April 14, 2008
Foggy Day
Friday was a quite a foggy day in New York, which provided a pretty crazy view from our new office...
March 24, 2008
Freeverse is Moving!
We're moving to Brooklyn!
Here is a helpful guide to our new location:
Posted by Liz at 10:35 AM | Comments (0)
February 05, 2008
New People
So there are new exciting things here at Freeverse. In particular, new people. There are four of us, to be exact...
I'm Liz, the new System Administrator, and lone girl here at Freeverse HQ. I'm from New York, and I spend most of my time either in front of a Mac, watching my TiVo, hanging out with a cat, or hanging out with my boyfriend, Matt.
There is Lucas, the new 3D Art Lead, who lives in Valley Stream, New York. He enjoys cuddling with his wifey and ktties, and will hopefully get to Devil May Cry 4.
We also have Paul, our new Support Technician, who is originally from the California Bay Area but he now calls New York his home. If he's not on his XBox 360 or Wii, he's on his trusty G5 tweaking audio to perfection in Logic Pro 7.
Finally, there is Joe, the new Programmer, who just packed up and moved from Florida to New Jersey about a week ago. He is still getting used to real winters and finding his way around NYC.
We're pleased to meet you, and hope to make your future Freeverse experiences as fun as possible. :D
Posted by Liz at 05:02 PM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2007
Give Judy My Notice
Think was updated to 1.1 this week, and I wanted to take a few bytes to point out the developer note we posted in regards to some new stuff in the app.
Third-party developers who want to know what Think is doing should read the Think 1.1 developer note and observe the NSDistributedNotificationCenter goodness.
Personally, I think it'd be neat to see someone integrate it with Twitter to announce what I'm currently thinking about. But that's just me. :)
In addition to that, Think 1.1 changes include:
- The illumination panel can now be operated entirely by the keyboard. Yeah, it totally makes a difference. Tab and shift-tab to cycle through the list; enter, return, or space to illuminate a highlighted app; and escape to dismiss the panel instead.
- Fixed instances where the illumination panel would not update its list of applications when new apps were launched or existing apps were quit.
- Other minor bug and performance fixes.
Posted by mikey at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)
November 10, 2006
Move of Austin
It's come to our attention that Freeverse is located in the middle of the new "hot spot" for video game development.
See that, Chelsea is the new IN place.
It is home to:
Freeverse Software
Heavy Melody Music
KAOS Studios
Large Animal
GameLab
And just around the block in walking distance we have:
Rockstar Games
Take2 Games
2K Games
Atari
So as you can see, we keep some pretty good company. Sure real-estate people will tell you this is a trendy area for artists and metrosexuals. But there's a group of unshaven guys with nerdy t-shirts walking around discussing who would win a fight: Marcus or the Master Chief.
Look out neighbors, the gamers have come to roost!
Posted by Bruce at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2006
+1 to Necromancer Skills
Halloween is right around the corner! To get into the spirit, we have a screen shot of Heroes 5 running on a iMac.
There's still plenty of work to be done on the game, but as we march through Rocktober there will be lots of multiplayer games happening in the office. Life is hard for a game designer.
Posted by Bruce at 02:26 PM | Comments (3)
September 18, 2006
Bringing the HEAT!
Flame ON!
I dedicate this to Black "Ash Crimson" Buck. Here we are testing the new Dyson Flamethrower. It really does bring on "The Heat!"
I can already hear Ian, "Get back to work Bruce!"
Back to the grind.
Posted by Bruce at 04:32 PM | Comments (0)
September 05, 2006
Set the WayBack™ Machine to WAAAAAYBACK!
Today we got a nice blast from the past.
That's the first published and printed title by Freeverse.
- Notice the use of the capital "V" in FreeVerse. We are still trying to phase that out.
- The custom artwork on the cover is by none other than Mr. Ian Smith, President of Freeverse.
