Another late night for me at the office. Problem is, Gremmie's are not conducive to work. Also, keeping them away from markers = crucial.

It’s been awhile since you’ve heard from good old Azrael. Needless to say, I have just been a busy Gremmie stomping fool. A lot of great things have been happening here at Double Cluepon, and a great many hours have been put in as of late.

At the end of the day though, things are moving right along. Meetings and schedules are being tightened on a weekly basis now. It’s going to get a lot crazier still too. The good news is, the ball keeps moving forward.

One of the things I am seriously contemplating is doing “In Bed with the Producer” every couple weeks. I would be doing this via a live stream from this very blog. I would probably do this Saturdays, in the Afternoon. If you’re keen to see such a thing, where you can hang out, ask me questions about Emerald Kingdom, make suggestions…be sure to leave a comment on this post.-

But, let me tell you about a few of the cool, and not so cool things happening as of late:

Our blog was down part of Sunday due to a conflagration of update stupidity. We use the Mystique theme for WordPress. Mystique is a pretty rad theme, very configurable and very robust. Over the weekend Digital Nature released an update. For various reasons, some WordPress.org related, some Digital Nature related….upgrading broke the hell out of the blog. We wound up having to downgrade back to 2.4.7 from 3.0. It’s pretty unfortunate. We’re still deciding what we should do about this situation, as theme’s can get to be notoriously unstable as WordPress’ version increments. Right now, I am weighing forking the theme and rolling it into something custom for our use only. Alternatively, I could also set up a one off WordPress install with the new theme, and use it as a starting point to migrate changes to the production blog. One of the things I like about our blog is, how nice it looks, and how easy it has been (for the most part) to maintain. I really cast a dim view on disruption of any kind.

Castiel: Why no Mister Bond, I expect you to file these TPS reports!

Castiel, our new writer is trucking right along. She has been applying pen to paper furiously. Between her and I, the back story rewrite for Emerald Kingdom is flat out moving at a very acceptable speed. While some changes have been made, they have been for the better. I certainly didn’t think it was possible to add more intrigue to things, she has upped the ante on a few fronts. One of the things she specializes in is keeping a great balance between showing and telling. She is also pretty awesome when it comes to pacing. While the back story for Emerald Kingdom may get published at some point, in the context of our development the back story is more of our “Reference Tome” so to speak: in order to be able to write the In Game story, and keep the story moving at the frequency we want, we have to know how things got there. On this note, Castiel is astounding us with her ideas, and her plans. Her work in this regard is so incredibly crucial. Unlike a great many others, we do plan on episodic content. To do that, and do it well…you really need to keep a close eye on where you’ve been, where you are, and where you are going. We have a ways to go yet, but we have a better picture in our mind now.

Caelum: Yo dawg, we heard you like beards...

Another prime mover in the last month is Caelum. He’s currently on a triple workload. He has laid out a solid foundation for our sound effects library. By itself, that is quite a feat. But he has not stopped there. He and Uriel have also streamlined our process for prop creation, (buildings, accoutrements, etc) as well as trucking right along with getting the starter clothing pathed out for Sandalphon to add to game sprite animation. Sound wise, he’s been crisscrossing states in some cases to do field recording of sounds, cleaning them up, and then working with them to create a variety of sound effects for use in Emerald Kingdom. Prop wise? He gets a flat drawing from the Art Department which he then runs through Maya in order to give us plan renders…the advantage being we get every isometric view we need, without needing the art department to draw every view by hand. All in all, Caelum is really showing how much he cares, his attention to the little details results in more quality for the players. Quality for the players is paramount for us.

Because we’re also players.

Other things in the mix: the other things happening as of late is that we are making a number of changes currently, as well as planning for more changes in the next month or two. It’s all in preparation for Emerald Kingdom going to live testing. Here are some of the other things bring churned:

Elphie awaits!

We have recently put WireWorks up on its own page here at Double Cluepon. You can now play WireWorks anytime you want, at wireworks.doublecluepon.com. While we are not tracking the high scores, and we know there are some bugs that escaped notice…it should be noted that this version of WireWorks is the classic version. There’s a new version in pre-production. It will have many new features such as new parts to assemble boards with (capacitors, transistors, etc). It will also be the main labor puzzle for the Junkworks in Emerald Kingdom. While there will be new tiles/pieces bits and bobs to use one thing that will not be changing: the basics. You should practice now while you can!

Also, Elphie does not mind. She could use some company!

The Emerald Kingdom page has been updated! We have converted it to something more akin to a “Landing Page”. You can now sign up for early access to Emerald Kingdom, including Alpha/Beta testing. Please note that if you signed up for our mailing list updates you are already on the list for early access! You don’t need to sign up again. But, we definitely encourage you to tell your friends and spread the word! The more sign ups the better.

The Emerald Kingdom forums have actually had a minor address change. The forums are now available at their own (and now non re-directed) URL: http://forums.emeraldkingdom.com/ . You should make a note of this. Also, don’t be shy. If you have questions, we have answers! Be sure to bop on by and keep us on our toes!

Been to the conventions, such as Otakon? Do you have one of the new “Bitsy’s Bullets” shirts? How about a “Twin Perennial” shirt? Show us your pride! Send me (Azrael) a good picture(s) of you wearing the shirt. If you catch me on a good day, maybe I’ll send you something! I think we even have a coffee mug or two around. Sending me a picture is easy: kick me a link on Twitter (@ArchAzrael) or email me at: azrael AT doublecluepon DOT com.

That about wraps things up for now. As usual, from all of us here…we hope your summer thus far has been safe and fun.