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tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:/projects/2112639455/mages-initiation-a-classic-sierra-style-adventure/posts Kickstarter: Mage's Initiation - A Classic Sierra-style Adventure/RPG 2016-01-18T00:02:36-05:00 tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/1468327 2016-01-18T12:06:15-05:00 2016-02-02T11:54:32-05:00 2016 Frozen Water Mage Summit
New Year's Initiations

Happy 2016, Practitioners of the Arcane!

We hope you've had a happy and healthy New Year. Himalaya has some exciting plans on the horizon for 2016, for sure. There's been some major issues that we've had to deal with personally (primarily homebuying mishaps that fortunately, finally came to an end), so we're aiming to get the game headed towards beta testing faster, with those things now behind us. This is a shorter update on the state of progress, but an important one, nonetheless.

Light At the End of the Programming Tunnel

So, what have we been doing since last you heard from the development team, we hear you ask? Well, we're glad for your question, dear Initiates! For the most part, our time has been spent bug-fixing combat issues, as per usual, and playing the now all-too-familiar combat "whack-a-mole", addressing two new issues for every one issue that gets resolved. We know these updates are probably a little on the dull, repetitive side and they probably make it sound like not much has been taking place behind the scenes, but we have come a very long way on this front since August last year with literally thousands of battle bugs being squashed. And now we're thrilled to announce that we have finally resolved every combat bug (that we're aware of) for every spell, monster, and boss in the game -- bar one! Yes, a sole combatable critter remains to be tangled with and we plan on duking it out with him and taking him DOWN over the course of the next few weeks. After that, it's simply a matter of refining gameplay elements, fixing some non-combat bugs, juggling the score/XP and RPG system a bit, and then we'll have our first alpha-release candidate that can be considered for in-team testing and, subsequently, private backer testing!

In the meantime, please enjoy this video sneak peak of the Air Mage in action. On show are some of his spells and a few of the monster types in the dreary Bloodbark Forest of Iginor.

 Latest AGS Game Assets & Stats

For those keeping score, here are the latest AGS engine stats for Mage's Initiation: Total sprites: 19049 / 30000

Sprite folders: 865

Total views: 785

Total GUIs: 74

Inventory Items: 300 / 300 (Since the game uses a dynamic inventory system, we have over 300 inventory items)

Characters: 214

Dialog topics: 394 / 500

Alpha For Your Thoughts (We Need Your Feedback!)

You've all been lovely and exceedingly patient in terms of waiting for the beta release of Mage's Initiation. While we've made a lot of refinements to our original, in-house alpha build on account, fleshing out more code and bug-squashing, we're still a ways off from showing you guys a playable beta version. Yet we know backers are eager to see the game and get a feel for how it has been progressing.

So, we have a question. We're wondering if eligible backers would rather test a rough (but complete) alpha version sooner, in a couple of months time? Or would you prefer to hold out several months longer for a more stable beta build? In either case, the playable build won't have recorded voices yet, as we don't want to record them until the game has been thoroughly tested and any necessary textual changes to the dialogue have been made. It's always a pain to get actors back for pick-up sessions, so we're hoping to work around that by testing the text-only game first and foremost.

Additionally, would backers prefer to receive their test builds via Steam or Humble Bundle? We're still trying to figure out the logistics of getting the test build into eligible backer's hands in the easiest, most seamless manner possible.

Please let us know your feedback in the comments (or via email if you're a PayPal backer.)

Shoutouts

Our very own Rachel has written a book all about tax law for indie developers.

She also launched a new blog to go with her business, Sonic Toad. Go check it out! And if you're in/near NYC on January 26, check out her class on business basics for indie devs along with Playcrafting's weekend-long global game jam with NYU and their Winter Expo at Microsoft on the 28th. Make a whole extended weekend out of it!

Aubrey Hodges recently released a fully revamped version of the official Quest For Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness soundtrack. It includes over 60 remastered tracks using real instruments. Well worth supporting, just remember to listen while enjoying a garlic and avocado sandwich.

Don Bluth fans can rejoice as he's gotten his team back together to make a Dragon's Lair movie, bringing the arcade classic to life in a new medium. Show some love on Indiegogo!

Well, that's all for this update. There hasn't been much variation in our work for several months, which means there hasn't been much other than combat and bug fixes to talk about! We're very much looking forward to the next phase of development, which should give us a wider range of things to discuss.

Until next time, stay magical, our almost-Mages!

The Himalaya Team
 tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/1389737 2015-10-21T14:21:05-04:00 2016-01-08T03:21:29-05:00 Pre-Halloween Update
 Greetings, Mages in training! This is just a brief update to keep you informed about the latest happenings with the game's development.

The Story Thus Far

We've continued to make excellent progress, slashing our way through the combat-related bugs and issues, since bringing our new programmer on board! We've completely eradicated the combat spell-specific bugs from our list now. To give you an idea about the magnitude of this accomplishment, there are 4 playable character classes in the game and each has 6 combat spells, which makes 24 combat spells in total. Each combat spell had approximately 20 bugs associated with it (initially). So, that's 480 issues, just for the combat spells! We fixed all of those, but new bugs kept creeping in with nearly every fix, due to the intertwined nature of the battle system. Whenever we fixed one bug, it would cause another (sometimes 2 or 3) to take its place. For a while there, it was a case of taking one step forward and two steps back, but we eventually got on top of the bugs, got them under control, and ultimately, checked everything off. I don't even want to hazard a guess at how many spell-related bugs we've addressed over the past couple of months, but it's easily over 1,000!

Seriously, our combat bugs list is so large, that we even have it sorted into sections where different types of combat bugs are categorized. For example, there's a spells section, and each spell has a sub-section, listing its bugs. There's a monster section, where each monster has its own sub-section. A boss section, a GUI section, a loot section, and a general issues section, and so on and so forth. Having resolved all of the entries in the spell-related section, we have most recently turned our attention to the monsters and boss battle sections. 85% of the monster-related issues have been resolved and approximately 80% of the boss battle bugs have been cleaned up. Things are definitely getting closer to completing the combat system now. Though new bugs still manage to creep in here and there, so we need to be vigilant.

Truthfully, it's difficult to write an interesting update when the entire time since the last update has been spent polishing and refining the combat system. We're working away at it, every day, including weekends, yet it's hard to convey in words the amount of progress this constitutes, since there's only so much that can be said about it. Some of these bugs have been so elusive that a few have involved 14 hour sittings just to track down and fix a single issue. in any case, there you have it - an accurate outline of what we've been working on.

Since we haven't finished fixing the combat bugs yet, we still don't have an estimate for when the voice-less beta will release. However, If progress continues at the current rate and the bugs behave themselves, we'll certainly get there sooner than later.

Latest AGS Game Assets & Stats

The latest AGS engine stats for Mage's Initiation, fresh from the editor:

Total sprites: 19016 / 30000

Sprite folders: 865

Total views: 782

Total GUIs: 72 Inventory

Items: 300 / 300 (Since the game uses a dynamic inventory system, we have over 300 inventory items)

Characters: 213

Dialog topics: 393 / 500

Upcoming Events

If you're in or coming to NY or NJ, you'll definitely want to check out some events that Himalaya will be participating in!

This one is awfully short notice, but here goes: tomorrow, October 22, Rachel will be showing Mage's Initiation at the Playcrafting Fall Expo held at Microsoft's Times Square office, conveniently located across the street from Port Authority. The expo's very reasonably priced and there'll be over 75 other games plus free pizza!

And if you're in the area December 1 which is one just one day after Playcrafting's November demo and play night, Rachel will also be teaching a class all about taxes for indie developers.

Himalaya will also have a booth at Gameacon which is going on in Atlantic City November 20-22nd! Stop by and say hi if you're making the trip!

Shoutouts

Here are a few shoutouts to some adventure game Kickstarters:

The Journey Down : SkyGoblin have been making quality point & click adventure games for a long while now. Having previously released chapters 1 and 2 of their polished, African-inspired title "The Journey Down", the fellas are now reaching out on Kickstarter to fund the 3rd chapter.

Memoranda: Memoranda is an interesting point-and-click story-driven game based on a series of short stories involving everyone from a WWII survivor to an elephant trying to become human and the game looks like it's going to be an amazing surrealist experience!

And as the Mages' Tower bell rings, signalling the end of "spelling" classes for the day, this, in turn, brings a close to this edition of the Kickstarter update. We wish everyone a happy and safe Halloween!

Until next time!

The Himalaya Team
 tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/1334023 2015-08-25T11:04:05-04:00 2015-10-22T06:54:08-04:00 Kickstarter Update #43: Summer Debugging, Happening So Fast Greetings, wannabe witches and wizards! We hope that the Air Mages have been keeping you cool during this brutal summer. Or that the Fire Mages have been keeping you toasty warm if you're across the pond.
An Update on Beta Testing

Now, you're probably fidgeting your idle RPG-desiring thumbs, saying to yourselves, "Hey, wasn't this Mages game supposed to be entering beta testing around this time of the year?" And to that, the answer is "Yes." The trouble is that our outlook was slightly more optimistic than this batch of stubborn combat bugs would allow, progress-wise. In fact, the combat bugs may as well have thrust a sturdy wooden staff in our faces and boldly shouted "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" To cut a long story short, we're still working daily (very hectically, I might add) on subduing the absolutely monstrous list of combat-related issues in this game! As of a week ago, there were approximately 260 entries remaining. That number is slowly starting to dwindle, but there are many cases where we fix one bug, and then 5 more spin-off bugs appear in its place! Ah well, good things take time.

