Lori and I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Joyous Solstice, Happy New Year, and any other seasonal holidays you may prefer to celebrate.

Lori and I sing carols with a local chorus every Winter, so we were inspired to write a little parody very loosely based on one of the Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption events.  Not willing to leave well enough alone, we recruited backer (and professional opera singer) Maus Merryjest to sing our silliness, then Lori put together a video with some of the preliminary game art and more than a few Kristmas Kwirks.  I did the narration.  Please share it with your friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxocsH__y2Y

Physical Goods Delay

I just heard back from the company that was going to distribute our physical goods. Apparently they’ve had some family issues and will be unable to fulfill the orders, so we need to scramble again to find a distributor.  As a result, the toy meeps, t-shirts, and baseball caps that were supposed to go out last month will take a few more weeks.  The designs and mailing list are done; we just need to find someone who can box up over 1,000 items and mail them for us.

Art Update

Concept Art House continues to amaze us with the speed and quality of their work. Our in-house team continues to work on the locations, furnishings, and other items.  Eric and Paul have done a great job on painting fantasy versions of our Yearbook backers.  We are adding Chris Willis as a 3D artist specializing in environments. Chris worked on King’s Quest VI and VII, Space Quest, SWAT, and many other games, at Sierra.  Chris also contributed art to Fallout, Asheron’s Call, and Dungeon Siege 3. He’s a terrific artist and we are thrilled to have him on the team.

Hey there backer folks, sorry for the delay on this update. It’s crazy crazy times here at SpaceVenture camp. From a development stand point, a lot of time and energy has been put into three main things.

(1) A puzzle sequence that involves Ace having to get passed some animated objects(leaving out the spoilers) that will kill Ace if he gets to close. This is our first puzzle that we’ve done like this, so some extra TLC is needed.

(2) The death sequence that involves Ace being killed by the animated objects. We know how much Space Quest fans love their death sequences, so as you can imagine, it’s gotta be right!

(3) The icon UI is still in revamp mode. I’ll hopefully have some details to share in the near future.

As always, Mark and his team have been focused heavily on artwork. Scenery artwork still in the works. One of the scenes he is polishing right now will make you sci-fi parody fans giggle in ecstasy when you see it.

These were the words Mark said to me when he first showed it to me: “How many cease and desists do you think we’ll get out of this scene?”. All I’ll say is it puts me in mind of the Space Quest 3 garbage freighter area big time! I’m not sure if/when Mark will let me show it to you. I think he is really wanting it to be a surprise, but we’ll see what I can rip from his hands in the future 😉

EPISODE 5 OF THE NEW BI-WEEKLY PODCAST BY THE SPACE QUEST HISTORIAN

The Space Quest Historian dons his hard hat and delves beneath the surfaces of your favorite Space Quest games. Well, all six of them, in fact. Joined by famed resource spelunkers Akril, BlockMaster and Alan Luckachina, and aided by the invaluable help of Andrew ‘Collector’ Branscom, it’s time to blow the lid off the treasure trove that is the secrets of the Space Quest games.

NOW IN ITUNES!

or

RSS FEED HERE

 OTHER SIERRA ALUMNI PROJECTS

The amazing Josh Mandel / Al Lowe’s Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded

Jane Jensen’s Moebius and Pinkerton Road Studio / GABRIEL KNIGHT: SINS OF THE FATHERS 20TH ANNIVERSARY

Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption by the Quest for Glory designers – Corey Cole and Lori Cole

Thanks for all of your support everyone!

Chris Pope a.k.a your humble local intergalactic SpacePope

We hope those of you that celebrate Thanksgiving are doing well and are having a good recovery from your food comas! I know for us, we are very thankful for all of you, and cannot wait to show you all what we’ve been working on.

RECENT PROGRESS

More updates to our event driven system have been added to account for some missing capabilities. Namely, we wanted to be able to adjust certain things in the game based on the distance that Ace/Rooter were from certain objects. Example, let’s say that you want to look at an object that is on the other side of the screen, however Ace is on the opposite side of the screen. Shouldn’t the narrative dialogue be different depending on distance? Especially if something is currently blocking Ace from reaching the object. The recent modifications have made that possible.

You’ve seen us mention Event Driven stuff quite a bit. Our senior developer has posted on the SpaceVenture Rewards website about “What is an Event Driven Object?”. Reading his write up will help understand things a little better. You can read it here. Also, if you have problems logging onto the SVRewards website, please email pcj@andromedanpost.com

Another thing that has been a focus as of late is changes to the user interface of the game. We have never been happy with the UI. As much as we love the old sierra style UI, we are really pushing for something that relates to that but is more intuitive. A lot of ideas have been passed back and forth and some great mock ups have come out for that. Eventually I hope to show you all some of what has been put together.

As for what Mark and his team have been working on in terms of artwork, they have also made some great progress. New character artwork has been completed as well as scenery. I’ve been pestering Mark to let me show off some of what he’s been working on and he finally released a small piece for you all to check out.

This scene happens about 3/4 of the way through the game. I don’t want to spoil too much, but you can probably assume certain things about the predicament that Ace finds himself in here.

EPISODE 4 OF THE NEW BI-WEEKLY PODCAST BY THE SPACE QUEST HISTORIAN

The Historian climbs his soapbox and talks about the myth of the female gaming market, with the gracious help of real, actual females like Say Mistage, Cassie Benter and Serena Nelson, along with the indispensable wisdom of Professor Jess and Guy From Andromeda, Scott Murphy. There’s also another installment of the Space Quest IV soundtrack rundown by fan musician Brandon Blume and SQ4 composer Ken Allen, as well as an informative segment on the graphic style of Infamous Quest’s Space Quest II remake by artist Jeremy Kitchen.

NOW IN ITUNES!

or

RSS FEED HERE

OTHER SIERRA ALUMNI PROJECTS

The amazing Josh Mandel / Al Lowe’s Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded

Jane Jensen’s Moebius and Pinkerton Road Studio / GABRIEL KNIGHT: SINS OF THE FATHERS 20TH ANNIVERSARY

Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption by the Quest for Glory designers – Corey Cole and Lori Cole

Thanks for all of your support everyone!

Chris Pope a.k.a your humble local intergalactic SpacePope