Hero Blade. In late July we were given access to their technology for 30days. We traveled to St Louis for 4 days of training and began to build our first zone along with combat using the DnD 4th Edition ruleset.