To that end, we've brought an additional AGS programmer onto the development team to get through these issues at a faster rate, and to help keep us on track for getting the game out to you guys as soon as we feasibly can. Our new programmer is the talented James Spanos (AKA Dualnames) who is no stranger to AGS nor the adventure genre, having worked previously as the lead coder on Primordia and also on The Cat Lady. James is lending his talents to tracking down, solving, and polishing the many, many bugs in the Mage's battle system. We're now focusing on spell-specific bugs, and once they're done and dusted, we'll move onto monster-specific issues. Then finally, we'll tackle the remaining general combat issues. There's still quite a mountain of work in front of us, but over the past two weeks, James has already shortened the list considerably and has been very prompt in nipping those pesky "spin-off" issues in the bud, as soon as they appear.

While this has been happening, Morgan has been working on adding a canceled monster back into the game, and Jason has been linking more of the wastelands map together (which is almost complete now). A more "final" image of the game is now beginning to take shape, and in all honesty, we did consider pushing it out to beta this month, warts and all. Though in the end we had to decide against it, as the sheer amount of bugs being reported would have been overwhelming for us to handle… particularly when we're already aware of most of them, but have only been able to fix so many of them when already working at full capacity.

We know that you're all chomping at the bit, eager to give the beta version of the game a shot! But at the moment, we don't want to jinx ourselves again by throwing another premature prediction out into the wild. So, let's see how well we can tame the combat bugs over the next month or so. Then we'll hopefully be able to give you guys a more accurate idea about beta testing in the next Kickstarter update.

All in all, squashing combat bugs (since the Chief Amphibian Officer unfortunately can't just hop into Bitbucket) has been a fairly unexciting but necessary process to get this aspect of the game fully functional.

We're sorry we don't have more thrilling news to report on this front. But onward, we march!

Some Belated E3 Musings, and Other Upcoming Conventions

Rachel went to E3 out in Los Angeles in June, and it was a madhouse!

We missed the cutoff to get featured in the Indie Booth but hoping we can do so if E3's in the cards for next year. Over 50,000 people attended and it's a great way to meet various members of the press and the AAA sector. There were also really cool displays by the new Video Game History Museum that is opening in Texas and everything from Lego villages to cosplay contests and the countless afterparties, including at the ubiqutious Fig! It felt awesome to be included in that and have received praise for the mechanics, graphics, and storyline of Mage's Initiation from both prominent indies as well as people in the AAA space.

It was also a great opportunity to meet people we've worked with for years and never got to meet yet!

If you're on the East Coast or planning a visit, please check out A Video Game Con in Parsippany, NJ on September 19, Rachel will say hi to you. Himalaya is also getting a booth at Gameacon in Atlantic City November 19-22, it's going to be a fun 4-day festival for devs and gamers alike!

Rachel is also going to be speaking on a panel about breaking into the business of indie games with Tim Train of Big Huge Games while at Gameacon, we'd love it if you could stop by if you're attending!

General Progress Report

Here's our up-to-the-minute gauge of progress:

Writing & Design: 99.999999%

Background Artwork & Animations: 99%

Character Animations: 99%

Music: 90%

Sound Effects: 80%

 Voices: 0%

Adventure Game Programming: 98%

Combat System Programming: 97%

RPG/Stats/Equipment Programming: 95%

AGS Game Engine Assets & Stats

And here are the latest numbers for resources being used in Adventure Game Studio for Mage's Initiation:

Total sprites: 18226 / 30000

Sprite folders: 862

Total views: 770

Total GUIs: 71

Inventory Items: 300 / 300 (dynamic inventory system, we have over 300 items)

Characters: 213

Dialog topics: 393 / 500

Reminder for "Book of Backers" Reward Form

This is just a reminder that if you pledged to the campaign at $20 (Apprentice tier) or higher, you can have your name appear in the Book of Backers in-game!

Most of you have already submitted the form with your requested names either in the original survey or via form. And for that, we thank you. However, there are still a few people who haven't filled out the form (or maybe just didn't see the e-mail?). In any case, if you backed the Mage's Initiation Kickstarter (or pledged via PayPal), at the $20 Apprentice tier or higher, please double-check your emails for our previous update containing the link to the reward form. It was sent out on April 25th, 2015.

If you didn't receive the "Book of Backers" reward form and believe you should have, please email us at email@example.com with the subject like "Book of Backers Form" and let us know how you'd like your name to appear.

Al Emmo Now on the App Store!

Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine has finally been ported to iPad, iPhone, and iPad touch, and is now available in the App Store! The iOS version features a new verb-coin style interface with large icons for touch-screen devices, and is optimized for single finger taps. Text size has also been increased for easier readability on smaller screens.

The game costs $4.99 USD and can be purchased at the App Store .

(Note that Apple doesn't permit us to distribute free game copies to existing owners of the PC version. You would need to purchase it again if you wish to play the iOS version.)

As this is our first title on the App Store, reviews, likes, and ratings would be greatly appreciated. We hope you enjoy having Al Emmo in your pocket (or handbag, backpack, and wherever else you can fit him.)

Shout-Outs

Please show this awesome, American-made workout tool, LoopRW, some love!

Fellow Playcrafting alums Goodnight Games also just released Blitz Breaker on the App Store and Google Play, they're really awesome so be sure to check it out!

And as the Seer's Sphere begins to fog over and the wand's wizardry begins to wane, we bid you fair tidings until the next edition of the Mage's Monthly.

 The Himalaya Team
 tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/1256263 2015-06-07T14:12:50-04:00 2015-10-22T06:54:22-04:00 What? It's June Already?
Hello, backers!

It's been a busy time, as usual, but we wanted to drop a quick update to let you know the latest goings-on and where the game stands at this point in time!

On the progress front, things are moving fantastically. For a long time there were 'symbol' limitations in the AGS engine that were really creating headaches for us. In a nutshell, the AGS engine placed a limit on the number of symbols that a game could include. Symbols are a essentially a collective of characters, global integers, music/sound files, dialog trees, and other things of that nature. Coding wise, Mage's Initiation is so big that we bumped into that upper symbol limit quite a while back and as a result, we kept running into compile errors when attempting to add new things to the game! This hindrance constantly forced us into finding creative ways to work around the limitation -- for example, by re-using characters for multiple purposes rather than creating a bunch of separate ones, by deleting global integers and using arrays in their place, or by shuffling dialog topics so that less tree options were needed to convey the same information that an NPC imparts.

This was all well and good, but it was getting to the point where we'd shuffled assets all we could manage, and it was taking increasing amounts of time to create enough space for even just one or two new symbols -- time that could be better dedicated to finishing the game! Plus, we'd hardly imported any of the sound effects into AGS, and each sound and music piece in the game requires its own symbol. It was apparent that we were running up against a problem that was not going to yield, and would cause us significant delays if left unaddressed for much longer. Thankfully, one of our backers, and as it happens, AGS code contributor, Benjamin Penney, stepped in and was able to increase the symbols table limit to… well, unlimited! This change has now been rolled into AGS v3.3.4 (the latest stable, non-alpha version of the engine), and we're free, once again, to import assets into AGS to our hearts' content. Three cheers for Benjamin and the AGS Development Team!

Progress has picked up since this symbols limited was lifted, but it hasn't been without its detriments. We've found ourselves having to play catch-up, as a result and there's still a daunting list of combat-related bugs (over 400 entries) that we need to work through and alpha test before we can even consider launching the first beta build of the game. With a multi-class, multi-spell RPG of this complexity, we really do need to have it stable and functional enough, prior to entering the beta phase, otherwise the sheer number of bug reports being posted (most which we'd already be aware of) would get overwhelming and things would end up taking much longer to manage and sort through. So, our goal now is to get as many combat bugs squished as possible, with an aim towards stabilizing the game for beta. We're still tentatively hoping for August, but it will really depend on how quickly we can whittle down this huge list of bugs. Of course, we'll keep everyone posted on the timing of the beta.

This was a BAD day to enter the wastelands!

The other main thing we're working on right now is full implementation of the Points and XP leveling system. We have this large Excel document to keep track of all the points and leveling-up opportunities for each character class. It gets pretty complex when delving into optimal puzzle solutions and optional side and sub-quests. Suffice it to say that it's going to be quite a challenge to find all those XP points and completely max out your Mage!

To date, XP points have been programmed in and finalized for the game's first act. Within the next few days the entire system should be completely in place and ready for internal testing and any further tweaking that's necessary.

Here's our gauge of progress thus far:

Writing & Design: 99.999999%

Background Artwork & Animations: 99%

Character Animations: 99%

Music: 90%

Sound Effects: 48%

Voices: 0%

Adventure Game Programming: 99%

Combat System Programming: 96%

 RPG/Stats/Equipment Programming: 95%

Pre-Beta Bug Squishing: 25%

AGS Game Engine Assets & Stats

Total sprites: 17873 / 30000

Sprite folders: 799

Total views: 767

Total GUIs: 67

Inventory Items: 300 / 300 (dynamic system, we have over 300 items)

Characters: 198 Dialog topics: 393 / 500

"Book of Backers" Reward Form

We've had a great response from backers who pledged to the campaign at $20 (Apprentice tier) or higher! Many of you have already submitted the form with your requested names to appear in the Mages' Tower's "Book of Backers". And for that, we thank you. However, there are still a few rebellious sorts who haven't filled out the form (or maybe just didn't see the e-mail?). In any case, if you backed the Mage's Initiation Kickstarter (or pledged as a Slacker Backer via PayPal), at the $20 Apprentice tier or higher, please double-check your emails for our previous update containing the link to the reward form. It was sent out on April 25th, 2015.

