GDC is One Week away and we have One Hundred things to do! Wish us luck!

Getting Ready for GDC Play

With GDC one week away and all the preparations for the booth, demo and (possibly?) new short trailer, we have a lot to do - and not a lot of time to do it in!

Lucky for us, we pretty much have no lives outside of XING currently, so this should somehow work out...

We will have 2 Demos to show at our booth this year, both of which we might send out to YouTube reviewers after the conference. If those work out, then we can send out the first "beta" build of a specific environment to our Kickstarter Beta-Tier backers! Woohoo! It shall begin!

Here is our Banner set for our Booth! 
Note to other Devs: Vistaprint sales will save you tons of $ on promotional items! Seriously, check them out if you haven't already.

The Demos

So I know you are all anxious to find out what we will be demoing (other than our Volcano Oculus Mine cart ride of course!) Well, you may be happy to hear that the environment we chose to focus on was none other than the Kickstarter stretch goal:

The Rainforest. 

Yes, that's right. The full build of the Rainforest is an hour + of tropical goodness: ponds, trails, rain, rivers, lily pads,  fire, drums, canopy trees,  Mayan/Aztec styled architecture and DURIANS!

What are Durians you might ask? Wikipedia has that answer for you. All I can say is the resemblance between XING durians and real durians is uncanny!

Real Durians

XING Durians. You can grab them!

A Little About How We Develop

We work a little backwards from how most developers might work - and that is by tons of final assets and setting up scenes before we clean up all gameplay and even some story elements. This might just be the way our brains work, but it helps us set the tone of an area, and fully integrate the story, environment, game play and music together in a happy cohesive bundle. Of course, that is not to say that this is the order in which we value these game elements, just the way in which we approach them when setting up final maps.

This method of "art and scenes" first makes our development schedule a little strange, but somehow it all comes together in the end. We craft moments and scenes we want, and thoughtfully fill in the rest!

This is also the reason why sometimes we can show off "finished" looking environments in our updates -  and then spend the next week or two on that same level!

New Company Website!

Huzzah! We finally bought the domain www.whitelotusinteractive.com - because, well, WE are White Lotus Interactive (at least that's what we like to call ourselves). Check it out!

Screenshots 

Now you probably want some tasty teaser screenshots of the rainforest, or as we call it, Nahele Rain. 

Well, we are happy to oblige!

Wish us luck and Tweet or Email us if you will be attending GDC!

info@xingthegame.com

Oculus Rift Volcano Mine Cart Video + GDC Play Announcement!

Oculus Mines of Agnirok Cart Ride

This week we have a special treat for all you Oculus folks out there!

Just sit down, relax, strap on that Oculus Rift and a nice pair of headphones - and be transported into a special sneak peak of The Mines of Agnirok!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx_6D22jWEw

GDC Play Booth 310

If any of you will be attending GDC this year, feel free to come by Booth PL310 in the GDC Play area to test out XING on either Oculus or on the PC. We'll be right next to the Business and Career Centers Wednesday March 19th-Friday March 21st.

We'd love to hear from you guys and see your faces!

Also, we have a few surprises in store for the people who come to our booth ;)


On another note, check out this cool banner that I made, which ended up being too large of a file size to use ><

Oculus VR HQ: Trying out the HD Oculus and Crystal Cove

This past week we were invited to the Oculus VR office for a meeting regarding XING: The Land Beyond!

They were wonderful hosts, and we got to play a little show and tell. Immediately when walking into the meeting room we noticed a sandbox with shovels and buckets just outside a glass door from the room - this was how we knew we were in good hands :)

James trying out Crystal Cove

John on video call while I walk around XING for the first time in HD!

Long story short, XING looked fantastic on the HD Oculus Prototype! Our meeting was with Aaron Davies, and he seemed very impressed with what we brought to demo.

Also, Crystal Cove was a beautiful experience!

So many degrees of freedom!

We are very excited to be working with such an amazing and fun-loving company!

Being fortunate enough to get a glimpse of the future of VR, I can't wait to see XING on the next prototype!

Happy New Year! + Steam Dev Days

Happy New Year everyone!

We're excited for the big push we'll be making for these next few months for the projected release of XING: The Land Beyond by the end of this year! Yeah!

Steam Dev Days

This week John and James will be representing White Lotus Interactive at Steam Dev Days, hosted by Valve. They'll be checking out the Steam Machine and Controller, as well as the latest Oculus Rift! Woo hoo!

Steam Dev Days Info

*If any of you guys are in the Seattle, WA area Today (Tuesday) through Thursday, we'd love to hang out and talk to you about the game and more. You can just respond to our twitter or to this blog :)

Pics

For all of you artists and game art lovers out there, check out some of the cool models we've made over the past month!

Pieces from Agnirok: The Volcano

And here's a peak at some of the models from The Desert of Naar

Winter has Come - So We Are Turning Up The Heat!

Hey everyone!

It's been a while since our last post, and a lot has happened!

We've been working around the clock in preparation for the holidays. Each of us took some well earned time off for Thanksgiving weekend, and now we are making the last big push before we take off for 2 weeks toward the end of December.

Thanksgiving Break

I'll try to make another post before we go, but I make no guarantees!

Anywhoozel, this past month has been very exciting for us.
We are finally working on our Volcano level! It is a definite change of scenery, and we welcome the change.

My cat helping me sketch out ideas for XING

Here are some sneak peak shots of our work in progress:
*Just remember that these screenshots are not exactly what you will see in the final game, since there is still so much to be done!*

In case we don't make another post before the break, we hope you all have an amazing holiday this year!