Posts tagged web comic
One year of the rollercoaster!
0Double Cluepon is one year old this month.
What better birthday present for a company than to learn that one development avenue which was originally closed off to us is now open. Apple recently announced that they are loosening the restrictions on development for the iPhone and the iPad.
What does this mean? Well, for us it means we can make stuff like WireWorks available on these platforms. That alone is great. I know I personally would love to see Emerald Kingdom on an iPad at some point.
Another great thing about being one year old is, we are actually still quite alive and kicking. Many businesses do not make it to the one year mark.
Aside from all that, we have been busy busy! We have recently added another artist, who is hard at work getting Twin Perennial into a working process for publication, among other things. We are also searching for a couple of new Developers, and hope to have that secured in the next couple of weeks.
Which will bring Double Cluepon to about 10 people. Not bad considering in the beginning, there were simply two.
Emerald Kingdom is slowly but surely approaching its Alpha point. That said, all of us here get more excited with every new build we see and play with. StoryTeller is coming along quite nicely, and the asset buildup is proceeding on schedule.
So, here’s to another year of fun. The next 12 months is going to be even more fun. Emerald Kingdom, and more quickplays are in the delivery chute. =)
Back to our regularly scheduled development!
0We have not been slacking. We have been busy with a variety of things. Honest! So, now that we have accomplished a few things, it’s time to make some announcements!
First up on the list, whether you have noticed it or not: we have actually put some content in place, and put up a real home page over at: http://www.emeraldkingdom.com/ . More than anything, we wanted to take some time to make everything uniform across the board with our sites. Emerald Kingdom’s area is now, for the most part, done. While we are on the subject: dont forget to register for our forums.
Another thing we recently accomplished is retooling a bit of the Double Cluepon home page. Feel free to check it out.
Back to the topic at hand, one of the other things we have been doing is laying groundwork for Twin Perennial. Twin Perennial is a serial webcomic. It’s purpose: to help you folks start to get into the world of Emerald Kingdom. It’s been designed from a “ground up” standpoint. From the work done so far, it’s looking very much like it will appeal to a wide variety. One of the things I have said before is, Emerald Kingdom has someone for everyone. In terms of the story based characters, that is especially true. Our wonderful Sprites run the gamut. We hope to have Twin Perennial starting up soon.
Next up on our cavalcade of news: we have acquired some new talent! We have added our new Director of Animation, whom you will know as Sandalphon. She comes to us with a background of already really awesome work. She is bringing herself up to speed, and will soon be hard at work breathing life into Emerald Kingdom. She will also make you cry if you aren’t careful. In all seriousness, she is a highly skilled animator, and we look forward to seeing the new moving models!
Finally, we have released some new art for the hungry masses:
Sheyala is one hell of a bitter pill. =) You can find out more about how she was conceptualized here.
Fifty.
0I have been quite busy as of late. Between resume vetting, working on some web re-organization and generally taking some time to regroup….I have barely had time to do much anything else. When I get busy, the blog goes silent. That’s going to change a bit as time goes on. More of the crew here at Double Cluepon will begin writing posts here and there. Nova, our CR Vixen will also be getting in here soon to keep things rolling, and keep things tidy.
So, for the fiftieth post, I just wanted to give you some updates as to what is going down here at Double Cluepon.
While we will be mostly interviewing this week, having collected a massive number of resume’s last week…it’s still not too late to submit a resume and portfolio to us. We have gotten so many folks sending us credentials it’s very overwhelming. We wish we could bring all of them in, but we just do not have the resources. However, one of the things we are considering is some kind of intern program. We think it might be helpful to some of these folks to still hang around a game studio. Especially an indie studio.
- WireWorks, our first game, fared much better than we initially hoped.
It sounds weird, but all of us felt WireWorks had a chance to not do as well as it did. We never expected it to hit four stars. (The version of WireWorks that is going into Emerald Kingdom will be far more polished) Despite that, it did a lot better than we hoped. It came out of the gate, and for our first ever product, it beat the Average, hovering around 3 stars, or just under. Not bad for our first try! Especially in a world of hundreds of thousands of flash games. We learned a great deal from its reception. We also learned where we failed, and what needs improvement. We are already putting some of these things into new policies as we move forward with Emerald Kingdom. Even so, everyone we spoke to directly in some way loved WireWorks, and we are quite proud of our debut product.
- We are currently working on revamping our web presence.
Be on the lookout, we are in the process of putting together a new unified web presence, with a uniform interface so things are easier to navigate. We are doing this now, while we have some time during the spin down of WireWorks development, and during our star search for a new artist.
- We have opened our forums, and have also posted some details about some major features you will find in Emerald Kingdom.
You can find our forums here. More to the point…the forums are the place to mingle and hobnob with us folks at Double Cluepon. We read them all the time, and may from time to time answer direct questions. If you want to get more direct with us about Emerald Kingdom…the forums are the place to do so.
