Posted by Greg on January 28, 2011
We’re very happy to announce that Andrew Wang has joined Supergiant Games. Just like that, we’ve increased our engineering bandwidth by a whopping 100%! As our chief technology officer, Andrew’s primary role will be to make Bastion and any other game we make run beautifully on every platform we want to be on. He’s well acquainted with coding at such depths thanks to his years spent working at Infinity Ward, on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and its sequel.
Making the leap from developing some of the all-time-biggest blockbuster games to developing a small independent game where an old man talks at you the whole time may not sound like an obvious career choice. But then again, most of us at Supergiant Games come from a background of working on big franchises for big publishers, so we’re kindred spirits that way. The difference is… dude Modern Warfare is AWESOME!!! WHY WOULD YOU LEAVE??!
Not that we’re complaining. Like the rest of us, Andrew’s been playing games practically for as long as he can remember, and his favorites include PC classics like Sid Meier’s Civilization, Warcraft II, and Counter-Strike. Born and raised in Boston, Andrew graduated from MIT with a master’s in computer science and electrical engineering, which is to say, He Is Smart. And he is worldly! From teaching computer science in China to volunteering at an orphanage in Morocco, Andrew’s done much more than his killer monitor tan. Once all that philanthropy was out of his system, Andrew decided to get into game development. He and Amir met years ago in Purgatory, aka Orlando FL, where they were both just getting started with their game industry internships, and later shared an apartment in LA while working for gaming’s two biggest megapublishers. It’s great to be under the same roof again.
You can get to know Andrew better by checking out his newly launched blog, Coder Optimizations. There he puts it all pretty succinctly: And besides, Andrew says it best: “…in college, making games was just a bunch of close friends working hard, working fast, and making fun. It’s what got […]
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Posted by Greg on January 27, 2011
Last month we figured we’d be in for a busy and exciting 2011, and based on how January’s gone down, we ain’t disappointed. It’s been a whirlwind last few weeks as we drive toward finishing Bastion and doing everything possible to make sure it makes a big splash when the game arrives this summer. Here’s the lowdown about what’s new with us these days:
Friday the 28th: Watch Us Live on Giant Bomb
The next installment of Building the Bastion will be live on GiantBomb.com on Friday, January 28 at 3:30pm PST, so be sure to tune in. (Edit: Show’s over! Watch it on demand right here.) This time around you’ll see and hear much more about how we create our reactive narration for the game, and we’ll be showing some of the very first examples of it implemented almost a year ago. You’ll also get to see how the game’s art style evolved from the crude prototypes we’ve shown in the past, into something closer to looking like a normal game – not that that was good enough for us. We’ll be taking questions from viewers so be sure to chime in if you want to know about any aspect of how we’re making this game.
Have We Mentioned We’re IGF Finalists?
Very few independent games are chosen as finalists in the annual Independent Games Festival, and fewer still are honored with nominations in more than one category. So you can imagine we were thrilled to learn we got the nod in the categories of Excellence in Visual Arts and Excellence in Audio. In addition to all the things we’re doing to make the game a great-feeling, responsive, exciting play experience from moment to moment, we’re doing everything we can to make the world of Bastion deep and interesting, filled with rich and meaningful detail – so to be recognized by the IGF judges for the work we’ve done thus far on the visuals and audio of the game is a real honor. Keep your fingers crossed for us come Wednesday, March 2 when the […]
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Posted by Greg on January 3, 2011
What an amazing way to start a new year. This morning we were thrilled to learn that Bastion is a finalist in the 2011 Independent Games Festival in the categories of Excellence in Visual Art and Excellence in Audio. Congratulations to all the other finalists and honorable mentions — IGF finalists and winners are deterimined by a distinguished panel of judges from the independent game development community, and earning their recognition is a real honor considering all the many outstanding games they evaluate as part of the process.
We’re happy to see that the work we’ve done so far on Bastion’s presentation has struck a chord, as the game’s audio and visuals are so key to creating the atmosphere and world. All the more reason for us to keep on pushing as hard as we can on these fronts and in all our areas of focus. Now then, it’s back to work for us!
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