- We got special CD Jewel Cases that had the middle's lasered out to fit a 3.5 floppy.
- For some reason, Colin Smith, Vice President convinced Ian to rename Freeverse "World Wide Ian" for about two weeks. Sadly thats the same two weeks that the disks were created.
Posted by Bruce at 04:51 PM | Comments (2)
August 29, 2006
I'm sorry Freeverse, but the princess is in another castle.
Egad! Programmer extraordinaire Lucius has been surrounded! The man behind Sound Studio 3 (literally!) loves his software, but not 400 copies!
An angry man would blame DHL, but me, I blame society for our ills.
Posted by Bruce at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
June 01, 2006
Lookin' Good
Check out those new box shots! These games are shaping up great! We are very close to GM on both Legion Arena and WingNuts 2! It's an exciting time in the office, lots of bug hunting, spot checking and being chained to a desk.
We've got other projects which are also shaping up nicely, they will of course be announced soon-ish™.
Keep watching the skis!
That's Skies!
Whatever.
Posted by Bruce at 11:14 AM | Comments (1)
May 10, 2006
Podcasted!
Today the "A Life of Play" Podcast will feature a 20 to 30 minute interview with me, Bruce about gaming as a leisurely pastime. Wile I tried to keep the nerd-isms down, I'm sure it's dorky enough everyone. Over all I think it went really well. Everyone go check it out:
And if you enjoyed it go and vote over at Podcast Alley.
Posted by Bruce at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
May 05, 2006
Wanted: A new kewel page!
Today my awesome buddy sent me this sweet link over MSN, and I just had to check it out!
Panic's List of Source Material
It's a neat list of websites that inspired Panic and shaped their design. In fact this list was SO inspiring that we just had to redesign our own webpage.
President Ian Lynch Smith said
"It is a rare brave company that will acknowledge it's creative influences. I salute you Panic."
Ian then left to steal money from old people.
Here is a preview. Those of you on 56k modems might want to click this link then go get some lunch or something.
Posted by Bruce at 01:14 PM | Comments (0)
April 04, 2006
Plea from Mac Developers - STOP Wing Nuts 2!
Wing Nuts 2 has been well into beta status and is going strong.
Recently we extended the beta to several Mac developers. Since then nobody has updated their applications. It seems Wing Nuts 2 is taking up their time.
"You absolutely cannot release this game. The effects on my productivity would be absolutely disastrous. My son and I played Wingnuts for 5 hours on Friday night, we only planned to play for 30 minutes"
- Donald, Long Time Mac Application Developer
Sorry Donald, Wing Nuts 2 is well on it's way. Our beta testers are hard at work balancing the game and it won't be too long before it hits Gold Master.
Stay Tuned for more updates (if I can stop playing long enough to post).
Posted by Bruce at 06:14 PM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2006
Ready... Aim... Fire!
Today our Art Director, Steve decided he needed some blood splatters. So he decided the best thing to do was to grab his trusty Nerf Maverick and unleash a torrent of paint dipped darts at unsuspecting paper.
I'm sure the people walking the street were equally confused.
Those of you with the new Intel Macs and Sound Studio 3 should know we are testing a new build with the LAME Framework. Hopefully it'll be complete soon so we can post an update to let you save as Mp3 on your Intel Mac, but it's got to be tested. Stay Tuned.
Posted by Bruce at 03:32 PM | Comments (0)
March 22, 2006
Beta Beat
Phew!
We have been up to our eyeballs in beta testing lately. For those of you not following, we have been finishing up WingNuts 2 which is in beta test and are getting ready to start the Legion Arena beta test. Between that and other projects, we've just been too busy to play a game or two of Marathon! (Shocking I know!).
We just rolled out a pretty big update to Sound Studio 3. It adds some scripting functionality and addresses a few issues with the new Intel macs. The Monbots also got updated to take advantage of the new scripting elements, you should check them out.