- Twin Perennial is now in production.
We do not have a release date for the debut. However what we can tell you is this: the story outline is done, the script production cycle is now been started, and it is in full production. What is Twin Perennial? It’s a web comic which is based on the characters and world of Emerald Kingdom. While many of the main characters will appear, it will “key” in on two very important major characters. The sisters Paranoia and Confusia. Twin Perennial will serve to introduce the world, concepts and characters of Emerald Kingdom. We have not mentioned her in awhile, mainly cause she has been busy with her own gigs in addition to helping to develop the strip…but you should definitely check out Joan Varitek. You should also check out her etsy store. We love Joan. Greatly. In that platonic kind of kindred type of love. Not the prison type of love. Also, banana’s.
So, in closing…things are busy, yes. Not as busy as they are going to get very soon. I really want to see some of the kids walking around the world already.
Ja Mata!
Today’s Updates! As Promised!
0Here we go with your promised update report!
Updates on Emerald Kingdom:
We have brought on a new developer. His job will be to work on the Emerald Kingdom client, as well as what we call the StoryTeller tool. To that end, he has been looking through engine code and bringing himself up to speed. We expect a more full report from him at the end of this week sometime. Needless to say, things are picking up. Emerald Kingdom’s artwork has progressed out of concepts into full time modelling. We have begun to build up an asset bank for things as they will appear in the game. Woo Woo!
Updates on WireWorks:
WireWorks entered it’s second Alpha about two weeks ago.We have obliterated most of the more flagrant bugs out there, and we opened the testing pool a bit more. That being said, we are now moving to getting it feature complete so we can move into Beta Testing. When that happens, we will open up the testing to a full invitation only beta, followed by release. So far though, the game is very tight, and very fun to play.
Updates related to the forthcoming webcomic:
As you may, or may not know, we have a webcomic in the works. The initial scripting for the first run of panels has been completed and had it’s revision. We have begun building up an infrastructure for it’s online publishing. Yay for our side! That said, we think it’s heading in the right direction, and should start off with a bang. I personally cannot wait to see the first episode hit! We also finalized some material for what will be a graphic novel at some point down the line.
Oh yeah. We released a contest on Deviant Art today. Check it out!
Double Cluepon Announces: Official Licensee for Webcomic and Related Merchandise
0The ink has dried!
Joan Varitek (web/blog/deviantart/twitter) has signed an exclusive licensing contract with Double Cluepon Software. She is a highly talented artist and illustrator, and she will be producing a web-comic based on the story and characters of Emerald Kingdom. In addition, we will be promoting her work in general, (because, her regular non Double Cluepon work is freaking awesome too! ) and she will be cross promoting Emerald Kingdom and it’s associated games.
The web comic will cover the topic of Confusia and Paranoia. Two of the major NPC’s. She will also be producing a one off comic story, which will allow the players to get into Emerald Kingdom’s rich story and characters. It will be from there that you will start to learn about Kerix, and Avatea….Beatrice and Phenix. It will let you get to know The Sprites, because after all…you will be playing in a world where they live. You will also have the opportunity to get information from the comics that may lead you to interesting things within the game. That’s right: by reading the comic, you can get game information and clues to activities not available elsewhere.
But Joan is more than just a one trick pony. She will also be producing anything from prints to books based on the licensed IP. So be on the lookout for it. She has our full support, and we have every confidence in her ability to do great things with our kids. She “gets it”, and is on board all the way…we selected her because she meshed so well with our people…and her style is simply awesome. We can’t wait to see our Emerald Kingdom family start to come alive at the stroke of her pen.
So, be sure to check out and bookmark her sites. She is an official licensee, and official promoter for Double Cluepon. Thus: she is an official channel of information. You can see her announcement here.
Joan Varitek:
Website: http://www.joanvaritek.com
Deviant Art Page: http://calliope52.deviantart.com/
Blog: http://pinkopigtails.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/pinkopigtails
Now, onto other news:
The name of the first quickplay has been chosen: Wire Works. It’s about 75% complete, and will be coming soon to a screen near you. You will want to be careful when playing it, or you may be liable to make Elphie angry:
Needless to say, this is not something you will want. Yay for negative reinforcement. Wire Works should be hitting internal alpha testing in a few weeks. Once it’s tested, and ready for release, it will be posted on emeraldkingdom.com, which is having the final touches put on it before being published.
Some of the things you will see on emeraldkingdom.com:
- Forums will be opened to the public.
- Official Releases.
- Beta Sign up.
- Some of the comic content alluded to earlier.
- We will be releasing a feature list at that time. (Although, we would like to get it out sooner.)
Needless to say, we have been busy little cluepon dispensers. So, keep an eye out. There is plenty more to come. We have only just started lighting things up. This week, all the conceptual art will be completed. As we complete artwork, some of it will be posted. So, keep a keen eye out for artwork.







