July 2019 Progress Report news

Although we've been somewhat quiet on official channels, the Expanding Fronts team has been hard at work preparing for our next major update, which we are hoping to get done before the end of summer. Included so far are performance and stability upgrades, especially in regards to multiplayer games. Also included will be an update to the game's 256 color palette. This switch will allow us to achieve higher-quality visuals for units, objects, and terrains featuring certain color shades - particularly red, purple, and aqua.

One of our most significant additions to the Scenario Editor is multiple new terrain options. We now have over 100 new paintable terrains, including additional tree and carbon rock variants, allowing designers to create much more diverse and realistic environments in their scenarios. These terrains can also be used in custom Random Map scripts, allowing for limitless map-making potential. We've made good use of these terrains, plus the countless new props we've added to the Editor in our planned new campaigns, the first of which we are ready to reveal today: The Liberation of Naboo

Word of the destruction of the Second Death Star and the death of Emperor Palpatine has spread rapidly across the galaxy. On the tranquil world of Naboo - the Emperor’s homeworld - the populace has launched a surprise uprising. Taking advantage of the galaxy-wide confusion and panic across the Empire’s ranks, mass celebrations have erupted as thousands of citizens flood the streets of the capital city of Theed.

However, the festivities are short-lived. After recovering from the momentary shock, a vengeful Imperial force storms Theed, sending the crowd into a panic. Many citizens scatter, fleeing Theed for the outlying towns and swamps under the cover of the ill-equipped Naboo Security Forces.

This momentary spark of insurrection and the efforts of scattered ragtag resistance cells will not be enough to free Naboo from the Empire's grip. It will take an army - a Grand Army...

The Liberation of Naboo is a dual-civ campaign. You will play as both the Naboo and Gungans in an alternating chain of missions, with the ultimate goal to free Naboo from the Empire's grip once and for all. Captain Gavyn Sykes, an aging veteran of the Trade Federation invasion decades ago, takes the reins of the Naboo Royal Security Forces in a planet-spanning campaign to destabilize the Empire's presence.

Meanwhile, deep in the Naboo swamps, Captain Naz Gegra seeks to reunite the scattered and disenfranchised elements of the Gungan Grand Army. With only a small handful of volunteers at his side, Captain Gegra fights an uphill battle to rebuild the once-powerful Gungan military, and drive the Empire's war machines off of Naboo for good.

The Gungan/Naboo campaign takes places across a myriad of locations both on Naboo and in the space around it. In addition to Naboo's city streets, rolling plains, and dense swamps, players can expect to visit some of the lesser-known locales of the Naboo system, including frigid polar mountain ranges, the lush moons of Ohma-D'un and Rori, and the hostile prison and mining colonies of Storm.

The new enhancements to Expanding Front's Scenario Editor make designing lengthy cutscenes, complex RPG mechanics, and mind-bending puzzles much easier than ever before. However, we've opted to follow in the footsteps set by the original game, and by extension, Age of Empires II and its various expansions. The key to our design process is to ask ourselves - 'What would LucasArts/Ensemble have built if they had Expanding Fronts?' As such, we're using a somewhat minimalist approach that mimics the design styles of the classic campaigns - with some modern updates and new gameplay mechanics to show off the capabilities of our improved editing tools.

The scope of Star Wars, plus the capabilities of the Scenario Editor give us unlimited potential for crafting new stories. Our goals for the new maps - beyond simply looking good - is to provide an unparalleled gameplay experience through keen level design and environmental storytelling.

With our new tools, we can craft more immersive worlds through the use of the map layout itself. We'll be showing a handful of examples from one of the upcoming campaign maps below. The map in question was originally featured in Galactic Battlegrounds' Gungan campaign and has been adapted as a key setpiece location for the first of our new campaigns.

Sharp-eyed players may recognize the elements of the original map, here notably overgrown after 30 years of neglect. So thorough was the Trade Federation's destruction of the once-bustling spaceport, that the Naboo government has largely abandoned any recovery efforts. When the Imperial occupation arrived years later, the abandoned space was deemed ideal for a staging ground and logistics base.

The Imperials have paved over the ruins of the city, transforming it into a lifeless series of landing pads and supply depots that form a cancerous mark across the otherwise lush waterways and forests.

Elsewhere, the scars of the Trade Federation's invasion are still visible. Overgrown droid and vehicle carcasses speckle the forests where their prison camps once occupied, serving as ghostly reminders of the horrors the Naboo people faced even before the Empire.

The Liberation of Naboo is one of the numerous campaigns we have in the works. Our team has spared no expense in ensuring that every stage, trigger, and map element are tailored to provide a unique, challenging, and fun experience for our players, while at the same time staying true to the spirit of the original campaign designs. We have many plans for the future, and we'd like to get them built and onto your screens as quickly as possible. Until then, we'd like to once again express our thanks and appreciation of our followers.

Our plans for expanding fronts don't stop with what we've done. We have new campaigns, new units, and entirely new civilizations on our to-do list, but we need YOUR help to make them possible. We are currently looking for:

Concept Artists - We are looking for skilled concept artists to help us visualize and design structures, characters, and vehicles for our planned new civilizations. The more art we have, the better our modelers can put new in-game art assets together. Battlegrounds, like Age of Empires before it, uses a very distinct set of visual qualities for its architecture. Just by looking at a building, you can immediately tell what type of structure it is, what civilization it belongs to, and how far down the Tech tree they've advanced. We need artists that can meet those criteria with new and interesting designs for the new content we have planned. In addition to this, we will also need designs for new infantry, droids, tanks, spacecraft, boats, and artillery where pre-existing canon designs aren't available.

3D Artists and Animators - Modelers are responsible for bringing our new planned new units to life. The requirements to help us out aren't very demanding, amateurs are certainly welcome to lend a hand. Because SWGB is a sprite-based game, the amount of detail we need on infantry models and animations is not particularly high, as can be seen in official renders of the original art. Most units have five main animation sequences: Standing, Walking, Attacking, Dying, and Decaying. Special units like Jedi and Workers have additional sequences such as using force powers or gathering resources. Generally, all of these animations are rather simple, typically ranging from 8-16 frames each.

Technical knowledge of SWGB or AoK modding is certainly welcomed, but not necessary; we can handle most of that on our end. All that's required is a program capable of orthographic/parallel projection, and the ability to render the needed animations as a series of 2D images (using the correct camera/lighting setup for Battlegrounds) that we can convert into in-game sprites.

AI Scripters - Scripters teach the game's AI how to play the game. We need scripters capable of writing new strategies for the computer players that take advantage of the many new units, buildings, technologies, and gameplay elements available to players in Expanding Fronts. Scripters will also help to write scripts for new campaign levels. Anybody interested in learning AI scripting can take a look at the Computer Player Strategy Builder Guide for more details about the AI process.

Writers and Scenario Designers - We are looking for users skilled in the use of the Scenario Editor, as well as talented creative writers to help us craft our planned new campaigns. Our designers should have a good eye for map design and trigger use.

If you or anybody you know has the skills and would like to contribute to the Expanding Fronts project, please let us know. You can get in touch with us here, or on our Discord server.