If you didn't receive the "Book of Backers" reward form and believe you should have, please email us at firstname.lastname@example.com with the subject like "Book of Backers Form" and let us know.

Postcards and Al Emmo Double Pack on Steam

Thanks to everyone for the votes on Postcards from Anozira on Greenlight. We got through relatively quickly and painlessly this time (which is the polar opposite to our previous efforts!) The game is available on Steam now, either by itself or at a discount as part of the Al Emmo Double Pack.

Shoutout to Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption

Lori and Corey Cole are currently running a supplemental Kickstarter campaign to put the finishing touches on their upcoming RPG game "Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption". There's a couple of new demos available, too; a remake of the early break-in house demo and a new combat demo both featuring 3D graphical assets. Their campaign has 8 days remaining and almost reached its goal. If you were a fan of the "Quest for Glory" games and missed out on backing the first Hero-U campaign, or if you'd just like to help the Coles get across the finishing line, take a look at the Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption Kickstarter campaign.

Well, that's a wrap for this update! Rachel will be attending the upcoming E3 later this month and will be taking Mage's Initiation along to show. Hopefully we'll have more news to report after that!

And as the magical mana meter depletes to zero, we bid you farewell until it recharges, once more, to full capacity.

The Himalaya Team

 tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/1210035 2015-04-24T12:10:44-04:00 2015-10-22T06:53:51-04:00 For backers at the $30 and higher levels: Library Book Names! This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read. tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/1140984 2015-04-24T12:03:06-04:00 2015-10-22T06:53:59-04:00 Mages: Almost Initiated Welcome, once more, magical masters of the mystical multiverse,
 As you'll no doubt be aware if you've been following along with our updates, development has been advancing rather well on Mages' Initiation and the game is fast heading down the track to completion! Sure, there's been the fair share of hiccups, hurdles, and illnesses to stumble over along the way, but the overall forward momentum is unstoppable and in this update, we'll document our progress thus far and cast our prognosis for when we expect to launch the beta.

So, come! Gaze into the Sphere of Knowledge. Let the clouds of prophecy roll in and we shall see what the fates have in store.

Name in Library Book - Please Read if You Backed at $20 or More

We wanted to get this out there first-- we ran into a little snafu. Kickstarter lets us survey a tier just once and the only tier we've surveyed to date is the $20 Apprentice tier since these backers were only receiving stickers and no other physical goods.

We've reached the point where we need to collect backers' names for inclusion in the "Book of Backers" in the Mage's Tower library. Please note the following:

There's a 30 character limit on names. (Due to the formatting of the book, each name can only occupy a single line. This character limit ensures the names will fit.)

Keep it clean, non-abusive, and avoid any mention of copyrighted terms or trademarks.

If you don't want your name or pseudonym included in the in-game "Book of Backers", please type OPTOUT in all-caps into the field.

Since we're not ready to receive the other data from the higher tiers (e.g. we don't need your mailing addresses just yet), for the time being we'll be sending a private message to each tier, linking to a Google Form asking for the name you'd like to have displayed in the library book.

If you backed by PayPal, you'll be receiving an email. Sorry for any confusion!

Progress Since January

We're pleased to announce that we recently hit a glorious milestone! The art and animation assets for the project are now essentially finished. Every game background and associated animation (e.g. things like rivers, doors opening and closing, smoking fires etc.) has been completed. Our lead artist, JP Selwood, has worked endlessly, detailing over 80 game backgrounds. He has given each screen a consistent artistic style so that the landscapes appear seamless, without any clashes or variation in the style and quality (which is sometimes hard to avoid when multiple artists have worked on adjoining background pieces). We have truly strived to give the valley of Iginor the most verdant landscape we could imagine, remembering the way our imaginations ran wild playing all the classics on account of their brilliant art. We hope you'll enjoy getting lost in this lush, aesthetic world.

Karen also finished the last of the animated in-game character dialog portraits, which is another milestone worth celebrating. We're very pleased with the high quality of her work and it has been a blast seeing Iginor's diverse cast of characters come to life on-screen. Since none of the character voices have yet been recorded, their mouth frames currently just animate in a looping pattern. But we're really looking forward to getting the voices in place and the lip-syncing added, in order to witness the full effect of all those intricate mouth phoneme frames that Karen has painstakingly crafted.

Onto the final artistic front: the character animations. Shane and Jeremy have been knocking down the remaining entries on the animations list for both D'arc and NPC characters. Once a grand and intimidating sight to behold, the list is now dwindling and contains little more than a small handful of entries, which we expect will be finished in a matter of weeks. With 4 player classes and animations for nearly every player action, Mages is a very animation intensive title, and this, in large part is a major factor in what's contributed to the lengthy development time-frame. So to say that we're "elated" to finally see the animations list reach an end is the understatement of a quarter-decade… quite literally!

The music and sound effects are coming into the final stages. Brandon is currently working on polishing the remaining pieces for the game and we're getting them set up as they roll in. Adding sound effects, on the other hand, is a somewhat painstaking task which we usually leave until the very end.

In terms of programming, there are several outstanding areas that we still need to focus on before the game will be in a state fit for beta testing. Jason is getting close to wrapping up programming the Wastelands section of the game. This is a region which had to be put on the back-burner for a long time, for a couple of reasons The first being that the decision to re-include the wastelands as a fully-explorable area was decided upon later, as it was based on meeting our $80K Kickstarter Stretch Goal. And the second being that it's a complex area to script, with chasms, unique landmarks, and other obstacles - we wanted to get the combat system fully functional before implementing the wastelands as a secondary major combat zone (the forest being the first). That, and there were more important scripting priorities that took precedence, such as getting the RPG and Stats system working without flaws.

Simultaneously, Morgan is working through a very long list of combat-related bug-fixes. These tweaks are aimed at bringing stability to the battle system so that it can be fully-integrated into the RPG system. Hooking both of these together is something that still needs to be done, as if you were to test the game in its current state, it would simply play like a straight adventure game with optional combat tacked on that you could ignore. This means you could finish the game without raising any stats and the only mandatory combat encounters you'd face would be the bosses. Obviously, a lot of fine-tuning needs to be done once the combat and RPG systems are interlinked, and the timing of this long list of combat bugs is the largest variable affecting when the beta will be stable enough to release.

Those programming tasks aside, there's a trivial amount of work to be done on the class-based side-quests, one interface GUI still needs to be properly implemented, and a couple of mini-games are in need of fine tuning. That pretty much encompasses all of the remaining programming work.

A Word on Beta Testing

When all is said and done, we're realistically looking at a beta launch of around mid to late August 2015. Bear in mind, however, that this beta will likely be closer to an alpha, as the voices won't be present and there will be a fair few rough edges. Releasing a beta this way is a new process to us, as with all our previous games we've held off on releasing beta versions until the products were in a very polished state, complete with voices, and having been comprehensively alpha tested internally until we couldn't find any more bugs. At that point, we'd turn it over to a small, controlled group of beta testers to scrutinize and report their own findings.

To be honest, we do feel a little 'exposed' at the prospect of releasing such an early build as a beta version to a much larger test group, but we also feel that this will be the right time to let backers at the appropriate tier levels see the game they've backed after the long wait. This new approach also comes with some advantages, in that backers/testers can help us weed out any spelling or grammar anomalies before the time comes to record voice actors. (It's always a bit of a hassle having to get actors back for pick-up sessions if you've already recorded all their lines prior to the beta.)

We're aiming to have the game and all of its systems fully-functional and playable to the end by the end of June, so we can spend adequate time internally alpha testing it for a month or so. We'll keep you posted!

General Progress Report

More than a few people have mentioned that they liked the way we gauged our progress with figures and estimated percentages, so here are the latest numbers for your perusal:

Writing & Design: 99.999999%

Background Artwork & Animations: 99%

Character Animations: 99%

Music: 85%

Sound Effects: 45%

 Voices: 0%

Adventure Game Programming: 98%

Combat System Programming: 95%

RPG/Stats/Equipment Programming: 90%

And here are the stats for latest AGS engine assets being used.

AGS Game Engine Assets & Stats

Total sprites: 17847 / 30000

Sprite folders: 799

Total views: 767

Total GUIs: 68

Inventory Items: 300 / 300 (dynamic inventory system, we have over 300 items)

Characters: 198

Dialog topics: 393 / 500

GDC

Sojourning west to represent Himalaya, Rachel attended her first GDC this past March and was still pretty star struck weeks after heading back east! Unfortunately, we had missed the deadline to have Mage's Initiation featured at the Indie Megabooth or at the expo hall's indie exhibit.

However, GDC is one of those holy grail events where you have everybody from indies working on their first game, who tried not to cringe thinking about their savings, to designers representing billion dollar studios whose booth costs could've paid for ten more games.

