Ahoy Patriots! Who's going to PAX East this weekend? If you'll be there on Saturday, make sure to come to the panel "No Indie is an Island" at noon in the Cuttlefish Theater!
"Being an Indie developer doesn't mean being alone. Learn from indie developers how finding the right team, engaging in the development community, and creating events can help you become a better developer and become a champion of friendships. Join the developers of Closure, Children of Liberty, Go Home Dinosaurs, Jungle Rumble, Elegy for a Dead World, and the event organizer from Indies Need Booze on how you can get involved in the community at large."
The panel features myself (Dan), Jacob Clark (Indies Need Booze), Trevor Stricker (Disco Pixel), Ichiro Lambe (Dejobaan Games), Eitan Glinert (Fire Hose Games), Tyler Glaiel (mega indie, check out his upcoming game Bombernauts), and a surprise special guest:
TOM FULP OF THE BEHEMOTH!
You can learn more about the panel and other great talks in the PAX East schedule here: http://east.paxsite.com/schedule/panel/no-indie-is-an-island
If you have any questions about Children of Liberty or Lantana Games' "teaching studio" efforts, Dan will be hanging around after the panel until The Enforcers tell him to clear out.
And yes, we'll have EX12 news VERY SOON! This is a big one. Stay tuned, Patriots, and see you at PAX!
- Dan
Meet the Team - Max Meisel
Greetings, Patriots! Today, we’d like to introduce you to the newest addition to the team from the MassDigi program, Max Meisel!
Hi, I am Max Meisel. I am an amateur Sound Designer, Foley Artist, Sound Engineer, and Musician. I primarily like to make Music and Sounds for games but i do other things too! LIke music and sound for animations! And mixing and mastering for trailers!
I am currently a student at Becker college, as well I am doing Sound work for a game called Children of Liberty that is currently in Steam Early Access, go check it out!! www.childrenofliberty.us/
Max is helping out with sound and music, and has already done some great work for the game and our latest two trailers. He will be specifically contributing to in-game level music and sound effects. Everybody say HI MAX!
Make sure to swing by Max's SoundCloud page in order to check out some his previous work: https://soundcloud.com/max_meisel
We're super excited to have Max on board and can't wait to share more of his great work with you!
Early Access Updates Trailer
Greetings, Patriots! We have finished up our brand new, Early Access Updates trailer. This trailer covers just a few highlights from our Early Access period so far. Check it out here! http://youtu.be/WhVOp34vpvU
As always, thank you for your feedback, comments, and critiques! Big things are on the way.
- Dan
Community Update: Lantana Games headed to MassDigi Game Challenge This Weekend!
Fall 2014 Artbook
Greetings, Patriots! We have a new video for you to check out this week, filled with incoming art from the talented students at the Massachusetts Digital Games Institute! Check out our first Artbook video right here. Many thanks to the hard work of Chenylle, Yuka, and Karen throughout the fall semester, and to the Videri String Quartet for their performance of Children of Liberty's music for the video!
http://youtu.be/OzsTCgL5eL4
MassDigi Game Challenge
This week, the team is heading out to Cambridge for Mass DiGi's Game Challenge of 2015! Contestants have registered and the developers are coming - let the games begin! Lantana Games has been selected to attend as part of the event's featured companies. We will be exhibiting trailers of our game and selling awesome merch at our table! We've got posters for sale (see above) as well as IndieGameStand keys for access to the full game on Steam, Desura, and as standalone builds. Luckily for you subscribers, anyone who is signed up to our mailing list will receive a 20% discount on their purchase at the booth! Just give us your e-mail address and you're good to go! That being said, for those you may know who want to get a sweet deal, anyone who signs up for the newsletter at our booth with also receive the discount. We can't wait to see the amazing games this weekend, and we hope to see you there as well!
Development Update: Programming and Gameplay
Here's a quick update on programming and gameplay. Brian has just finished the core of the final version of Children of Liberty's movement and camera code. The core of the code is all math: we get to define paths in 3D space which define movement and boundaries for entities in our scenes. Before, the only movement tracks we could easily implement were linear. Now, Brian has made new functions available for more complex path types, like Catmull-Rom and Bezier curves, and made them all easy for us to work with.
In particular, these curves will help solve a lot of problems we had with our old camera. In-game, Brian will use them to make particular transitions smoother than they currently are, like turning around a corner. The test case for these curves was to write the code for a video fly-through system that would accept keyframe locations and generate a smoothly curved path for the camera to take. As a result, it's now very easy for us to make videos of our new scenes from within Unity.
The rest of the new code lets us be much less reliant on Unity physics to determine certain interactions. The result is a game that is much less vulnerable to unexpected physics behavior. There will still be bugs for now, but there will be fewer of them, and they will be easier to solve. Overall, it's a major improvement in the stability of our gameplay.
The core of the new movement and camera code is finished, but there are many more features that could be added for our building convenience. Those will be added when there's time. Meanwhile, Brian will be quickly converting our existing scripts to use the new movement system and testing, as well as managing the rest of the project. Once everything is stable, we'll be able to start making videos of our scenes, putting together gameplay test chambers, and hooking up our scenes for playable preview! We can't wait to show you what we've been working on!
EX11.1 Quickfix - Missing Textures Restored!
