Welcome to Through the Looking Glass

Arkane Studios, the group behind the RPG Arx Fatalis, is hiring for a level design position in their Lyon, France office. Applicants must be an expert at Hammer (Half Life 2 Editor) and be familiar with the way entities work in the Source™ Engine, for development of Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. Contact them at job@arkane-studios.com.

At the moment, the team behind Dark Messiah is Arx core team, along with Purah, Mike Ryan, and the SS2 Rebirth guy (Blutch), with Randy Smith consulting and Kemal (did audio on Thief/SS2/Arx, now at Floodgate) doing audio work. You could join them. :)

Here it is, the news we've all been waiting for:

UBISOFT ANNOUNCES DARK MESSIAH™ OF MIGHT & MAGIC®

New Might & Magic® game to be powered by Source™ Engine from Valve

SAN FRANCISCO – AUGUST 4, 2005 – Today Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, announces the development of Dark Messiah™ of Might & Magic®, a new first-person action game for the PC, powered by an enhanced version of the Source™ Engine, the award-winning game technology Valve created to power Half-Life®2.

Developed by Arkane Studios, the team behind the critically acclaimed Arx Fatalis game, Dark Messiah of Might & Magic puts players in a first-person perspective, allowing them to immerse themselves in the legendary Might and Magic universe as never before. It is also the world’s first fantasy action game to feature a complete first-person combat system. It takes full advantage of the Source™ Engine’s exceptional technological enhancements in areas such as character animation, advanced AI, real-world physics and shader-based rendering.

Ubisoft acquired the Might and Magic brand in 2003, and Dark Messiah of Might & Magic is the second title Ubisoft will be launching as it restores this famed franchise to glory. Dark Messiah of Might & Magic is scheduled for a summer 2006 release and will be shown for the first time at the Games Convention in Germany on August 17, 2005.

Discuss!

I was bored this weekend and found out that our friends over at Junction Point Studios have updated their website! You can read a little about their latest title as well as developer bios (some funny stuff in there!) and job offerings. If you've ever dreamed of working alongside the likes of Warren Spector and Art Min (among others), now would be the time to act on it!

Be sure to take a look!

I've just received an email from Chris Kline, the Lead Programmer for Irrational Games over in Boston. They have programming internships on offer for Bioshock! If you're interested - read on!

Irrational Games, creators of critically acclaimed games such as System Shock 2, Freedom Force, Tribes:Vengeance, and SWAT 4, is currently seeking programming interns for their upcoming title "Bioshock".

Interns will be responsible for supporting the programming team on a wide variety of development tasks. These tasks might include any of the following:

• Bugfixing
• Game system feature implementation
• AI support
• User interface implementation
• Tools development for Design, Art, and Quality Assurance
• Visual effects development (implementation of HLSL shaders, particle systems, frame buffer effects, etc.)
• Core game engine functionality
• Did I mention bugfixing?

Candidates should exhibit the following:

• A love of games:
  Creative passion is important in all aspects of game development. We need interns who love computer games, play them regularly, and can talk about them intelligently.
• Willingness to undertake any task required:
  This is a perfect opportunity for an ambitious and skilled programmer to gain experience in the game development process, but interns will not be able to pick and choose their own tasks. We're looking for someone who is eager and excited to undertake any task necessary to bring the game to fruition.
• Service-oriented personality: Code is not an end in itself! Game development is a team effort, and the programming team works in support of the design and art teams. Candidates should think of the other teams and their fellow programmers as clients, and strive to achieve the needs of the team.
• Excellent communication skills: Good communication is vital to building great games. Interns will need to be able to work effectively with other team members to gather requirements, write planning and technical documents, and respond to feedback in a prompt and professional manner.
• Technical chops: Our interns will need a strong and demonstrable understanding of C++ and software engineering principles, and the ability to come up to speed rapidly on a massive codebase.
• Directable creativity:
  The intern should be comfortable taking direction from a staff engineer, but able to work creatively and independently. We'll throw you off the dock; you should be able to swim.

Desired related skills include:

• Experience in the games industry
• Experience in computer animation
• Experience in reactive artificial intelligence
• A strong foundation in the principles of 3D computer graphics; experience with DirectX 9 and HLSL
• Experience working with the Unreal Engine is a strong plus.

Positions will be unpaid -- in return for your efforts we will provide you with a T pass, experience working at one of the most respected companies in the industry, and your name in the credits of any titles you work on. If this sounds like something you are interested in, please email a resume, cover letter, references, and sample code with a description of its context and purpose to the address below.

The position will be Quincy, MA (just outside of Boston, accessible via the subway).

Christopher Kline
Lead Programmer
Irrational Games, LLC (Boston)
ckline@irrationalstudios.com

If you're not up for an internship, you could always apply for the job of Rendering/Engine Programmer for an undisclosed title!

I've played T2x: Shadows of the Metal Age from beginning to end four times now. And I've replayed two or three missions an additional three or four times, to boot. I don't know if you're familiar with my insane demands and general tendencies towards snide remarks and nitpicking, but just looking at the number of hours I've given this game in the past four or five days should -- in itself -- give you an idea as to whether or not I enjoyed it. Hint: I enjoyed the hell out of it.

I'll tell you what T2x is, for starters: It's fun. More than that, it's the kind of fun I had playing Thief: The Dark Project...

(Read the full review, including new screenshots, here...)

Yup, after the long wait the huge 13-mission campaign is now out. I'll let Avalon fill you in:

"Finally, this day has finally arrived!"

The first words that are spoken by Zaya couldn't be more appropriate for our last as we move from development to release. After five years of solid work and hard effort, five years of amazing support from the community, we hope you'll enjoy stepping into Zaya's shoes and living her tale of survival and revenge in the corrupt shadows of the City.

The list of mirrors will expand, but for now, T2X is hosted courtesy of FilePlanet, weighing in at 655.8 megabytes. Download it here!

The entire team would like to thank the community for the support you've given that has allowed us to release one of the largest fan-made expansions any game has ever seen. It was thanks to you guys that we kept going. I'd like to thank the team for the awesome amount of work they put in, I know they'll be taking a well deserved rest after this.

Please visit the T2X forums at TTLG to discuss!

Congrats to the whole team, this looks fantastic!

I've been working on a new jukebox that rids us of the eyesore graphics clutter and information overload. I've posted my thoughts and plans here, and the new location of the jukebox is here. The old one is still online, but none of the links will work. Please stop by the thread and say hi. :)

Click the pretty picture to travel to the thread where Kerrle is giving away the great new icons he made, and be sure to thank him! :)

Mind Control Software, i.e. Andrew Leker and Marc LeBlanc, are having their game Oasis promoted on Shockwave.com. I did the free trial of the game, which allows you to play for 60 minutes, and managed to use them all up consecutively, i.e. once I started, I kept playing for an hour. For me, that’s impressive. Discerning fans of puzzle games may want to give their Egyptian-themed product a look. Discuss your thoughts here.

Warren Spector and Art Min of ION Storm slash Looking Glass are back, along with a staff of 12 mostly ex-Ion Storm developers. Gamespot is reporting about Junction Point Studios, Warren's new gig, named for a project he was working on back at LGS in the mid 90s. Totally cool, I say.

Discuss!