While not formally exhibited, it didn't stop Rachel from pulling out her laptop and getting feedback from other developers, especially at the adventure game party. Reception toward Mage's Initiation has overall been extremely positive! People have been loving both the gameplay and aesthetics, the best comment received was that it had something for the players who want to get into a story and game world, and plenty of spells and monsters for the twitchier gamers among us.

"I stayed at this place that based on the trippy decor and colorful, abstract furniture made me feel like I was in an Al Lowe game in 1992. And I had an ice cream taco after looking for places where The Room was filmed. IT RULED." -- Rachel's GDC diaries from her upcoming book

A Green Postcard is a Good Postcard

Nothing makes us happier to announce that we're back in the Greenlight system with another game. Hooray! "Al Emmo's Postcards from Anozira", a casual game spin-off, is currently doing the rounds. We can think of few more joyous occasions than being in Greenlight. So much so, that we want to tell the world about it! Please note that the above statements may be laced with sarcasm. At any rate, please share in our emotions and give the game a "yes" vote, as well, as a favorite and follow, if you can spare the additional clicks.

Shoutouts

Infamous Quests: The Trifecta

The guys at Infamous Quests are going for the hat-trick in their latest Kickstarter venture, with no less than 3 new adventure games being funded in the same campaign! Count 'em:

Quest for Infamy: Roehm to Ruin

The Order of the Thorne: The King's Challenge

The Order of the Thorne: The Fortress of Fire

The entire team has a clear passion for adventures and they release great titles, which we can wholeheartedly recommend. Having met their initial goal, they're currently angling to reach their $35K Stretch goal and put all 3 games into development at once. If fantasy RPG/Adventures are up your alley (and we know they are, since you backed Mages!) these are definitely worth your consideration.

Tournament of Might

If you're into card games at all, check out Tournament of Might. It's War on steroids! There will be a Kickstarter launching for this in a few weeks for new armies to be made.

Visual Design in Action

This campaign will be launching on Tuesday the 28th, if we have any graphic designers and lovers of print books in the house. Ladislav Sutnar's groundbreaking piece, Visual Design in Action, will be reprinted!

Playcrafting Spring Expo 4/29 & Upcoming Classes

Rachel is extremely active with Playcrafting, an NYC game developer collective. Mage's Initiation will be showcased at the spring expo along with 74 other games! If you're in the NYC or metro area and want to hang out with a bunch of cool indies and gamers, play lots of different games, and have free pizza, grab a ticket and stop by Himalaya's booth and say hi! The expo's at Microsoft's Times Square office, adjacent to almost every train.

If you ever wanted to learn AGS, adventure veteran Francisco Gonzalez will be teaching an AGS class May 12. Rachel will also be teaching a new class on June 4, Taxes for Indie Developers. You don't leave until you've learned about at least one oddball tax loophole and laughed until your sides hurt!

That's all Folks

If you backed at the $20 tier or above, remember to fill in your surveys, which you should receive shortly after this update goes live. Next update, we hope to be in a good position to tell you more about the Mage's Initiation beta testing phase!

And as the Sphere of Knowledge's cloudy residue subsides, we invite you to reflect upon the newfound insight you have acquired this day, as we bid you a fond adieu.

Until next time, stay magical!

The Himalaya Team

 tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/1115812 2015-01-24T09:10:57-05:00 2015-04-15T01:01:06-04:00 Polar Vortex 2015
Greetings, mages, magesses, and familiars! We hope that the Fire Mages have been putting in overtime for you if you're in the northern hemisphere. Between some major illnesses and housing troubles among team members that transpired over the last few months, this update has been incredibly delayed and we're sorry about that. However, you'll be pleased to find out we're quite on track with the game! Behold:

General Progress Report

There's nothing scientific about these figures. They're our best estimates on where we currently stand in the grand game development scheme. Nevertheless, when one knows that the light at the end of a tunnel is rapidly approaching, one finds it far easier to gauge how close said light really is. So while these figures contain not a shred of scientific analysis (not even from a magical measurement spell) it's safe to say they are accurate guesstimates:

Writing & Design: 99%

Background Artwork & Animations: 95%

Character Animations: 93%

Music: 80%

Sound Effects: 15%

Voices: 0%

Adventure Game Programming: 90%

Combat System Programming: 95%

RPG/Stats/Equipment Programming: 85%

And for the RPG fans who are so hardcore, they need stats about stat-raising game, here are the latest AGS engine assets being used.

AGS Game Engine Assets & Stats

Total sprites: 17203 / 30000

Sprite folders: 789

Total views: 745

Total GUIs: 68

Inventory Items: 300 / 300 (our custom inventory system is dynamic, we have over 300 items)

Characters: 194

Dialog topics: 402 / 500

(Yes, some of these figures went backwards from our last update. This is due to us deleting unused assets and/or the streamlining process of refining certain scenes and removing any wordy or clunky sections that didn't work well to convey the story.)

At this rate, we will be aiming for a May or June beta sans voice acting!

January 2015 Summit Meeting in Oz

Early in January 2015, Daniel and Chris met up for the annual Himalaya Studios summer summit meeting (yes, it took place in Australia). We used this opportunity to carefully map out the remaining work to be done on Mage's Initiation, so that we can see it to a (hopefully relatively speedy) conclusion. As is usually the case, much was accomplished during this in-person developer meeting. It was really quite motivating to bounce ideas off each other, and quickly enhance segments of the design and puzzles in real-time. There's this peculiar phenomenon in game development where things tend to get taken care of faster and much more efficiently in real life. Or maybe it's just that sitting in cramped quarters for full 40c degree days, with just a small metal fan shared between two, swarms of flies to keep you company, and the prospect of a walk around the block the only reward for a hard day's work, were motivation enough to get our work done quickly.

The first order of business was to conduct a full playtest of the game from beginning to end. This was fairly entertaining to watch, because Daniel had not actually played any of our internal demos for some months and thus was able to approach this playthrough through the eyes of a "fresh" gamer. So, naturally, he was designated the test pilot for this play-test session. He started a new game as a Fire Mage (since that's our most solid class at the moment) and we were off to the races! This method worked out well, too, because through playing, we quickly located problem areas which needed extra attention and we were able address them as we played. For example, there were times when Daniel got stuck and didn't have any direction on what to do next. He would say "If I were an unaccustomed player and I were playing this part right now, I wouldn't know where to go." Such epiphanies where very, very handy in helping us to decide where we needed to insert new NPC barks, "hint" thought bubbles for D'arc, and sometimes subtle visual, graphical indicators to ensure that the sense of progression never completely faded out on the player experience. At the same time, we didn't want to make it to hand-holdy. So, while you may still need to pause for thought every so often, as you contemplate how to solve a head-scratching puzzle, you'll always have your next goal clearly defined, and won't be stuck wandering around for lack of something to do.

As Daniel discovered issues and areas to improve, Chris was busy addressing them in the AGS engine and cracking out bug-free code. Another painstaking task that Daniel commenced during the summit was going through every… single… line... of dialog in the game, and condensing the text where necessary. Rewriting lines if they no longer fit the context of the scene or the overall game narrative (some of this dialog was written years ago and the game's design has evolved significantly in that time!).

While the dialogue clunkiness was being... declunked, we brainstormed several ideas for spell-casting opportunities using the player's existing "adventure" spells. (Each Mage class gets 5 "adventure quest" spells and 6 "combat" spells, for a grand total of 11 spells per Mage class!) We wanted to put more of these "adventure" spells to use and thought of some alternate puzzle solutions for the varied Mage castes. A few sections of the game were trimmed down and fine-tuned. Some unnecessary art and animation assets (that were yet to be made) were scrapped in the interests of consolidating specific scenes and shortening the production time. We felt particularly good about getting rid of these assets from the pipeline, as they were weighing the project down and didn't really add anything to the story couldn't be told without. The benefit was that important scenes became faster-paced, snappier; like they should be, rather than getting weighed down by overbloated dialog and overreliance on animations. In some cases, clever wording of a character line could give the same impression without the need to visually show a character's action on-screen.

As the playthrough reached the final Act, we redesigned the slightly outdated ending scenes to make them fit into the events of the scene better, and reworked the final adventure puzzle there so that things feel more intuitive and the right emotions are being conveyed.

By the time Daniel departed into the sunset (actually, he left at 4am) and was on his merry way back home, we felt that (aside from creating a monstrous to-do list) we had succeeded in planning exactly what needs to be done in order to transition things smoothly towards alpha testing and eventual beta testing. Make no mistake, there's still PLENTY of work remaining, and our noses will be to the grindstone for the next several months while attempting to complete everything for a prospective mid-year beta launch. Fingers crossed, and we'll keep you posted!

Second Rule of Mage Club: Talk About Fightin'

Since the last update, the Mage's Initiation combat system has transformed from a rather simple affair, with just a handful of opponents and a majority of missing spells, into a spell-casting, battle-blasting, gem-crafting, spectacle. Morgan, our fantastic combat programmer has been devoting much time, of late, toward getting the entire system completed and his hard work is paying off in spades! The battle system is now almost feature complete. All of D'arc's stats are in the process of being hooked in, with the appropriate buffs and debuffs attributed to equipable gems being applied in real-time.