Children of Liberty has been updated to version EX11.1. In this update are fixes to the missing or broken sprites in the Warehouse. We don't know why these textures keep breaking, but the new versions that will appear in the new Warehouse don't have this problem.
Thanks for your bug reports, Patriots; keep them coming!
Fixed
Missing textures in Warehouse
MassDigi Semester 2 Begins!
Greetings, Patriots! Just a quick update this week to let you know that with school back in session we are putting things back in gear! We have a new MassDigi student joining the team, Max, who will be helping us with sound! Karen is also returning, and among her usual art duties, she will be taking on a new Student Producer role, and she'll be in charge of the student crew.
Speaking of MassDigi, we'll be at the upcoming MassDigi Game Challenge on February 6 and 7 at the Microsoft NERD Center in Cambridge. We'll be showing off new videos we're working on, including an EX12 trailer, flythroughs of our work-in-progress levels, and we'll have codes and posters available. If you're planning on coming to the Game Challenge, stop on by and say hi!
Back soon with more news, Patriots!
Early Access 11 Released!
Children of Liberty has been updated to version EX11. Here are the patch notes for this version:
New Features
Added the Pause Menu. During a level, press Escape on keyboard or Start on controller to pause.
Added menu controls display to the menu base.
Added the Enter key as an additional confirmation key in menus.
Added the ability to go back to the splash screen from the Main Menu.
Added a super-idle countdown to the Main Menu (again) that takes you back to the splash screen after an idle minute.
Added the Feedback Focus feature to the Main Menu (again) that lets us indicate where we need the most testing.
Added force quit and soft reset controls (again):
Force Quit Keyboard: Shift+Bksp+E+Esc
XB360 Controller: RT+B+Y+Start
Fixed controls during Splash Screen: press Escape (keyboard) to quit
Fixed demo-end scene images not scaling properly
Fixed some GUI elements not reacting to change in input type.
Fixed in-game controls display switching from controller to keyboard
Fixed moving menu being visible behind loading screen background
Optimized many input & menu functions
Please let us know if you experience bugs during or after pausing the game: access the bug report form by going to the game’s Main Menu and selecting “Report a Bug.” If you do write us a bug report, be very specific about what you were doing before you paused, and what you experienced after unpausing.
Weekly Update: EX11 Incoming!
EX11 is imminent!
On January 6th, we'll be delivering the newest version of Children of Liberty, which contains the following changes:
Added the Pause Menu
Added menu controls display to the menu base
Added the Enter key as an additional confirmation key in menus
Added force quit and soft reset controls again
Added the ability to go back to the splash screen from the main menu
Fixed a ton of bugs and optimized a bunch of functions!
We're also reintroducing the Feedback Focus feature to the Main Menu, which will describe the aspect of the game that needs the most tester attention. This time around, it's the new Pause Menu; if there are any bugs related to pausing, please fill out our bug report form, accessible via the game's Main Menu (select "Report a Bug").
Happy New Year!
Everyone from Lantana Games wishes you a happy and successful 2015! We're stoked to deliver lots of content this year, and we hope you're excited to play it!
To ring in the new year, we're doing a BIG giveaway! Anyone who subscribes to our newsletter through January 8 will be eligible to receive a copy of Nuclear Throne, Portal, Contraption Maker, Escape Goat, or one of many other excellent indie games, courtesy of Lantana Games! And to make it even better, we're giving away a game a day! Just our little way of thanking you for being a part of our community. Winners will also receive a complimentary copy of Children of Liberty to keep or give to a friend! If you haven't signed up for the newsletter yet, you can do so here: http://eepurl.com/6T0PL
Thanks and Happy New Year, Patriots!
Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and a very Happy New Year from all of us at Lantana Games!
From all of us at Lantana Games, we want to wish you a very Merry Christmas, slightly belated Happy Hanukkah, a safe New Years, and an overall Happy Holidays! 2014 has been an incredible journey from the launch of Early Access, implementing community feedback, getting to know all of you, working with MassDigi, and venturing into new territory as a Teaching Studio. We couldn't have made it this far without you and we're looking forward to continuing the journey with you in 2015 and beyond. Stay safe, stay warm, and have fun!
New Team Member
This week we're welcoming aboard a new team member, Chenylle! Chenylle has just graduated from Becker College, and was an intern for Children of Liberty via MassDiGi, the Massachusetts Digital Games Institute.
She is now a full member of our team and she'll be continuing work on 2D sprites and surface textures for Children of Liberty. She's already submitted a lot of amazing work that you'll be seeing all throughout the game, and we're really looking forward to working with her more.
Next semester, we'll be getting a few more interns signed onto the project for some other type of task, and we're excited to see who's next! MassDigi is also working with several other indie games in development around the area, like our friends at Dejobaan Games, whose game Elegy for a Dead World was just released on Steam. Make sure to check it and all their other games out, many of which are currently part of the Steam Holiday Sale!
Keep Up with Lantana Games
We're doing some BIG THINGS heading into 2015, so make sure to keep up with all the latest news here on Steam as well as at our Twitter and our Facebook. Also make sure to sign up for our Weekly Newsletter to get in on incoming contests and giveaways!
Once again, Merry Christmas, Patriots! See you in 2015.
