Hello everyone,

I've decided that in order to provide a better, non-rushed game, that we're going to have to work longer on Ilxder 1. I've been having a bit of trouble with some of the technical aspects of the game, plus, I've decided that I want to add WAY more detail to the game world than ever before. Here's a list of things I want to add to the game:

• A relatively basic AI system so people will walk around a bit at random times
• A better menu system so the player will have options to choose from several different options when commencing in dialogue, and the response they receive will differ depending on what the player chooses
• More quests, ranging from random "acquire and gather"-styled quests to larger quests where people will ask you to complete a larger set of objectives, with a similar gameplay style to the main questline.
• Better lighting that will vary depending on the environment
• Fog in certain environments, and possibly even a simple static snowing animation for snowy environments
• More detailed dialogue with non-quest NPCs

All of this being said, I may end up releasing another demo, but I haven't decided this for sure yet.

In other news...

Spherical user Rhuan has offered to act as a "consulting" developer. He said he would be willing to help in certain programming aspects of Ilxder - hopefully this means I can speed up Ilxder's battle system's progress.

Also, I may be getting the brilliant composers, Brett Smith and Jacob Schmeltzer to write music for Ilxder. :) As much as I like some of the tracks by Deceased Superior Technician (the music group who wrote the public domain tracks I was using in the game as placeholder tracks), I think that having a soundtrack written by them would be awesome. :)

Hi everyone! It has been a while since I've updated the progress of Ilxder. First off, I'm happy to say that the updates I've been working on are turning out pretty well. The recent updates I've been working on are as follows:

• Static shadows on buildings, architecture, objects, and mountains, allowing us to make the game feel more 3D.
  
• Character graphic updates - gradient colours on characters to make them feel more rounded and 3D. I've also added some shadows to them as well.
  
• Animated water (still trying to make its animation loop a bit smoother)
• Music tracks being imported to every map, giving the game a bit more of a feel of being alive. Note: most of the current tracks are public domain tracks as of now. Some may remain in the game, while other songs created by myself will be replacing some of them
• I'm about 15% finished with a debugged turn-based battle system
• I've added several more regions with different climates that I'm working on creating quests and characters for

Just for clarification, NO, we are not going to release another demo of Ilxder before the 1.0 release. I'm closer to the finish of the technical aspects of the game than I originally realized. Most of what remains in the game is the addition of the regions and quests, as well as dungeons. I'd like to possibly add an economics system at some point, but that isn't a priority, and I'll only add it if I decide that it's necessary. I suppose it depends on how I program the battle system. If you can use different items in battles, then I might end up making an economy system. Otherwise, I think it might wait until Ilxder 2. ;)

In other news, we're now on Google+, if you haven't seen the news article. Also, we've been working on an Ilxder Facebook page, located here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ilxder-Series/155019711285064

Well, that's all for now. :)

Though we've never had official connections to Bethesda (developers of the Elder Scrolls series and Fallout 3), we've always enjoyed their games, so we were sad to hear the news about Adam Adamowicz. Adam was the concept artist who did a LOT of the concept art on Fallout 3 and Skyrim. He passed away from cancer on the 10th.

Without this man, the Skyrim and Fallout 3 would NOT have been the same, and it's always sad to see a fellow designer in the industry go, ESPECIALLY at such a young age.

We wish his family, friends, and his extended family at Bethesda our deepest sympathies.

Yet another unknown warrior has passed on to Sovngarde...

RIP Adam Adamowicz, 1968-2012

Hello everyone!

This is a different post from my usual posts. Though we really wish to remain neutral politically, this bill (Stop Online Piracy Act/Protect IP Act) would hurt EVERYONE who uses the internet. What it would do is make every website on the internet be censored, so if any content, or bits of content that are copyrighted that are posted on a website, the poster of the content would go to jail, then and there, without warning. In addition to this, it would ruin global freedom throughout the internet. Actually, scratch that, it would ruin the internet in general.

We are officially taking a stance against SOPA/PIPA. We are not going to stand idly while the United States government turns the internet into another one of their pawns. We join with our brothers and sisters across the internet to protest the ludicrous atrocities that the government of the United States is trying to pass. We only wish we had taken part in a protest against the NDAA 2012, which allows the US government to imprison US citizens suspected of "terrorist acts" indefinitely without a trial, regardless of whether or not they were on US soil - that bill has already been passed, and that's why we will be attempting to take our operation outside of the US in the near future.

Unlike many of our brethren across the internet, we are not blacking out our website completely. Instead, we're trying to make it as annoying as possible to use this site, by placing hyperlinked banners across the entire site; we believe this would be more effective, as, instead of people just leaving the site, they might accidentally click on one of the banners instead.

Please, join with us, and our brothers-in-arms to defeat SOPA! Sign the petition at http://americancensorship.org !

Wow, this school year was long and hard for me. Today was the last day of school, and when I say the last day of school, I mean it. My school is closing next year. It's sad, but the next school has more opportunities to help me with my career, such as business math and web design, etc. Anyways, now that school's out, I can get back on schedule with Pheonix and Ancient Palace. That's right, Ancient Palace 1.0 is REALLY close to release, and Pheonix demo 3 is at 98% finished. It's going to be an interesting next few months. ;)

Well, unfortunately, because of some issues I've had with my computers, I haven't had ANY time to work of Project Pheonix Demo Phase 3. :( I was originally hoping to have it out by Christmas. 25 days is not enough time to finish much of the work that I am doing on it.

This Christmas, I am going to run a competition. It will be a story competition. I can't release any more until I start it. Whoever wins, will have a permanent Gold Membership on our forums, and an honorary Christmas medal, called "Christmas Story...maker". (Clever, huh? :P )

If you have been on the forums recently, you probably have seen something about Tony's new project: Project Hawk. If you want to learn more about it, go to the news section on our forum.

Anyways, I will pretty busy during this month, as my birthday is only 4 days away, and I am always busy around December, so I wish you an early Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!