Congrats to TheLastBanana for winning the forum contest for best Total Conversion Mod!

The Reject is a total conversion modifcation, changing the game style, the premise, and the goal of the game drastically. From the thread:

Dodge falling cargo crates in an attempt to escape the clutches of the Space Order Corporation’s rejected cargo bin! While you’re at it, grab expensive stuff!

Features:

– Down-to-the-pixel accuracy of fallen blocks will little lag.
– Equip a jetpack or become zombified (or both)
– 16 different treasure items to collect for points along with 3 character modification items.
– 4 difficulty modes and a difficulty select screen, ranging from Easy to Insane.
– Score counter at the end gives you a breakdown of where your points come from.

Best played in 640×480 resolution. Yes, it ends, but it’s not scripted to give you a win message or anything. No, nobody will ever get there without cheating. There is an easter egg.

Download and Discuss The Reject – it’s worth an hour of your time!

Finally, the piece I’ve been hinting at for three days…

This piece of artwork for the Coalition Light soldier came about because we were contacted by a fan of the game, Justin “gtaiiilc” Stokes. He is heading to CrisisCon and will be constructing a replica suit!

“Hey this is the almighty nerd Justin “gtaiiilc” Stokes here.

I have begun gathering up resources to make a Coalition Light replica suit… for a convention (don’t mock me >_>). The event is in February but I hope to have it long done by then so I can start saving up for my BIG project of win: a Cortex Command arcade cabinet!

That will will be a long ways off though, but for now: PICS OF THE BEGINNING!”

The convention is slated for Spring 2010, so we have some time for the project to complete – I’ll post updates as work progresses.

Thanks for being such a nerd fan, Justin!

If anyone else has any DR/Cortex Command real-life crossover events (Birthday cake? Gold mining in your backyard? Cosplay?) drop me a line @ andy@datarealms.com

New feature alert! On Mondays I hope to answer a few burning questions for the fans. If you have a question for the Dev team that you really want answered, drop me a line: andy@datarealms.com .

This week’s mailbag is full of  incredibly interesting questions from a wide variety of people!

Q: What is up with the Digging AI? It was working a build or two ago but the AI seems hopelessly lost again. – Andy

A: Digging AI hasn’t been touched in a long time, since we are looking at making it LUA-based instead of hard-coded in the C++.  That way, you could make AI modes that did exactly as you wanted and modify the existing ones. – Data

Q: Though realtime multiplayer has been a discarded idea for years now, what are your thoughts on a turn-based multiplayer setup being included in the game? – Andy

A: You’ll have to wait and see what we’re doing with the campaign metagame (hint: it’s turn-based) 🙂 – Data

What?? Not a flat-out “no” for multi?!! zomfg

Have a question for the Mailbag? Fire me an email: andy@datarealms.com

Hey everyone! Ignore the horrible photo of me in the last post. There are way better pictures of me on the web.

As Dan introduced, I am Andy Moore (“weasel”), professional Community Designer and Manager. I’m a big fan of Cortex Command, and have been following it for years. I’ll be the BatPhone – the direct line to the Commissioner that you, the fans, can pick up at any time. I’m active in the forums and on IRC as well, and am trying to crank up the level of transparency you guys see.

In my travels I’ve found that many indie developers love to have a community, and love to have a fan following – but detest the level of commitment and the hours of work it takes to put into keeping it running smoothly. Most devs simply want to concentrate on making the game, and not deal with all the emotional issues that come up with forum drama and constant email requests. That’s where I step in!

I’m hoping to post here very regularly – maybe get it down to once per day, but we’ll see how much content I’m able to generate. Dan suggested I tease you guys with some new art, so I’ve clipped two bits of it into this post. I’ll reveal the rest of the image over the coming days. 🙂

If anyone wants to get in touch with me – the best bet is the forums or IRC. I’m happy to share my email address though: andy@datarealms.com. Drop me a line if you want to discuss anything – it might take me weeks to get back to you, but I will try to write back to everyone.

In the coming weeks I’ll see about slapping together some videos, interviews, get some long-standing questions answered, and see what other media I can come up with. Peace out.

We’re well aware how frustratingly slow of a trickle the information from the Cortex Command development team have been to our fans. It’s time to face it: I don’t have the energy and/or discipline to do a decent job of informing you guys of the awesome stuff going on behind the scenes. After working on a feature all day and night, I simply don’t have it in me to then also write a coherent article about it.

So, I’ve been looking for a solution to this for some time. While at GDC Austin last week, I found it in a gentleman who does this kind of thing professionally. Andy Moore (aka “Weasel”) will be acting as the conduit of information and feedback between us in the dev trenches and the fan/modding community:

Andy next to a lineup of Indie greats: Phil of Fez, Matthew and Shawn of Blurst, Alec of Aquaria,
Kyle of all things Savage, and the Saltsmans of Semi Secret

My fellow indie friends at Wolfire Games have an awesome dedicated PR guy, John Graham, who does just this, and look at how well updated their dev blog is for their super impressive project, Overgrowth! I’m hoping we can, with Andy’s help, approach this level of connection with you guys again.

Without further ado, I’m going to hand it over to Andy now and let him introduce himself in the next post. I will still chime in here in the future, but now you shouldn’t be going long without knowing what’s happening to the project!