Brace yourself for terrible soul crushing disappointment...
Did you sit down? Good.
Sir Sapo and I have decided that we will quit work on Angels 22 due to the fact that we have just lost total interest in it, and have found other projects to work on.
This is a sentence to distract you. That thing I just said above was a lie to prepare you for the actual bad news: Sir Sapo and I have come to the conclusion that there is no way we can get Angels 22 into submittable shape by the 4E5 deadline, and are therefore pulling out of the contest.
Hopefully that news seemed way better after you read the fake news, and don't worry, we'll totally release demos for you guys as we progress on the game for a possible commercial release complete with Multiplayer(!).
The reasons for the game not getting as far as we thought it should've by now are pretty standard, meaning teh RL got in the way our 1337 selves. That means school in our senor year has been a bigger burden than we anticipated, due to Government AP and our other random classes and extracurricular activities, not to mention the getting-into-college-and-getting-scholarships dance.
I'm really looking forward to working on the game without the pressure of deadlines or certain... Elements. Emotion was going to be really hard, and economics was going to be less that exemplary...
Europe was going to be pretty easy, and there's this kickass Emblem thing we had which I think we're going to keep from you guys along with the finale. Actually there's the other emblem thing we dropped earlier when we were worried about the deadline, medals and random rewards for doing stuff, like the ironically-named "Smokey Bear" medal for napalming trees, or the "Papal Condemnation" AKA 'What would the Pope think?' medal for hitting one too many churches.
Anyway, time for the fairly contentless rest of the entry...
Fortress Elbrus
Despite the dissapointing news, I have thought some about a particularly cool section of the game, the last two missions,
which if all goes well, will be the ultimate cool finally, although I'll leave the actual ending out for now and give background on the location, The Neo-Communist Mount Elbrus Fortress.
I really like the idea of a modern fortress, something like the classic castle on the hill, something that just gives a senseof oppression, a sense of fear merely by being visible on the horizon. That feeling really isn't going to be present in the game, I'm sure, but at least a good base for an idea for makes working on the in-game part easier.
The logic for choosing Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus mountain range is that it's in Europe, which we aren't going to worry about as much anymore, and that it's really tall and stands out. I could also make the case that it is a fairly logical location for a mountain fortress, protecting the rest of the natural resource-rich mountain range, y'know, if you had to build a mountain fortress somewhere, it might as well be there.
In any case, Elbrus looks like a mountain fortress, being fairly isolated and way taller than nearby peaks, and being permanently snowcapped and in Russia Proper. Just look at this fuzzy photographic evidence:
Awesome, Eh? Though it does need a few monolithic doors that open to reveal huge batteries of ICBMs or perhaps a few new superweapons...
I'm going to try to draw an actual large image of the mountain itself, maybe in photoshop. If I draw it I can get a good feel for the shape, and we can make the last level at least sort of geographically accurate. I'm not sure if that matters at all, but at least I'd have a good place to start for level design. I think it would be really cool to essentially fly your way up the mountain side (resistance would be light, I'll explain later), going from forest to tundra to bare rock to snow, eventually reaching the top of the first peak, where the action starts. I'll talk about the mission later, but for now,a rare treat, a Prinz Eugn video.
Elbrus Explained Video (12MB) Link
I would highly reccomend watching that, as I made it, and it's awesome.
Speaking of real life getting in the way, I'm going to have to finish this entry up here right quick. Tomorrow I'll get to the actual meat of the gameplay, not to mention something kickass that you may have forgotten about.
Sorry for the news/dirty trick
Goodnight!
-Mark the Artist