We are gearing up for a recording session in April to get the last of our Jen audio for WingNuts 2. It'll be an all day marathon recording session but it will be one of the final pieces needed for WingNuts 2. I can't wait for it to be declared Gold Master, it's close!
Posted by Bruce at 05:13 PM | Comments (2)
March 10, 2006
Heroes 5 with a side order of Fries
Ubisoft unveiled it's new Heroes 5 sales strategy!
Photo Courtesy of http://www.lightningfield.com/
Sweet! Sounds yummy! Sorry there's no real Heroes 5 news right now, things are progressing nicely, it's going to be a great game!
On the other side of the coin, Beta Testing for Wing Nuts 2 is well under way. The game is progressing nicely, but it's keeping me very busy (hence the lack of posts). MacGamer has a nice blurb about the Beta Testing.
Posted by Bruce at 11:21 AM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2006
New Corporate Office -- A Sweet Deal!
Today, Freeverse moved into it's new "Spacious" corporate office. An amazing 3 feet by 6 feet, cavernous Manhattan office.
"With digs like these, we'll take over the game market in no time" said an one of the companies faceless minions.
Or perhaps we were locked out, due to a permissions error on the door (hooray for dork jokes!).
After President Ian Lynch Showed up with the proper key (Sledge Hammer and Crow Bar combo). Work was able to resume like normal (heavy drinking and cursing at the squirrels).
On a plus side, Beta Testing has begun for Wing Nuts 2. Very soon eager mac gamers will get their hands on a Wing Nuts 2 beta, and will soon be destroying everything in sight.
Beta Testing will also begin shortly on Legion Arena (Rome Total Who?).
Also, you should use this opportunity to mock Vice President Colin Smith, as he's out of the country and can't hit you with his Bruce-Hitting-Stick™.
Posted by Bruce at 02:30 PM | Comments (1)
February 10, 2006
Omaha Mike Gulf 2005
So you might remember our little game development contest. The list of winners is being compiled, but for now, here's Freeverse's very own Mark "O.G." Levin showing off the trophy going to the top-spot winners, William Hogben and Stephen Johnson, for their mucho-awesome game "Escort Wing". Keep yer eyes on the monkeyblog for news on that front.
For now, I give you, the OMG 2005 Pimp Cup Trophy™:
Macworld's Peter Cohen had this to say:
"Yeah, that look totally says, 'Yo, what up dawg? This be how I roll, like Sulu in the U.S.S. Excelsior. Word.'"
The nerdiness of knowing that Sulu went on to command the Excelsior and then mixing it with G-unit slang brings joy to my heart. Set phasers on mack.
Posted by mikey at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2005
A Nice Fireside Chat
Hello web citizens,
If you point your browser to Inside Mac Games you'll find episode 8 of the IMG Podcast. There you can listen to the musing of me, Bruce!
Shameless I know. But I talk with the IMG Podcast about WingNuts 2, the new 3D Card Games and some fun games made by other people. You should check it out.
Also you should plan on checking us out at MacWorld San Francisco.
Posted by Bruce at 02:56 PM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2005
Welcome to the Freeverse Blog!
This is your window on the inner-workings of an eccentric, Mac-centric, software company. We develop our own titles, we publish the best stuff from other developers, we enjoy the idea of monkeys if not always their aroma.
Sometimes we do things to make a buck, sometimes we do things just for the joy of it. Whatever we do though, we try to do it creatively, responsibly, and with our pants on... because despite the cat vomit on Steve's chair, the desks covered in pizza boxes and empty Pepsi cans, the occasional game of Marathon, and the fact that I'm writing this from my winter quarters on the island of Nevis, we are dedicated and we are professional.
If anything you may read in the posts that will follow causes you to doubt that, please remember that your judgement is historically unreliable, your memory selective, and that if it wasn't true I wouldn't have written it.
Also, put on some pants.
-Colin
Posted by CLS at 02:35 PM | Comments (2)