As mentioned above, each Mage class (of which there are four: Fire, Earth, Air, and Water) has 6 different combat spells - each one unique to that class. That equates to a grand total of 24 combat spells in the game! These have all been fully-programmed now, and we're almost ready to start bug-fixing all the known issues pertaining to them. Completing all of the combat spell programming, including the backer-created ones, was a huge milestone and we think you guys will have a lot of fun laying waste to the beasts of Iginor with this magical arsenal.

As of writing this, we have just 3 boss battles left to program. (All the regular enemies are already done) One of these 'bosses' is the backer battles, which we've just started working on, to be programmed in the coming weeks. For their generous pledge, these two lucky fellas not only get to be D'arc's spellcasting test-target during the tutorial, they'll also be endowed with magical gifts and get to duke it out with him mano e mano in real-time.

 We're expecting the combat system to finish up soon. Very soon. This will go a long way in moving the project toward beta on schedule. The general RPG/Stats system is still lagging behind a bit, but because the combat system now necessitates its inclusion, it's likely to play catch-up very quickly!

Check Out Mage's Initiation at These Upcoming Events!

If we have anyone reading in the New York area, please check out Playcrafting's Winter Expo! Over 50 games will be on display including Mage's Initiation. There's free pizza and all kinds of games: what's not to like?

If you'll be in New York next week, Rachel will also be at Gamedev Hacker if you want to say hi.

 She'll also be representing Himalaya for the first time at GDC 2015 in San Francisco, which we're extremely psyched about! If you're going to be there, feel free to stop by and give some feedback on what you've seen so far... and tell her where the adventure game party will be at!

RIP Astrid PolloDiablo

We received the sad news that one of our backers lost her battle with cancer recently. She was an integral part of the adventure game community and our hearts go out to her loved ones.

This concludes our broadcasting schedule. Please remember to wipe-off your combat Conductors, unequip your gems, and keep your tunics crinkle-free while you wait for our next action-packed update, which is sure to level-up on even this one!
 tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/1025762 2014-10-22T11:08:24-04:00 2015-03-18T07:29:20-04:00 Onward to October

Welcome, Backers, to your mystically magical other-monthly update!

What's new since last time? Well, truth be told, not a whole lot! Certainly we've made more inroads across all departments, but the nature of those updates has been fairly mundane. Things like adjusting lines of programming code, tweaking existing art assets, or refining spell behaviour in the combat system - proving that game-design is not always as glamorous as it might appear!

First Rule of Mage Club: Know Your Spelling

Much time over the past month has been devoted to bug fixes and refinements in the Verb Coin user interface. We have made some adjustments to the way the system functions. Previously, only one of D'arc's spells would appear on the Verb Coin Interface at a time. You can see this functionality if you play the demo we released back when we ran our Kickstarter campaign. We've since changed it so that all of D'arc's spells will appear on the Verb Coin as he learns them (for faster accessibility and also to reduce the number of clicks required to cast spells). In addition, we've also made it so the active inventory item will appear on the Verb Coin as a clickable icon. These probably sound like they should be simple additions, and on the surface they are. But they resulted in a lot of "run-on" issues that then had to be addressed separately, and which took significant time to investigate. Each interface has its own script and those scripts all link into other scripts in various subtle ways, so there can be a sizable amount of cross-checking involved.

Considering that Mage's Initiation will have a choice of three player interfaces, we need to constantly perform extra testing and fine-tuning, like this, to ensure that the interfaces are still behaving as intended.

Anthropological Aspects of Art and Animations

We're on the verge of completing all of the background art and character animations. We have the near-final to-do list in hand, and we *plan* on tying up the vast majority of these loose ends before the new year so that everything art-related will be in place for our January summit meeting. Of course, there will likely be some straggling art assets left over, but getting through the bulk of the remaining workload will make those few things easier to pick off at the end. At that point, we'll also be in a better position to assess precisely where we stand and what else needs to be done before we launch the first alpha testing phase.

A milestone we reached last week was getting all of the sliding panel parallax layered scenes completed for the game's introduction sequence. The end result looks rather effective and works as a nice lead-in to the game. We're working on composing the music for that, and have put in some placeholder voices, pending future voice recordings.

Battles, Beta, and Beyond

The current area that's lagging behind the most is the combat and RPG system. This is chiefly due to the fact that the vast majority of the battle system had to be re-coded when we changed the game's aspect ratio to 16:10. Most of the spells have already been programmed and set up, but there are still a lot of bugs to fix and many of them relate to the way the spell effects are drawn over particular environments (e.g. a spell effect sprite being too wide and getting superimposed on top of background trees in the forest, for example). Morgan just finished scripting one of the Earth Mage's more flashy spells - an effect that's REALLY fun to cast on unsuspecting foes!

We have yet to program in our two backer-created spells (or the two Supreme Archmage backer battles, for that matter), but all the assets of these things exist and we're just working on finishing up the spell behaviour, bugs, and making combat as smooth as possible so that we'll have a nice, functional system to import the backer assets into.

The RPG/Stats system relies largely on the battle system, so it cannot be linked until most of the battle system is implemented. The reason for this is because loot drops will tie into the type of stat-boosting gems the player can equip. The combat system, D'arc's spell-power, D'arc's stats, and loot drop-rates all need to weighed against it. The underlying framework for the RPG system is in-place, though, so it will be a fairly trivial matter to converge the two when the battle system is ready.

We still have no solid ideas about when the alpha or beta testing phases will commence. But we're thinking of releasing the first beta without character voices. This way, testers / backers will be able to report dialog and text-related anomalies early on, giving us time to address them before voice recordings begin. With our previous game projects, we've always launched the beta AFTER voices were recorded, and it has always been a pain having to get actors back in for pick-up sessions when text-related issues were discovered, so we'll definitely be reassessing this situation as we move closer to alpha/beta testing.

General Progress Report

We figured that backers would be interested in an estimated progress report for each area of the game. This is, by no means, scientific (or even mathematically calculated). Just some rough guesses, gauging the amount of work finished against what still needs to be done.

Writing & Design: 97.2 % (Give or take; flexibility for future line rewrites and edits)

Background Artwork & Animations: 90%

Character Animations: 85%

Music: 75%

Sound Effects: 15%

Voices: 0%

 Adventure Game Programming: 85%

Combat System Programming: 60%

RPG/Stats/Equipment Programming: 50%

And if you're the type to get excited about this sort of thing:

AGS Game Engine Assets & Stats

Total sprites: 15872 / 30000

Sprite folders: 709

Total Animation views: 653

Total GUIs: 69

Inventory Items: 300/300 (since our custom inventory system is dynamic, we have over 300 items)

Characters: 185

Dialog topics: 421 / 500

Shoutouts

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers (20th Anniversary Edition)

Pinkerton Road and Phoenix Online have just released their Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers remake. The game is a loving recreation of the 1993 Jane Jensen classic by Sierra On-Line, brought into the 21st century with HD graphics, new puzzles, and an remastered digital score by original GK composer Robert Holmes. If you're a Sierra fan, this is definitely worth checking out.

H. P. Lovecraft: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

Dedicated adventure game developer, Agustin Cordes is working on a licensed H. P. Lovecraft game, called "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward". It looks awesome and has the suitably creepy vibe one would expect from a Lovecraft horror game. Agustin is running a new Kickstarter campaign to try and get the project funded, so take a look and give him some support if you feel so inclined.

Well, that's all for now, folks! We have the Himalaya summit meeting approaching in January, and great strides are always made when Daniel and Chris get together to playtest the game. We're anticipating progress to be made in leaps and bounds over the next summit meeting, so we'll probably save our next update until then, when we have much more interesting news to report!

 tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/965244 2014-08-26T10:36:07-04:00 2015-03-18T07:18:28-04:00 August Antics
Salutations Seers, Sorcerers, and Shamans,

Thanks for tuning-in your crystal balls and Spheres of Observation into the very latest magical transmission that we're sending out across this esoteric worldwide communication system.

We'll keep this update rather short and on-point just to fill you in about what's been happening on Mages. We've had a very busy and productive couple of months and have seen a sizeable dent made in the remaining workload. Many different aspects of the game have been worked on and some major milestones have even been completed. Below is a list of areas we've been tackling, some of them ongoing and others completed:

Combat System Programming

Morgan, our resident combat programming guru, has been busily tapping and typing away, refining the combat system scripts and performance. For a long time the RPG Stat elements in the game hadn't been tied to the Combat/Spells system, because two different programmers were working on these systems independently. And while these still aren't linked together completely, several big strides have been made to facilitating their unification. We've set an internal goal for getting it all implemented and are currently working towards that. We're also preparing to program some of the trickier spells into the game, including some of the backer-sponsored ones!

Cutscene Movies Finished!

One of the bigger milestones we've hit in the last month is the completion of all the 2D cutscene movies in Mage's Initiation. These cutscenes are 2D movie files that play at the end of each game act and assist in seguing the story together from one act to another. There remain some loose ends to tie up, of course, as certain areas cannot be completed at the present time. Character voices, for example. And there are a few visual effects and basic clean-up work that must still be added, but the huge bulk of the work is complete and out of the way, and we're very happy to finally have this out of the way and checked off the to-do list.

