Hot Spreadsheet on Spreadsheet Action!
We haven't updated in a couple months because the fun art phase is pretty much complete, and what new art there is, is spolierific as all hell. And after 3 YEARS of development after we released part 1, spoiling it now would just suck.
While Project Brazil has officially existed since December 2012, which was 4 years ago, it's original inspiration was in 2010, 6 years ago. At this point there are enough people who think it's never coming out that when we release, we'll have effectively turned Reddit on its head. :p
I have visibly aged over the course of this project, and I'm SO GLAD that it's coming to an end soon.
The reason updates are going slowly is because we decided to add in the previously cut content back into the plan. Rick as he was scripting decided that the story really suffered missing those 4 major quests, so we discussed it, and now that big chunk of over 1200 lines of dialogue and upwards of 40 branching plot-lines is now almost complete.
Scripting those took from May 1st to June, with July being the final "okay, we have to move on to the last quests" deadline. Those two big chunks of yellow have a couple more months of tedium left in them to finish. Plus final testing and release buildup.
At this point Project Brazil feels a little bit like walking through a gigantic city with all the people waiting for the day the residents come back to play. The first 2/3rds of the game now are playable. After lip-sync is done on my final audio pass (after all the audio is officially cut and in the game) it will look and play as a finished project. The last 1/4th still needs work, and the last 1/8th is still missing key programming, but until you reach that part it feels "done."
One day I will never have to answer this 3 times a day every day ever again. :p
Guys. Guys. I know. It's been 3 years since Part 1.
No one is more exited for the release than I am. Trust me. When I can tell you for certain, I will shout it from the rooftops. But I HATE being wrong, and the only way to not be wrong is to never open your mouth until you are absolutely confirmed that you are right.
So until I'm sure we're done, our new files are all compressed and we're tested and working in a closed private BETA, we won't announce a date. And after we announce, we'll have the files online a week or two later.
We do have some new art to show. Things like these Vault 18 hallways, glowing "moon nymph" spiders, and the new Viper Cult Leader's tent and Psycho's cavern.
Other than that, all the work we're doing is a bunch of this:
Hunting and finding missing dialogue lines, filling in gaps in the HUGE branching story, and lots and lots of staring at the screen for hours on end. Not fun stuff to fill an update with. :p
The indomitable RickerHK has been scripting this all alone. Other than Mark, who has been cutting audio for us, it's just Rick and I spending time in Notepad+, 3dsMax, Nifscope, and the GECK, and I've been having the year from hell, so it's basically just Rick holding the line.
So after I stop procrastinating and Rick finishes his side, we'll be ready to announce a release date.
To help us get to release, I had planned on doing a pre-production funding drive for our next game, Shadow Star, because I need a new line of income to supplement my work if I'm going to keep doing this, and I needed a new PC. But, we ended up postponing until after FPB is fully finished. I'm financially just scrapping by until the mod is done and I'm finished writing Shadow Star.
I had my friends at the gloo factory print out some really neat T-shirts for us, along with a HUGE high quality wall poster, some decals, and PC Game Boxes.
The Project Brazil box we're giving away free as gifts at conventions and to friends after this is all finished, but if you'd like to support us in our work on Shadow Star, you can buy a T shirt poster, or decals by messaging me on moddb or Facebook.
You can also donate to the Shadow Star campaign on PayPal here: PayPal Donate
Our friend Tom Rogers in Green Valley, Arizona donated a PC to the cause also, and it is a great machine with an i7 processor, water cooling unit, 16GB Ram, Fanns all over in an HAF Coolmaster Case, an Nvidia 780 with 6GB VRAM, and a really great 500GB SSD, with a 1TB WD Black HDD.
It did, however, require some cleaning by Josh Meehan and I.
After over 18 hours of hand disassembly and scrubbing piece by piece, became this spotless beast of a machine!
Bit of a rats nest, BUT HEY, it's clean and it runs great!
I'll use this computer to render the final in-game cut-scenes and release trailers for FPB and early development of Shadow Star. This is the first time I've ever actually owned a modern PC that can run modern games at 60fps. I've literally never owned a computer than can do better than 30fps on a modern game on the medium settings, so this is a whole new world for me.
Finally, our friends at Enderal are releasing their mod soon. We helped out with the English Translation of the Voice Acting, with our voice actors Autumn Ivy (Annai Oran & Ranger Vergas), Roger Owen (Colonel Bragg), and Rene Watson (Citrusbell) donating 3 or 4 NPCs to Enderal's cause.
You can read more about our progress on the Design Documents Found Here. In the mean time, you can keep track of us on ModDB, Fallout Nexus, or Facebook. We've got a thriving online community centred around each one.
Cheers
Brandan Lee
Project Leader
Wohoo! Great article.
Glad to see the project lives.
Cheers guys, you're almost (in the grand scheme of things) there! Looking forward to it!
Wow...I haven't even touched Project Brazil let alone New Vegas in 6 months. VERY VERY AWESOME to see people still working this.
This is amazing! I was really hoping that the cut content was going to be added back in! It seemed like such a waste! Congrats and can't wait to hear from you next!
"The reason updates are going slowly is because we decided to add in the previously cut content back into the plan. "
This. Great news.
I haven't even played Part 1 because I'm waiting for complete. I've been following for a couple years though, very happy for yall! Can't wait to play!
