Why so quiet?

As Garry explained in his post, we have joined Facepunch to work on Before full time. When he first contacted me back in April, I was just starting to plan for a Kickstarter campaign, but Garry’s offer was too good to pass up. However, the team I wanted to bring with me weren’t all ready, so we agreed that myself and Petur would join Facepunch for a few months until everything was in place to get started on Before.

Working with me on Before now are Pål, a programmer whose skills I have trusted for nearly a decade and Petur, an exceptional artist who I’ve worked with on countless projects. Having built a prototype, documented ideas and explored the style of the game by myself, I’m really happy to be working with these guys, and having a wealth of talent alongside us at Facepunch is a huge boost as well.

We’ve had our hands full over the last few weeks porting the project to the Unity 5 beta, cleaning up assets, and tackling some of the technical and artistic challenges that come from the scaling up development. With the addition of new shaders, lighting improvements, atmospheric effects, Speedtree and more, things are looking good.

But of course, it’s what’s happening under the hood that really counts now, and turning those prototypes and ideas into something you’d actually want to play is no small task. Pål has been implementing the underlying structure of our game systems, the real foundation work that will allow us, to iterate quickly and focus on the fun stuff. This is the slow bit – but we’re starting to see results, and hopefully it won’t be long until we can share some of that with you.

Ah yes, you. I have to say “thank you” to everyone that has voiced their excitement, enthusiasm and support for the game, even in its early stages. If it wasn’t for your support we would not be in the position we are today. So yes, thank you!

Onwards, to prehistory!

Much like the blogs for Rust, Deuce, Space C***s, and Arcade, we will be posting regular updates on how things are going. You can also spy on our commit log via Twitter, where you can follow the new @BeforeGame account, too.

See you next time!