2D Intro Scenes

JP has produced a whole stack of great animations and general background artwork clean-up in recent months. Ever the perfectionist, JP felt that several early backgrounds that were created for the game didn't match up to the aesthetic he's set for the rest of the game and didn't benefit from the additional skillsets he's since acquired. So he's been busy touching them up, giving them the old once-over, and creating all the necessary background animations that add life and movement to the valley of Iginor: Rivers, Smoke, Fires, Doors opening and closing, you name it! We're pleased to say that we are now very, very close to tying up all of the main background work on Mage's Initiation, with only a few close-ups and inset screens remaining. As we speak, JP is focusing on sketching and coloring all of the 2D stills for the Introduction Vignette that plays at the beginning of the game. After that, there will only really be a few GUIs and miscellaneous graphics needing to be finished. All in all, this portion of the game is now 95% complete, which is very exciting.

Dialog Portraits

Another artistic element that's fast hurtling down the track to fist-pumping completion is the character portraits. Karen has drawn, coloured, and animated an entire cast of wonderfully detailed characters, and they do so much to liven up the game world! With merely 5 or so portraits remaining, we'll soon have an all-singing, all-dancing chorus line of NPCs to perform a great song and dance number, celebrating their very own completion.

Lipsyncing ALLLLLL the forthcoming voice audio for each and every one of these characters… now, that's another matter *gulp*.

Character Sprites

Shane has boldly taken on the duty of animating the rest of the character sprites. A daunting list was presented to him, some months back, and the immediate decision was taken to cleft it in twain - just to give the illusion of making it look smaller. However, he soon reached the end of this list and now merely the second half remains to be finished up. 2D character animations have been a significant hurdle for this particular project, so it is with great anticipation that we're holding out for the last of these to be finished.

Adventure Programming Near the End

Finally, the general programming/scripting is also flowing along quite nicely. Chris has been concentrating on programming only the adventure portions of the game, while Jason's focus has been centered on the RPG system and fixing GUI bugs and issues. The adventure side of the programming has largely been completed, and Chris is now going back to filling in and fleshing out placeholder areas and puzzles that were not fully realized (or that were previously glossed over to make speedier progress). Programming and scripting always tends to be the one part of a game's development that continues to drag on long after all the other areas have been completed, and since the RPG and combat still aren't fully hooked into the adventure, it's difficult to judge exactly how far along we are. We hope to have everything linked and playable, programming-wise, from beginning to end in basic playable form, by the end of the year. If things go according to plan, this would roughly mark the first alpha build of the game (without voices).

VGU Con

Rachel reports back that VGU Con in Washington DC was really awesome! Lots of cool stuff was showcased and Mage's Initiation got a signal boost. Hopefully more of the team can get together for it next year and set up a booth. It'd be neat to put some faces to names at VGU Con 2015 and other upcoming conventions!

Shoutouts

Bill Tiller proves once again that you can take the man from the pirates, but you can never take the pirate out of the man. His latest Kickstarter endeavor is the luscious-looking, Monkey-Island inspired, point-and-click Duke Grabowski, Mighty Swashbuckler. Do take a look!

That's about it for now, we're happy to have gotten so much more done on the game and things are looking good for a smooth release come Q1 2015. Thanks again for your support and have a happy and safe Labor Day weekend!

The Himalaya Studios Team
 tag:www.kickstarter.com,2008-10-09:Post/882911 2014-06-19T10:59:18-04:00 2015-03-18T06:43:37-04:00 Summer of Sidequests Greetings patrons of the arcane,

We hope your summer has kickstarted nicely and that you've got enough Air and Water mages working overtime to keep your tower cool! (Or Fire Mages if you so happen to live in the colder climes).

Sidequests Ahoy

It's certainly been a productive start to summer on our end, as we spent the past month working on, and implementing, the class-based side-quests into the game. This was a stretch goal that our glorious backers (that's you!) helped us achieve during our Kickstarter campaign.

These 4-side quests have quite a checkered history, and they have gone through several inclusions, exclusions, re-inclusions, tweaks, changes, and complete rewrites to get them to the stage they're at today! Originally written into an early draft of the design document, a decision had been made to axe them from the game in order to ease time and budget restrictions. However, when the possibility of using Kickstarter to fund the endeavour presented itself, we realized that we would be able to add them back in with the flair that they deserved.

Post-funding, it soon became apparent that significant adjustments would need to be made to these class-based quests to have them fit into the ever-changing game world, which, obviously, had since evolved. The side-quests would also be quite asset intensive - each being exclusive to one of the four playable character classes and centering around their element. For example, each of the side-quests introduces several new locales and NPC characters to interact with -- several of which cannot be encountered by the other classes. Each locale requires multiple game backgrounds which JP has been working diligently on, and custom character sprites, hand-crafted by Shane. Not to mention additional animations, NPC dialog portraits and so forth.

One unique little touch that Daniel has made to the side-quests, is that although they all tell different stories, tailored specifically to each class, these 4 tales all interweave in some subtle way. We thought it would be a neat method of encouraging replayability, so that curious players could see how this particular portion of the game looks from other Mage classes' perspectives, who were at a different place during the same timeframe, yet still experience somewhat of a cross-over ripple effect.

We're pleased to announce that most of the background art for all four side-quests has been completed. Earth and Fire quests are done, and Water and Air still have some colorizations remaining, but are otherwise finalized in sketch form. We don't want to give too much away but in celebration of BBQ season, here's an incendiary sneak peek!

Sprites: Not just Lemon and Lime

As far as game animations are concerned, there's now a visible light at the end of a very long tunnel. We've compiled a definitive list of outstanding animations and sprites which are essential to completing development, and have relinquished said list to Shane.

He has been plugging away at this final batch of character animations and as a result, the land of Iginor is just about completely populated. Granted, some characters are still a tad on the stiff side (on account of them lacking anything other than a solitary stand-still frame), but as each one undergoes the de-stiffening process and frolicks their fresh frames throughout the realm, we're crossing them off one-at-a-time and the once-daunting list shrinks smaller and smaller.

Most of our backer-sponsored sprites have now been completed, making for a an interesting cast of characters with various professions residing throughout Iginor! However we have (still) yet to hear back from one of the Severed Heard " Augurer" backers, despite multiple attempts to get in contact. If you are Joost Brouwer (or otherwise know him or know how to contact him) please get in touch. He used to work on the Hero 6 project - just in case any of our backers were former Hero 6 team members who still keep in touch with him.

To give some indication of where we currently stand, assets-wise, here's a screenshot from AGS's stats menu for Mage's Initiation.

Git On With It

The programming team has recently started utilizing the Source Code Management/Revision Control system "Git" in order to keep the game's source code up-to-date and running as efficiently as possible.

For all of our previous game projects which were developed by multiple programmers spread across the globe, the way we worked was quite cumbersome and inefficient. Typically, one person was designated to be in control of the "Master" version of the source code. That person would download the latest version of the game's source files as a HUGE .rar archive and implement their own work into this so-called master copy. The other programmers would simultaneously work with replica versions of the game's source code and implement their own changes, additions, and bug-fixes into their local versions.

When it came time to merge all of their contributions together, the non-designated programmers would need to upload individual script files for the designated programmer to manually copy into the "Master" version of the source code. However, this always had the potential to completely overwrite another programmer's work if two or more people happened to work on the same files during the same timespan. The likelihood of this happening only increased when multiple edits were being made, or when edits that were very large and convoluted across many different files. For more complex operations, where non-script binary files had to be updated, lengthy forum posts between programmers were necessary. These posts contained sets of instructions informing the designated programmer exactly which settings and options needed to be set up in the "master" source; which images, sounds, loops, and views needed to be manually imported etc. Recreating these settings in the AGS editor and making the posts associated with them was a massive time-sink and it chewed a lot of energy that could otherwise have been devoted to programming. Once everything was sorted and all the changes were merged, the designated programmer would re-upload a new version of the source code for everyone else on the team. At this point, another person would download it and become the new designated programmer for another set period of time. Rinse and repeat until the game is finished. Not only was this method resource-intensive and time-intensive, but bugs still managed to filter their way in as a result of accidentally overwriting another persons' work, which then meant even more time spent tracking things down.

Git managed to solve all of these issues for us and has streamlined our process very nicely. After some initial headaches with the learning curves, white-knuckled fists, and premature bald patches (granted, this initial stage is the most frustrating thing about coming to terms with Git), we finally managed to learn enough about the system to get it to behave and start doing what we wanted. It works in such a way that the game's "master" source code is now stored on a remote online server. Each programmer installs the Git software which essentially allows them to 'hook into" the online version and download the latest changes to any source code files that have been made since the last time they checked. They download the files to their PC, work on them locally, and then re-upload their changes. Git only downloads and uploads the difference between files that have been modified; it doesn't download/upload the entire source code from scratch, so pulling (or pushing) the latest updates typically takes only a matter of seconds and not minutes or hours. Any programmer is free to make any changes they wish and re-upload their changed files to the online source code at any time. If two programmers edit the same file and there's a conflict, Git always reports the conflicting line number/s and we can manually edit it to resolve said conflict. This is far better than our old method which basically amounted to crossing our fingers and hoping that nothing would be overwritten, and then having to search manually for the offending lines afterwards, once the bug had already into the game.

The end result is that we're able to maximize time spent working on the game coding, while management of the source code files is reduced to a bare minimum. For a project the size of Mage's Initiation, Git should greatly aid our progress, moving ahead.

Al Emmo Now on Steam!

