Jastian Summer ANSWERS news

Mr.Walrus wrote: “How large is the storyline element in Jastian Summer?”

Nintyplayer: The story element is the most important part of Jastian Summer; it is a story-based game. We are currently working on a first-person limited story which encompasses such world issues as racism, genocide, and the “Native” clause.

Steve: Storyline is VERY important in Jastian Summer. The game itself is very artsy, while adding a lot of new game mechanics to the Jastian Summer engine.

Mr.Walrus wrote: “How long do you expect the mod to be?”

Nintyplayer: I’m personally expecting the game to be between 2 and 5 hours long including all of the main story gameplay and cutscenes.

Ben: It will probably be somewhere between the length of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Half-Life 2 (the original).

Steve: Not very sure at this point, I don’t play a huge role in direct development. But it won’t be THAT long.

Mr.Walrus wrote: “What are the primary production goals?”

Nintyplayer: Our goal is to be better than the Half Life series on release.

Ben: We want to make a singleplayer game on the Alien Swarm engine. It’s the newest version of the source engine source code is available for, and it’s also the only free one.

Steve: To finish it, really. We really want to a release a nice polished turd for the community.

Mr.Walrus wrote: “:D”

Ben:

Nintyplayer:

Steve: Fuck off bro with your fucking smiley faces.

Daniel101 wrote: “When is it going to be released?”

Nintyplayer: The date is TBA for a reason. If you can stop every other entertainment medium from releasing anything for about a year, and we are strictly working on this for that year, I’d say a year.

Ben: To be announced. If we force a release date, people will either complain that it wasn’t finished or that it’s taking too long to get released. By releasing teasers every so often, we can release the game when it should be: When it’s done.

Steve: i dunno lol

AssassinAlex18 wrote: “How did you guys come up with the name Jastian Summer?”

Ben: This image should explain everything: Llamaslayers.net

Steve: u mad cuz u dun tink of dis naem????

Raphiell wrote: “How many new features are you planning to add, and what are they?”

Nintyplayer: First of all, we’re adding in quite a few new features; we can’t give them all away. However, what we can reveal to you is this:
Flashlight combat
Jumping
Alien Control
At least one completely randomly generated level
Multiple commentary modes
An original score
And more things to come.

Ben: We add things when we think of them, and then tweak or discard broken ideas as needed. If you have an idea of your own, go ahead and fork Github.com . I promise I’ll look at your changes.

Steve: lots

Expack wrote: “You’ve posted some rather odd or hard-to-distingush things in Jastian Summer’s Images and Videos sections, such as a odd red chamber ( Moddb.com ), a bizarre set of ‘box art’ ( Moddb.com ), and what appears to be an Alien Swarm alien being attracted to some alien fireflies ( Moddb.com ). Why did you decide to post such pieces of content – especially since almost all of them appear to have no real relationship with the mod?”

Nintyplayer: Mostly, these are artistic shots, I think; showing off random bits of scenery. We mainly posted most of it so that people would realize we’re still working on it.
As for the “box art,” I hope you didn’t actually think that was real — it’s not. Jastian Summer is not going to be released in a physical copy as far as we are planning it, and our resident troll, Steve, can answer what the hell that is. Steve?

Steve: We added these things for multiple reasons. One, is to show that we have a sense of humor. Two, is to show that we’re definitely active. Sure, it might be annoying, but at leasr we’re still alive! Three, it’s fun.

Ben: The “red chamber” was a test of our new TileGen system, which can build levels immediately before they are played. The firefly picture was an early version of the underground, which plays a large role in one of the later parts of the game.

AmaroqDricaldari wrote: “Is it going to be Overhead (camera above player), third person, or first person?”

Ben: The game will be first-person, although there are some points in the game where the player sees things from another character’s perspective.

Nintyplayer: Some parts of the game might be seen in third-person, though. You’ll see it in the teaser trailer when we release it.

Steve: It will be played in second person, from the perspective of your companion who has ADD.

AmaroqDricaldari wrote: “How did you get the Half-Life 2 resources into Source 2011?”

Ben: Source is a remarkable engine. Each version of any type of file is relatively forwards and backwards compatible, so you could put the marine model that comes with Alien Swarm into a Half-Life 2 mod with only minor changes. It’s even easier to convert forwards, as usually, the process consists of copying a file from one game to another.

Nintyplayer: Little known fact: I haven’t ever played Half Life 2.

Steve: Interestingly enough, the Source engine has the ability to do such cool things. The formatting for the models and textures hasn’t changed much and can be easily edited to support features in the newer versions.

UltraElectroMagnetic wrote: “Is there any possibility of there being a co-op for this mod? Is there a chance that there will be multiplayer elements/features in the mod?”

Ben: We thought about having a coop campaign, but it’s not on the high priority list right now. It’s not out of the question, though.

Nintyplayer: The main game is a single-player story based adventure. We have plans in the works for more single-player post-game stuff, but there’s only so much you can do with re-playability in single player. It’s entire possible that we may introduce a multiplayer aspect in the post-game extras, but don’t hold your breath on it. Keep in mind, though, that there will be a LOT of hidden goodies.

Steve: Maybe. The general idea (from what I know) is that it’s supposed to be a relatively solitary game. But it would be interesting to add a co-op mode from the perspective of two different characters during the events of Jastian Summer, like in the Half-Life 1 mod, Decay.

xalener wrote: “What?”

Ben: Yes.

And there you have it, our little Q&A session. Keep in mind that we're still looking for an animator/modeller, and that we also want to find any additional help possible. Now, we've got a question for you, the audience!

Nintyplayer wrote: "What do YOU want to see in Jastian Summer? Leave your comment below, or message Nintyplayer."