Oh and I've got the same Cooler Master tower :D
Great to hear that you decided to bring back the cut content!
This was a great article, thanks for the update it really made my day! :D
Can't wait for release! Keep it up.
I was starting to wonder what you guys where up too. A few months it is! :D
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SPIDERS?!!!!
Glow in the dark spiders, yes.
Wonderful news that you're putting the cutted content back!
Gettin' pretty excited to play this and The Frontier, great ways to end the story of Fallout: New Vegas. :P
I will add one thing tho, that cable management is rather triggering. D:
It's better now. At the time I was still cleaning them, so they were in a bundle to the side. :p
which one is part 2
This is part 2. We're still developing it.
Hey, I was reading about some of the latest developments on Facebook and one thing has me worried; the Courier forgot who they were. Is that actually implemented? Or is it a RP choice?
Why does this worry you?
I could have sworn I replied to this... anyway, the reason it worries me is first and foremost that it takes away from the RP aspect. Side with the Enclave, the Mob, the Raiders--you aren't going to remember any of it, and if you planned to base your character's motives in NV based on PB then that takes that away.
I guess what I'm saying is that it almost makes PB seem like filler. The Courier has no memory of who they were, all your equipment is gone--which, even if you did still have it, the Khans would have taken it--and if it were possible the levels would have been reset back to 1.
This is just my own little opinion, but even before it was officially stated that the Courier had no amnesia I didn't like the idea much, and it is proven false several times--they remember New Reno, Utah, Sleeping with someone 18 years ago if your a dude to name a few.
To put it simply, I'm worried that, if you have no choice in the amnesia matter, you'll either have to blatantly ignore that fact to continue with the RP or accept it and go through NV as though PB never happened.
I've gone over it several times, and much like JE Sawyers said, "the player has no amnesia, they're just asking basic every day questions (who is the NCR, who is the Legion) because it would hamper gameplay, since we can't assume all new players know Fallout Lore."
In my personal design philosophy, that is a cop out. If you have a feature, if you have it in dialogue, it should be part of the narrative as much as gameplay. That's my take, I'll stand my it as a mod maker. Argue at your discretion.
Make your player too young to know these people, have no relationship to the plot because the player is an immigrant new to the area, stick them in cryostasis from before the great war... or memory loss from getting shot in the head.
Project Brazil takes the idea that the Courier had a long series of adventures before New Vegas and plays with it. They were never JUST a mailman. No mail man gets shot twice in the head and walks away, then goes on a mass killing spree with no ill health or emotional effects, growing rapidly in power and ability from a near-death experience to reshaping an entire nation with godlike abilities. Not unless something is up with that.
Project Brazil hangs a massive lamp shade on that notion (much in the way Knights of the Old Republic 2 did,) and adds emotional context to it. It does so by giving a background to the Divide, the NCR & Legion's origin, the Enclave's annihilation in California after Fallout 2, and the disappearance of the Shi.
The concept is that, you the player, forgot FPB ever happened. But its ramifications are all around you. In fact, they're your fault, and you're just discovering them.
And that's not the first time this has happened to you. Your entire life has been a series of events that your decisions have caused that led to this, from Vault 18, to the Fort Daggerpoint disaster, to The Divide, to the Platinum Chip, to Ulysses blaming it all on you.
Maybe Ulysses wasn't crazy. Maybe you are the monster he says you were.
Project Brazil fits neatly into that, while allowing the two experiences to remain separate.
Your FPB gear you'll find at the Kahn HQ in a crate. Your levels will probably remain the same (we're trying to figure out the technical detail of how, and we'll burn that bridge when we come to it.) Your companions are 20 years older (if they survived) and you can recruit them. They get you up to speed on what went on 20 years ago, but all of them remember what you went through and spare you the details for your sake.
You however don't seem to have aged a day.
The **** is that about?
And that's where you'll have to play the mod.
If we pull it off the way I see it right now, you'll get a few chills as we pass the ball from FPB back to New Vegas. If this doesn't sell for you? Well, controversy generates more page views than success.
Either way, the mod will be successful and I'll be happy, and we'll get fewer complains about lost gear, cliffhangers, and progress this way than my original plan in 2013.
From what I've seen from the PB updates I have no reason to doubt you guys at this point--I'm just jaded from the vanilla approach to it is all.
With any luck we'll make it work.
Any chance of an update news post anytime soon? Been quite some time since the last update.
Yeah, I should do one this week. Been working on audio files too much to do an update. :p
Hey so I know im late to the game, I wish I knew you guys needed a new rig, and hopefully you guys finish soon, with Fallout 4 pretty much over im returning to New Vegas, and to be honest, PB is probably gonna get played more then the vanilla does, for me it definitely will, hope that next update says that PB is finished.
I am now hoping that you are not doing an update because its in a closed beta and you are literally finishing PB
Still waiting on that update :p
Stilllll working on audio. :p
Still on audio?
I'm driving to Phoenix, Az to record some more. XD
safe to assume your still on audio? to be honest i just wanna see what you have and play it, even if that means the second half of the game is completely soundless, and i don't mean to add to the workload but have you considered changing the way people interact with the courier based on how they play Project Brazil, even just starting reputation boosts
I'd like to just read a news update of what's been done in the past 5 months since the last news update.
Facebook.com
I'll sum up what's been going on over here shortly.