Dev Blog #010

[HairyGrenade 1,144]

 

Beginning of a new era

Wow, what a month; busy and exciting and full of promise! While the developers have been hard at work getting the Town Square module ready to go, I've been preparing our new office space and interviewing potential Asylum developers.

We've raised almost $800,000, allowing us to expand in a big way and bring on loads of new talent.

Asylum Entertainment's new home

If you read my last dev blog you'll remember that we had just scouted out office space and had narrowed our search to one. Now we have the keys and I've been working hard to get it operational. I never want to see another hex key again!

It's almost hard to imagine that we've been working on Identity with a team spread out around the world. The talent of our small team has astonished me. It's exciting to consider how finally working in a formal setting is going to boost productivity.

Not only is working in an office such as this going to make it easier to work together, but we've been on a hiring craze. Having sifted through hundredsof applications over the past few weeks and interviewing dozens of skilled individuals, we've selected most new developers to join our team. Our programming manpower is now three times stronger.

Finally, after all this time we're now able to afford a full-time community manager. Joining our team at the new office location next week is Identity's community manager, Brandon! You'll be hearing from him very regulary. We're committing to keeping you in constant contact with the development team. Keep an eye on our website as well as social media!

Town Square on the horizon!

With our new studio starting up next week and the new programming talent coming on-board, our goal of the Town Square release is getting nearer.

 

It's big news: the official Town Square release date will be announced in the month of October. With all of the changes affecting our productivity in such a positive way, we need to see how everyone works together over the next few weeks. This will allow us to give our fans a date with which we can be confident.

 

We've got the Twitch

We wanted to give you a glimpse of the game development process and have been streaming on Twitch to show you how it's done. Four hour (or more) long streams have gone live since my last dev blog; keep an eye on Identity's Twitter for future stream announcements. We try to have at least one development stream per week.

As a fan of Identity, one of the things you're going to enjoy most is the flurry of videos which will be coming soon showing off the social features of the Town Square. For a simple social module, there's a good bit of fun things to do!

New in the Town Square

Our lead programmer, Henrik, has been hard at work these last couple of weeks refactoring our housing system to make it more stable and better performing for the Town Square module release. Everything's looking great at this point and he's very excited to get a bunch of new help over the next couple of weeks.

With more great talent joining our art team, we're producing assets and new environments at an astonishing pace. Interiors we only hoped to have in Town Square by its release have gone from concept to reality very quickly.

Last dev blog I showed you the concept art pieces produced for the police station. The police station was something we didn't expect to be available in the initial Town Square release, but with our art team hard at work we're getting a lot done. Below you'll find the lobby as it is in-game. The police station in Town Square will be a place for you to learn about the policing career, but it will also eventually feature a shooting range for you to test the weapon systems in Identity.

Police station lobby in Town Square

Our character and clothing team has also been adding a large variety of things to wear in the Town Square. Both clothing and accessories are being added all the time. Note the attention to detail and excellent quality of the clothing pieces in Identity.

New sweater clothing

What's to come

In summary, we've been moving along with Identity's development at a great pace considering the size of our team; however, our team is growing in a big way right now. New developers are selected and some are starting at the new office as early as this coming week.

Once the new guys have been oriented and we get an understanding of their work, we're going to be able to analyze the tasks remaining and give you a release date for Town Square. This is a big deal; Town Square isn't all that far off now and we're already preparing and planning for the next module: SWAT.

I hoped to release a video showing combat systems already, but most the remaining work for that falls on myself as the other developers are busy with the real systems for Town Square. I've not had much time over these weeks from preparing the office, so that's on hold a bit; my priority is getting the Town Square module into your hands as soon as possible.

Because we're getting further along now, and with the added manpower, we're going to soon start releasing small gameplay videos showing off the different aspects of Town Square.

Finally, Brandon is joining Asylum as a dedicated full-time community manager! Brandon will be keeping you up to date constantly. Our silent days are soon to be over!

-- John VanderZwet

Let's Make Identity Great!

Identity's development is going great thanks to the support of people like you, but systems like these take a lot of manpower and resources to create. Identity has an awesome community behind it, but when more people know about what we're creating and our budget grows from pledges, we can not only work faster but we can do more, too.

If you're as excited to play Identity as we are making it, help spread the word. The gaming industry has needed a game like Identity for too long; let's make it great together!