We are elated to say that we managed to get not just one but TWO games through Greenlight-- our flagship title Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine is now available for purchase on Steam! We'd like to thank everyone who voted and helped make this happen. The Steam version is currently available for Windows and Linux. If you backed at the $50 Spellbinder or $70 Shaman all-digital tiers, please create an account at IndieGameStand (if you haven't done so already) and then contact us, to redeem your Steam key. Anyone else who has previously purchased the game, can also contact us with a proof of purchase (email receipt or existing license key) if you'd like a complimentary Steam key.

For all non-owners, the Steam Summer Sale that starts June 19 is a great opportunity to grab a copy! The Steam version comes complete with Steam Achievements and Steam Trading Cards.

Shout-Outs

Kaptain Brawe 2 :

Bill Tiller (Curse of Monkey Island) and Steve Ince (Beneath a Steel Sky) have returned to Kickstarter as a united force! Alongside Cateia Games, they're presently Kickstarting Kaptain Brawe 2 - the sequel to the appropriately named Kaptain Brawe 1 (funny that!), which promises to be a visually-enticing, point & click extravaganza, harkening back to adventurous days of yore. Visually, the project is looking fantastic, but they need some extra wind in their sales to make it over the finishing line in the time remaining (or some cash pledged to their tally, if you're not one for analogies). Take a look here.

Moebius:

Pinkerton Road and Phoenix Online Studios recently released Moebius: Empire Rising, the first of Jane Jensen's originally developed CSG adventure games funded via Kickstarter. The game is a paranormal thriller that takes its inspiration from Gabriel Knight and Sherlock Holmes. Check out the website where you can download the free demo and purchase the game.

That's about it for now. On a side note, we've been getting several emails regarding address changes-- please note that we won't be surveying physical reward tiers above $20 for a while yet and haven't yet collected addresses for those tiers. We'll be giving a head's up in another update when we survey another tier(s)!

Happy Summer Solstice!

The Himalaya Studios Team


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*Please note, these reports will be active from 12pm MST on Thursday of each week, until Monday 11:55pm of the next week.
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Vocabulary, L5
Speaking Partner Appointment: Your Goals and Priorities
During this speaking partner session, you will practice listening for information while your Speaking Partner reads to you. You will also discuss different topics related to the unit content, which the Speaking Partner will choose.
Listening, Reading, and Grammar Practice
In part of a BYU devotional speech, President Monson talked about the importance of preparation and he related preparation to goals. The attached article's text has missing prepositions and conjunctions. (The full text is attached for you as the Speaking Partner.) Your speaking partner will read the text from President Monson, and will pause whenever you need to fill in the missing words. You will say what you think the missing words are and then your speaking partner will tell you whether you are correct or not. He or she can guide you as you think about the answers. When you find the correct answers, write the missing words on the blank lines.
Your speaking partner will read through the article once again with all of the words included.
Then, you will read the same text with all of the correct answers to your speaking partner. Your speaking partner will help you with any pronunciation or new vocabulary issues. Ask your speaking partner to explain any parts of the article that you did not understand. For example, if you do not understand President Monson's metaphor of "running up ________ down the field _________ never crossing the goal line," ask your speaking partner to explain where that metaphor comes from.
Discuss President Monson's article with your speaking partner. You may discuss some of the questions he asked, such as the following:
- How did President Monson relate the importance of making goals to preparation?
- He explained that we cannot be successful without setting goals. Why do you think goals are necessary?
- Why do you think preparation is essential for our progress?
- Explain the advice that President Monson gave: "It is not the number of hours you put in but what you put in the hours that counts."
- Why is it important to study something you like?
- You may wish to discuss any other advice that President Monson gave in this speech.
More Speaking Practice
Part 1: Your speaking partner will select one or more of the topics from the topic list, which the two of you can discuss. After you are done, your speaking partner will help you with any issues they notice with grammar, vocabulary, or pronunciation issues.
Part 2: Your speaking partner will ask you a number of questions about your goals and plans for after you complete the Pathway program.
- What does it mean to matriculate?
- What are you planning to do next semester after you finish the Pathway program?
- Are you planning to study online at BYU-Idaho? If so, what program do you plan to study?
- What are the steps you need to take to apply for the BYU-Idaho online program?
- Have you logged into BeSmart.com before? If so, is there anything you can't understand in the application process?
- What are some of your specific goals after you finish the Pathway program?
- How will you accomplish these goals?


