Update: Thanks very much to everyone who tuned in live! In case you missed the latest installment, you can watch it here. As always the show was a ton of fun and it was great / slightly scary to show you examples of us ever-so-gently unraveling in these past couple of months as we’ve been putting the finishing touches on the game.
There was so much to cover this time that we couldn’t give shouts-out to everyone we wanted to but we can make it up here: First off thanks to all the dudes from the Giant Bomb community who came up to us at PAX East recently, as your vote of support really means a lot. We’re really happy to get to reveal so much of the process to you. Second, big thanks to our Seattle-based QA team that’s currently putting the game through the ringer! You’re helping us find all sorts of heinous stuff and giving us confidence as we put the finishing touches on the game. Everybody keep your fingers crossed for us, because even though we’re almost done, some of the most important days are still ahead.
Original Post: This Friday, be sure to tune in to GiantBomb.com at 3:30pm Pacific and join Amir, Gavin, Jen, and Greg for the latest episode of Building the Bastion, in which we take you behind the scenes of the game we’re making and give a rare glimpse into the world of game development. And as always, we’ll be live on the air taking questions from the audience.
This time around we’ll be showing you one of the most up-to-date versions of the game, including some of the rich RPG systems you’ll get to sink your teeth into as a core part of the experience. We’ll also show more of a build from around a year ago, when the game’s reactive narration system first came online and when we were still exploring different ideas for the art style and world design. Be sure to let us know what you think!
It was only months ago when we first unveiled Bastion at PAX Prime in September 2010. That show was a truly amazing moment for all of us involved with the game, since Bastion struck a chord with a lot of people there. So, we really really wanted to make our next big appearance at PAX East. Thankfully the stars aligned and the folks at Warner Bros. really came through to help us have a great presence at the show. Our objective was simple: get as many people to play Bastion as possible. Our five stations were always full every minute of the show. We handed out thousands of our bandanas and overall we couldn’t have been any happier by the amazing response we got. Here’s a rundown of some of the show highlights:
Bastion in the News
We got a lot of great press coverage during PAX East (and just prior). Check out what people are saying and let us know if we missed anybody.
The Escapist
“Out of everything I played at PAX East 2011, the game that got me most excited was an action-RPG called Bastion.”
Rock Paper Shotgun
“What captured my imagination about the game was that it was just so charming.”
GameSpy
“Bastion … is generating some serious buzz as it approaches its summer Xbox Live Arcade debut.”
Destructoid
“With lush visuals and an interactive story told by a narrator in real time as you play, it seemed like the best of brilliant games I love, yet something entirely all its own.”
GamePro
“An innovative new action role-playing game with a fantastic and unique narrator.”
Wired
“When the 20-minute demo ended, I wanted nothing more than to keep hacking, collecting and listening.”
Shonen Jump (we’re cheating, this is from GDC last week)
“From the soulful guitar strumming to the gravely voice of the narrator, [the audio] really adds a whole other dimension to the game.”
Team Xbox
“With quality as its pedigree, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this game headlining the Summer of Arcade.”
We’re very happy to announce we’ve joined forces with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to bring you Bastion this summer. Check out the official announcement right here, and read on for our take on the news.
The big question is, what changes now that we have a major game publisher like Warner Bros. in our corner? You may be surprised to learn… not much! We’re still six people making Bastion out of a living room in San Jose with the invaluable aid of a few of our close friends. We’re still an independently owned game studio creating our first game and, with it, our own original IP. What Warner Bros. provides is the opportunity to release the game on Xbox LIVE Arcade – all XBLA titles are either published by Microsoft directly or by a licensed third-party – as well as heavy-duty promotional support for events like PAX East and E3. In other words, Warner Bros. is helping us see to it that Bastion reaches the biggest possible audience. They saw the potential in Bastion straightaway and it’s great to be working with the folks over there.
As stated in the announcement, Bastion will be debuting on Xbox LIVE Arcade and coming to the PC later this year. These are the only platforms we expect to support in 2011. Beyond that, anything goes – it’s going to come down to how much demand there is and what makes the most sense for us to do next.
We’re now in the process of putting the finishing touches on Bastion for the Xbox 360 and you’ll be able to try and it and play it before long. That will be the deciding moment for Bastion and Supergiant Games, but until then, this is a pretty big one for us. So thanks again to all of you who’ve been following us to this point, and to those of you just joining us, it’s great to have you along for the ride – the best is yet to come! […]
All right, here’s the deal. We made a whole bunch of these rad Bastion bandanas and we’re going to be giving them away at our PAX East booth, #724, all throughout the show. Limit one per person unless you do the old Trick-or-Treating trick where you come back disguised as someone else and freeload more, but please don’t. On top of that, we figured we’d do a little something extra:
If you post a photo of yourself wearing a Bastion bandana on Twitter with hashtag #bastion during PAX East, you’ll automatically be entered into a random drawing to win a signed, framed Bastion poster. Twice a day for three days we’ll pick winners from the pool to receive a poster that we’ll send you sometime after the show. Or if you want the info in the form of a JPEG:
One more thing: The more followers we get during PAX East, the more prizes we’ll give out, so by all means retweet us with impunity.
We’ll have photos of the posters soon. The wallpaper we released recently is based on the same piece, and is the original work of our amazing artist, Jen Zee. The bandanas feature her original design as well.
Lastly, a note to those of you who can’t make it to PAX East and have been asking if there’s a way to get one of those bandanas: Don’t worry! While we created these especially for the PAX East crowd we’ll make sure the people who can’t make it to the show have a chance or two to get their hands on one sometime down the line.
So yeah, come play the game at booth 724 at PAX East, meet some of the team, and join us for what ought to be a show to remember! […]
What a week…! First off, thank you very much to everyone who took the time to check out Bastion at the Game Developers Conference this week. It was an honor to be included among the games in the 13th annual Independent Games Festival, and we couldn’t have asked for a better couple of neighbors with QCF Designs’ elegant Desktop Dungeons on one side of our little IGF kiosk and the raw awesomeness of Brian Provinciano’s 8-bit-style Retro City Rampage on the other. One of the best parts of a show like this is getting to meet fellow developers, many of whom we look up to as masters of their craft, and then being treated as peers by them.
At the IGF we showed off a fresh new build of Bastion, which got a great response — everything we hoped for. The content of this build was similar to the one we showed at PAX in September, though we’ve since made a bunch of improvements to the interface and visuals. We thought about showing new areas from the game, but the setup in the very first scenes is so important to us that we didn’t want to present anything out of context. We’ll have the same build at PAX East this coming week, where many more people will get to experience the game for themselves.
PAX East is going to be a huge deal for us, and next week we’ll have more details about why. This is the first time we’re going to have a proper setup where more than one or two people can play the game at once, plus we have some great giveaways in store. We won’t be able to get our whole crew out to Boston for the show but four of us will be there. If you’re attending, we’d love to meet you and let you try our game. Once again, thanks so much to everyone for their support and kind words about Bastion, as your encouragement means an awful lot and makes all the difference. […]
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