I was recently asked by the people at ModCenter to write a Post-Mortem for the development of Eternal Silence 3.0. I took the job seriously and produced quite a detailed article. If you've ever wondered how Eternal Silence started off, here's your chance. The article also mentions new features coming in 3.2.
Dan wrote: Until the release of Half-Life 2, I was managing the art team. Half-Life 2 got delayed so we got a rather large head start. We created many of the ships which are still ingame today and we standardized the art style. For the NGM we decided on a red color scheme. The NGM ships were bulkier, had large vertical engines (as you can see on the heavy fighter and bomber) and usually had a single piece hull. The UTF ships had a more silver and blue color scheme. Most UTF ships had a pontoon hull design and usually had smaller engines. These design guidelines followed us throughout development. The NGM bulky, the UTF skeletal and sleek.
Eternal Silence through the years:
We'll release more details on 3.2 as they become available. Enjoy the post-mortem and let me know what you think in the forums.
Dan
Very interesting post-mortem. I had no idea you guys had the opportunity to visit Valve and demo ES to the guys there. It's really interesting reading all the parts about managing/juggling the community, the beta testers and the team, something we've also been learning as time has gone by. Really interested read, well written too. I'm also pleased you're going in a more intuitive direction in the future... Can't wait for ES 4.0!
Absolutely ******* [i]fantastic[/i] article. I wish I'd written it. :)
It's also great to hear how much the team has learnt. ES still lacks that "oomph" that would make me play it regularly, but the foundations are a steady as any game I've played and I'm sure future versions will improve on the mechanics.
Post mortems rock... they really do. EVERY modder (new or experienced) should read them.
Great read, definitely wanna see more post-mortems out there.