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Article Summary
February 26, 2006 VIA Technologies has set up what is in effect, the first sports academy for computer gamers when it recently launched the girlz 0f destruction gaming house in Sweden. Dubbed the "Home of Chrome" after the Hi-Def Chrome computer hardware provided by VIA and S3 Graphics, the year-round eSports training house provides both professional and amateur gamers with a unique opportunity to improve their competitive gaming skills in a focused environment. One of the largest and fastest growing entertainment markets with global sales of around US$20 billion last year, PC gaming is becoming increasingly competitive around the world, with the growing recognition of eSports reflected in escalating tournament prizes, such as the US$150,000 purse at the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) finals. The Home of Chrome is a strategic move to facilitate intensive training for competitive PC gamers to hone their skills and practice with the best.
Read the full article: The World's First sports academy for Competitive PC Gaming
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Linda Cureton never orbited the Earth or designed a rocket engine, but her work at NASA was as vital to the agency's mission. (FCW photo)
NASA was innovative enough to put a man on the moon, but just a few years ago, its IT department "couldn't install Adobe on your desktop," retiring CIO Linda Cureton said.
That's "retiring" as in leaving government service, not as in "shy." Never one to hold back, Cureton told FCW that although innovation was always central to NASA's overall mission, its CIO office was mostly known for handling tech complaints and developing security policies before she became CIO in September 2009. That is not the case anymore.
Cureton's drive to innovate pushed the agency to integrate its IT infrastructure, save millions of dollars by eliminating bad contracts and boldly go where few agencies had before by adopting an open-source cloud computing environment called Nebula in 2010.
When Cureton retires from the government on April 1 after a 34-year career as a civil servant, she will leave behind a legacy of innovation and strategic thinking.
What she accomplished at NASA
Before Cureton took over as NASA's agencywide CIO in 2009, she had already blogged regularly for more than a year, blazing a trail in social media that some federal executives have yet to follow.
Under Cureton, NASA was light-years ahead of many agencies in cloud computing. In 2010, the agency installed Nebula, an infrastructure-as-a-service solution that helped NASA cut costs by improving resource use and reducing energy consumption and labor.
The platform also provided an environment for the computation and storage of the agency's scientific data and Web-based applications and improved how NASA shares complex datasets with the public and its partners in academia and business.
"It was a very tenuous time in cloud computing," Cureton said. "People really didn't believe in it or in Nebula, and we had a hard time getting funding for it. It's taken off like wildfire."
Cureton also created the position of chief technology officer for IT at NASA to lead the agency's technology and innovation efforts. Previously occupied by Nebula founder Chris Kemp and now by Sasi Pillay, the position is charged with providing NASA personnel with the most innovative IT in the world — exactly what you would expect from the agency that explores other planets and maps the universe.
Cureton said the position ensures that NASA's IT department will never again lack the initiative to innovate. "It might be what I'm most proud of during my tenure," she said.
While Cureton was in charge, NASA's IT budget decreased sharply from a high of $2.2 billion. Yet the agency is in good shape moving forward thanks in part to smarter contracting, Cureton said. She noted that the agency's contract with Hewlett-Packard -- to modernize and manage NASA's end-user infrastructure, including desktop computing and other devices -- would save at least $60 million.
The agency also insourced its call center by creating an enterprise service desk to act as a central hub to answer questions, thereby building on its efforts to be "customer obsessed." Before that, response times were measured in hours, not seconds, which is not good for customer satisfaction, Cureton said.
"There is a delicate balance between innovating and maintaining," she said. "Any organization that focuses only on what it is supposed to do and nothing else will ultimately fail. But if you're not doing your bread-and-butter stuff well, people don't want to look to you for anything else, especially innovation."
Each of those efforts is a microcosm of NASA's broad plan to become more efficient in its IT infrastructure spending, which was solidified through the agency's IT Infrastructure Integration Program (I3P). The goal of the program, which Cureton called "tremendously risky and daunting," was to integrate IT across the agency "into something cohesive and central" by consolidating services.
I3P has boosted IT efficiency, improved IT security and revamped the agency's procurement processes. Some of the steps were difficult and fraught with terror, Cureton said, but they helped pave the way for an innovative future at NASA long after she is gone.
"Do we have more to do?" she asked. "Yes, but we're going to continue making those improvements."
What's next for Cureton
Before her time at NASA — first as CIO of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, then as agencywide CIO — Cureton worked at the departments of Energy and Justice, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Cureton's book "The Leadership Muse" provides insights and tips for managers drawn from her experience.
She has made many connections in the IT community during her career, and though she plans to vacation on a warm beach somewhere for a few weeks after her official retirement, Cureton does not intend to stay away from work for long. She is already planning to write another book to follow "The Leadership Muse," a sort of how-to guide for leaders.
"I don't feel so much like I'm leaving the government; I feel more like I'm going to some different place," Cureton said. "I don't want to turn into a pillar of salt. I want to leverage what I've learned. There is a lot I can give. I don't see myself sitting in a rocking chair."
A native of Washington, D.C., Cureton attended public schools in the area before enrolling at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, where she played the piano, trumpet and French horn. She still plays music on occasion and would like to do it more often. She credits the connection between music and mathematics for her success in science and technology.
Many are calling Cureton's retirement a loss not only for NASA but for the public sector as a whole. "Linda brought a humanistic perspective to all she did in her CIO role at NASA and her involvement in the federal CIO Council," said Richard Spires, CIO at the Department of Homeland Security. "She pushed hard on how to more effectively lead, manage and develop people. I want to thank her for her leadership of the Strategy and Planning Committee of the CIO Council and her years of service to this government. She will certainly be missed."
Cureton was successful in her NASA CIO role "because she thinks differently and not like everyone else," said Robert Bruce, senior executive officer at GTI Federal and a longtime friend of Cureton's. Those traits stand out in government, he said, adding, "I was aware of who she was before I ever met her." Cureton has not yet accepted any job offers, though she will likely have plenty of options.
Bob Woods, president of Topside Consulting Group, said he hopes she lands on the industry side. He considers Cureton a friend and said he has long been impressed by her candidness and social-media savvy. He believes she has much more insight to share with the IT world.
Cureton 'pushed hardon how to more effectivelylead, manage and developpeople.' -- DHS CIO Richard Spires
"I think Linda's going to have a number of options of things she could do," he said. "Now the question is pulling the trigger on which way she'll go. I'm hoping she'll come back on the other side and support a lot of the same issues from the industry side. She'll have to decide how much she wants to work and...how much she plays."
What's next for NASA
Cureton is in the process of turning her duties over to subordinates, and because much of her work was focused on IT reform, many of her responsibilities will fall to Gary Cox, NASA's deputy CIO for IT reform. Cox is one of three deputy CIOs Cureton handpicked during her tenure who are now likely candidates for her job. Deborah Diaz, NASA's deputy CIO, and Valarie Burks, deputy CIO for IT security, round out a potential list of internal candidates. However, it remains unclear whom NASA's leaders will select to replace Cureton.
"NASA would need someone who can keep the momentum going," Bruce said. "The transformation going on is difficult. Hopefully, they won't regress to the risk aversion that's not unusual in engineering organizations."
Cureton declined to say who she believes is the best fit for the position. "I have some thoughts, but the agency will ultimately make its own decisions," she said.
Bruce threw some other names into the mix: Mike Bolger, acting deputy director of NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center, and Larry Sweet, IT director and CIO at the Johnson Space Center.
"NASA is a difficult culture, so having someone who understands [it] is a plus," Bruce said. "The deputy for IT reform [Cox] would be most knowledgeable and experienced on I3P [and] would be a good choice also." "Linda won't be easy to replace," said Darren Ash, CIO at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and president of the American Council for Technology. "Her replacement will need to be a strong partner to the programmatic and space flight center leaders...[a] strong strategic thinker and a trusted adviser to the NASA administrator."
Whoever takes over will have big shoes to fill, and though the IT department has taken a giant leap forward in recent years, many challenges remain and it will not be easy to keep the momentum going.
"There are some things I will miss certainly with an agency like NASA and its fabulous mission," Cureton said before letting out a deep breath. "And there will be some things I will not miss."
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In this issue: Tony Scott's busy year ahead, Rising Star profiles and more.
See the latest issue
DHS pulled a two-year-old solicitation for administrative support for cyber mission offices.
The president put the federal government's portfolio of aging IT systems front and center in his final budget request to Congress.
The Obama administration's proposed Cybersecurity National Action Plan for FY2017 includes $3.1B for IT modernization and a new federal chief information security officer.
Looking for success stories and exceptional change in federal IT? Meet the women and men who are making it happen.
In a new survey, federal leaders say they're making digital progress, but most also say they're merely updating old systems, not reinventing processes for the Digital Age.
The U.S. Customs and Immigration Services created new deputy CIO slot to help balance everyday IT operations and burgeoning DevOps, agile and cloud activities.
NIST is looking to increase trust in the technical underpinnings of encryption, by strengthening cryptographic random bit generators.
Steve Kelman applauds ASI Government for sharing valuable knowledge -- and notes that there are still plenty of other questions to answer.
In an op-ed for Business Insider, the GOP presidential candidate called for "the federal government must put its own house in order, prioritizing to reflect the urgency and importance of protecting key databases and communications."
Who wrote this S%^&? Linda's spin doctors no doubt. If you read her book... you would say "ya... give me some of that." But these were just words that were not translated into action. And as a result, NASA's institutional IT has spun even further into the abyss. There is a NASA OIG "Audit of NASA's Information Technology Governance Structure" in progress. I hope this gets to the root of this problem (which Linda did not help but instead perpetuated) for NASA's sake.
As a NASA IT employee, I really can't tell she did anything as CIO. She was a non-event in my view. Except the Agecny contract for office automation was, is and certainly will be for many years a near total basket case. If she had anything to do with this, glad to see her go.
This article is a joke. She was no innovator. She was a self-focused, self-promoting, pathetic excuse for a CIO. There is very little truth in this article. The thing Linda Cureton is best at is spinning stories and making up fairy tales. Her next book should be called "How I Fooled NASA, Congress and the OIG into Believing I Knew Anything About IT."
Yes who wrote this piece? Linda's mom. This person was notified regarding critical security issues and said "she doesn't see them". Had no clue about security and showed no leadership qualities at all in dealing with the tough issues. I believe it was only a matter of time - the investigations were coming.
I, too, am a NASA employee and glad to see her go. Any "good" she may have done is negated by her anti-white male (and very obvious) attitude. She had a large entourage at her beck and call that was laughable and few people at the Agency didn't know about it. I rolled my eyes several times while reading this article. Was any fact checking done here?
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The Division of Counseling Psychology is located in the Department of Educational & Counseling Psychology in the School of Education at the University at Albany.
We would like to extend a warm welcome to you from our home on the web and invite you to explore the site to learn more about us.
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she just posted this on facebook and i got my reading back already.
she said i will get pregnant with a girl in march/april.
i know ive seen a lot of posts in past boards about her and i thought some of you might be interested in getting a free reading!
here is her facebook link
i posted below what is writte on her facebook :)
Your gonna ♥ this! Are you or someone you know trying to get pregnant or would be looking to get pregnant in the future? I am offering FREE conception readings NOW until Saturday the 17th! So invite your friends to my facebook page! Email me at email@example.com & in the subject write FREE TTC READING.
In the email please include your name, significant others name and both of your birthdates, how long you have been ttc for and how many pregnancies you have had & wether they were viable or not. I will then respond with the gender and month associated with your next pregnancy :)


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Dr. Furth is a Penn Medicine employed physician.
Received the Penn Medicine Award of Excellence, 2006
Recognized by Best Doctors in America 2011-2012
A facility of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
Medical School: University of Chicago School of Medicine
Residency: Rush University Medical Center
Residency: Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
Krasinskas AM, Abraham SC, Metz DC, Furth EE: Oxyntic mucosa pseudopolyps: A presentation of atrophic autoimmune gastritis. American Journal of Surgical Pathology 27 (2): 236-41,2003.
Gibson SL, Dai CY, Lee HW, DePinho RA, Gee MS, Lee WMF, Furth EE, Brensinger C, and Enders GH: Inhibition of colon tumor progression and angiongenesis by the Ink4a/Arf Locus. Cancer Research 63 : 742-746,2003.
Raper SE, Yudkoff M, Chirmule N., Gao GP, Nunes F, Haskal ZJ, Furth EE, Propert KJ, Robinson MB, Magosin S, Simoes H, Speicher L, Hughes J, Tazelarr J, Wivel NA, Wilson Jm, Batshaw ML: A pilot study of in vivo liver-directed gene transfer with an adenoviral vector impartial ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency. Human Gene Therapy 13 (1): 163-75,2002.
Kreisel D, Petrowsky H., Krasinskas AM, Krupnick AS, Szeto WY, McLean AD, Popma SH, Gelman AE, Traum MK, Furth EE, Moore JS, Rosengard BR: The role of passenger leukocyte genotype in rejection and acceptance of rat liver allografts. Transplantation 73 (9): 1501-7,2002.
Ahmad NA, Kochman ML, Long WB, Furth EE, Ginsberg GG: Efficacy, safety and clinical outcomes of endoscopic mucosal resection: a study of 101 cases. Gastrointestinal Endoscopy 55 (3): 390-6,2002.
Abraham SC, Lee JH, Boitnott JK, Argani P, Furth EE, Wut TT: Microsattelite instability in intraductal papillary neoplasms of the biliary tract. Mod Pathol 15 (12): 1309-17,2002.
Furth EE: Gastrointestinal system. Endocrine pathology W(9) : 237-241,2002.
Pui JC, Furth EE, Minda J and Montone KT: Detection of Varicella-Zoster in the smooth muscle and myenteric plexi of the colon in HIV-positive patient with herpes zoster and small bowel pseudo-obstruction. American Journal of Gastroenterology 96 (5): 1627-30,2001.
Krasinskas AM, Ruchelli ED, Rand EB, Chittams JL and Furth EE: Central Venulitis in pediatric liver allografts. Hepatology 33 (5): 1141-1147,2001.
Yu GH, Nayar R, and Furth EE: Adenocarcinoma in colonic brushing cytology: High-grade dysplasia as a diagnostic pitfall. Diagn Cytopathol 24 : 364-368,2001.
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Our experienced cancer nurses and referral staff are here to help. Call 1-800-789-PENN or complete an online request.
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