We just wanted to wish all our fans and customers a very merry xmas and holiday! Thank you so much for supporting us by buying the unfinished game and enabling us to keep working on it and other projects in the future. As long as sales keep up, we should be able to continue cranking out the Data Realms goodness for you to enjoy!

A special thanks to those who have generously chosen the ‘Support Data Realms Edition’ option! Your extra votes of confidence in the final product helps a LOT, both on the money and morale fronts here. We will not forget this!

We have been working on the next build, but with the holidays going on, it’s been a bit slower than expected. Ideally we wanted to push out number 20 by now, but it’s just not done yet. We know you are eager to get more content, but half-baked cookies just don’t taste as good as something done proper, amirite?! (ok, terrible analogy)

Anyway, rest assured that you haven’t seen much yet in terms of what is in store for next year! In the mean time, enjoy the quiet days between now and new year’s…

So… out of curiosity, I googled “Cortex Command Crack” today, and tried out some of the torrents and downloads that popped up.

Then, I had to spend a good hour disinfecting my test computer with every anti-virus tool I could throw at it. Beware — there is some nasty stuff floating around, disguised as the real thing!

Don’t be this guy.

That being said, if you do find a working crack, or you manage to crack it yourself, we’d love to see it! You will be rewarded with a free license key to the game (seriously)! Remember, any crack will probably only work for one version, while the key will legitimately unlock all versions up to and including when the full campaign is done!

Ok a couple of people managed to actually send real legit cracks they had made themselves (great job!), and they collected their rewards. No more keys will be handed out, so please stop spamming us with links to “maybe this is a crack?!” websites. Thanks! 🙂

After doing a first test of the payment system yesterday, rumors leaked out and I don’t think we can hold back the pre-release of the game any longer. So, here it is, for anyone to try. I want to emphasize that it is a pre-release of what we intended to be the commercial version! Next week we’ll try to have a more polished one up and call it the real deal.

Without further ado, the rightmost button below leads to the purchasing page for buying licenses. Since we ironed out the bugs yesterday, things should work smoothly. If there is any trouble though, don’t hesitate to contact us at support@datarealms.com!

The IGF finalists have been announced. Congrats to all the nominees, especially our friends at 2D boy with their fantastic looking World of Goo entry!

Cortex Command was in the running again this year, but unfortunately didn’t make it. Perhaps next year when there should to be a full campaign and more polish — we’ll certainly try yet again. In the mean time, let’s see if sales of the upcoming commercial versions can keep the full-time development going…

After the last post hyping things up a little, it’s time to dish out a counter to keep expectations in check with reality regarding the next release.

As some may have gleaned by now, the next version of Cortex Command will be the first one you can buy a license for. The plan is to release something that can be downloaded and played for free, but to get access to all the features you’ll need to buy a license key and unlock your installed copy with it.

We will have more details about how to buy and use the keys in a later post. Rest assured that we are trying hard to make it as flexible, affordable, and as little hassle to you as possible — while still ensuring that the seven years of work we’ve put into the project will pay off enough to allow us to keep working on it and future Data Realms games.

As for what will actually be in the version due out soon, please note that it is not going to have a complete campaign right off the bat. Currently there is only one complete mission, and half of it is a tutorial. There may be another mission done by time we put out the release, but it’s iffy.

Since the game won’t nearly be complete by the next release, the licenses are at first going to be heavily discounted from what they will eventually cost when the full campaign is done. If you buy a license at this early point, it will also unlock all future versions and updates up till where the full first campaign is complete and included.

Additional campaigns or expansion packs thereafter may have to be bought separately, but we haven’t planned that far ahead yet.

This is not to say that there isn’t tons of new stuff due for the next release – including editors and everything else hinted at in previous posts. Just don’t expect a full-blown campaign and metagame right away.

We will be rapidly adding missions shortly thereafter though, and working up to the point where there is a full campaign to play through. It will be up to you whether you want to play the missions on their own as they come out, or wait for the metagame mode we have planned (more details later).

Note that you will pay less the earlier you buy the license, since we going to gradually decrease the discount as the campaign nears completion and the game matures into the complete package we envision.

We hope this makes sense and isn’t too confusing. I’ll try to answer any questions you have in the comments below.

Some generous people have posted that they would be willing to donate to Data Realms to help us keep developing games… well, that’s great (just buy multiple copies of the game instead!), but this is what we really need:

Underground in rural Washington:

• Three – 160′ Tall Missile Silos
• Three – 4 story Equipment Terminal Buildings
• Three – Fuel Terminal Buildings
• Two – 6 story Antenna Silos
• One Air Intake/Filtration Building
• One 100′ diameter Control Dome Building
• One 125′ diameter Power Dome Building
• One – 6 story Entry Portal Building
• and a few other misc buildings and areas.

All that, available for the very reasonable price of $1.5M USD! Here’s the details. And here.

In other news, we’re hard at work on the updated submission for IGF which the judges hopefully will wait to see before they score. Once that is delivered, it won’t be long until the first commercial version of the game will be released. We plan to make it available at a discount from the final full price, since it will still not yet contain many of the campaign missions. However, if you buy the early discounted version, you’ll also get all future versions up to when the first full campaign is completed and released.

Also, you may have noticed that we’re moving servers.. we hit a snag with that and are still on the old box – but not for long. The new machine will be online in time for the first commercial release and should help ensure fast downloads.

Yep, and it’s dynamic so when new tunnels are created and old ones get clogged with corpses, the AI will always know the path of least resistance to their targets – even if it means digging through lots of material!

This will change the necessity to heap tons of stupid AI guys on you like we used to do in the test builds. Now only a handful of smarty enemies should make a much more fun challenge than before.

It also means your own AI-controlled bodies can be commanded more specifically and be able to carry out much more complex tasks. Don’t want to bother digging that tunnel yourself? Just send one of your drones to do it for you, and he’ll expertly avoid rocks and other subterranean obstacles on the way.

UPDATE:

“Look Pa – I did it all on my own!”

Just a quick update on what’s going on in DRL HQ. We’re crunching both to make the IGF submission, and the first commercial version of CC. The full in-game Scene Editor is now feature complete and we’re using it ourselves to build the real story scenarios that will make up the meat of of the Cortex Command experience. After six years in the making, we can finally say that we’ve transitioned from pre-production into actual production on this project. ;D

So, if you already enjoy the rickety skirmish mode of the test builds, you’re in for a treat. We are adding many times more content than you’ve seen so far. Environments, ships, guys, weapons, tools, game modes, cut scenes… oh my!

The Scene Editor will be included with the full game, and since we’re using it ourselves to build the game (aka “eating our own dog food”), it is shaping up to be quite powerful and user friendly.

Good things come to those who wait. Image to the left is purely fictitious fun.