One major obstacle (a time-consuming one) I, Boba Fonts, have had during the last four years has been removed: that means my SOTE-time will finally grow in quantity and quality. Almost everything that's required for the portion of the game we're gonna release is ready. Some minor touches are still needed but the main goal now is to complete the long process of assembling. The crucial phase will start in july, due to Dusk's other duties. Without our programmer we can't proceed rapidly for another month.

Developing a game is a more hard task than everyone not involved in such an enterprise would ever imagine (quite funny I've managed to quote Trek here!). Adventure Game Studio is a wonderful tool, no doubt, but the problems reside all in the real world around it. Everything seems to conspire against che birth of your dream. Every minute of your time seems to be reclaimed by something else.
But don't worry, the road to our goal is becoming shorter and shorter every day...

  

We've just assembled a crucial scene (a top secret one) at the beginning of the game, featuring - among others - a room filled with over 30 animated objects, something quite unusual in Adventure Game Studio. COUNTDOWN TO RELEASE...

The sprite for Dash Rendar has been recreated from scratch, or more precisely from an heavily modified 3D model. We believe it's way better than the previous one (published here long ago).



The development of Hunting the Hunter has entered its final stage: our crew, between real life distractions (yes, we do have a real life) has started assembling the elements of the adventure in the trusty Adventure Game Studio, which has reached in the meantime release 3.0.

Stay tuned: this time you won't have to wait for too long!

For these holidays we're pleased to release a couple of new shots from the finished game. We would have released more, but you can bet the long wait -due to a considerable amount of additions- will be repaid. We're working on the game of our dreams.

  

Before wishing you a Merry Christmas it's useful to remember our new Forum: you're invited to participate and join the beta testing group.
Seasons greatings to you all!

Hunting the hunter is the title for the first finished game "episode" we're trying to release as soon as possible. It chronicles the first events of SOTE: you can control Dash Rendar in his voyages to Ord Mantell and Gall on the trails of Boba Fett.

You are waiting for the playable demo we promised. Today's news is that no demo is going to be released. No demo. What we're putting together is a not-so-short game of about 4-5 hours of play time, that's an important section of the complete game.

The release of the first portion of Part I is approaching. A big surprise is featured in this preliminary section of the storyline. Just a little more patience... Meanwhile, here are some screenshots from an animated cutscene.

     

After a long delay caused by the summer holidays, we're back on track with our work: we're assembling the Part I playable Demo. Meanwhile, we invite you to visit our new FORUM, where you can discuss our graphic adventure and every topic connected with it.

A new screenshot for you! The DEMO goes on...

It's time to reveal our future projects. We plan to release *soon* (when? how many weeks? let's say *as soon as possible*) a Part I PLAYABLE DEMO. Nothing to do with the old Tech Demo, this time it's the real thing. It will feature Dash Rendar on Ord Mantell and Gall.

  

Just to let you know we're working hard for you... Here are some new models made by Lee Anderson with Animation:Master, ready to be converted into sprites by Boba Fonts.

Jawas are lethal for the amateur animator, but with a bit of application...



UTINNI!

Back from another timegap, let's introduce you Emperor's Palpatine Throne Room in the Imperial Palace on Coruscant: the location is the set of many cutscenes in the SOTE storyline.

This is a view of Gall, moon of the gas giant Zhar, one of the main locations of Part I. It's the setting for a special mission of Dash Rendar, as you maybe remember in the official LucasArts action game of SOTE. Our version tells the story from a more adventure-ish point of view.

Here you can see some work-in-progress frames of the sprite of Leia dressed as Boushh, the ubese bounty hunter, as we see her at the beginning of Return of the Jedi and also in the second part of SOTE storyline. It's not something we need for Part I of the adventure but... hey, here it is anyway!

For a number of reasons summer has slowed down our work. Here's a little preview of a custom 'snow effect' we've created for planet Ilum, in Flash format (2 Mb).

It was 1996 when Lucasfilm, in order to prepare the advent of the Special Edition and the subsequent Prequels, launched the project of a "movie without a movie", released in every possible medium except for the theatrical motion picture: novel, comics, videogame and even a full orchestral sountrack by Emmy Award winner Joel McNeely.
The task of SOTE was to tell the crucial events between The Empire strikes back and Return of the Jedi: the vain attempts to rescue the carbonite freezed Han Solo from Boba Fett, the maturation of Luke Skywalker from a reckless apprentice to a true Jedi Knight, after the cruel revelation of Darth Vader, but also the maturation of Vader himself, who starts finding signs of his old ego inside his own tortured soul; and more, the events leading to the construction of the Second Death Star, the bothans' sacrifice, and many details (why Leia arrives at Jabba's palace dressed as ubese bounty hunter Boushh? where did she get that thermal detonator? how did Luke build his new green lightsaber?).
All those things are told while introducing a new, memorable villain in the tradition of the Star Wars saga: Prince Xizor, shipowner of the biggest merchant fleet but, above all, leader of the most feared criminal syndicate in the Galaxy: Black Sun.
Shadows of the Empire represents a vital moment in Lucas' saga, managing to get into the true core of the beloved and unforgettable Classic Trilogy; it catches the characters in the middle of an evolution otherwise taken for granted at the beginning of ROTJ, and satisfies every fan's curiosity about what happens in the meantime, not answering with the lexicon of the uninspired "expanded universe" but looking back at the most pure world of the classic films, both in visual terms (thanks to Lucasfilm's preproduction) and in the narrative style.
The beauty of SOTE is all in its cinematographic feeling of a "lost movie" from the golden age of Star Wars: canonic, believable and funny.

For many people graphic adventures are the most mature form of electronic entertainment: less action and fighting, more brain and narration. Born as a natural evolution of textual adventures (like the Zork Saga), they became popular between the less powerful machines, especially attracting many Personal Computer users.
Adventure Games knew their "boom" with the development of the SCUMM engine of Maniac Mansion, and went through a constant evolution until the birth of interactive movies, which started a bad time for the genre.
Running up to today, after a nasty period where the most famous software houses decided to give up, even due to the first person shooters supremacy and the high quality graphics standards, our dear GA are starting to recover a better position, thanks to well organized groups of independent developers.
Helping the community of brave adventurers there's a powerful tool that allows you to create a custom graphic adventure in the tradition of the old ones: it’s Chris Jones’ Adventure Game Studio (www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/). That's our team’s tool for the creation of SOTE: Graphic Adventure.
With SOTE, in our’s own small, we’ll try to attract both grown ups and young people and to satisfy an old request: a graphic adventure set in the epic Star Wars universe. We'll try to bring back the old LucasArts classics' atmosphere and winning choices (the ‘golden age’ of Zak McKraken, Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and The Dig) with some hints by Sierra and Revolution. Will we be able to accomplish such a task? Only you, the players, will tell.

It's the combination of the two above things. A beautiful (and funny! unlike Zahn's books) Star Wars story that deserves to be told again, since it's not widely known, even by many SW fans, now combined with a medium —the classic graphic adventure— which seems it was created for.
The original idea was conceived back in 1989, when Boba Fonts played Zak McKracken, followed by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and then Loom, which ignited the desire to see an adventure set in the Star Wars universe, focusing on the young Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Although that story was destined to be told by its own creator, yet the project was not going to be forgotten.
Later the idea for the graphic adventure took the form of an unofficial adaptation —but philologically faithful— of Shadows of the Empire, the missing chapter in the epic saga. In the meantime become a die-hard fan, Boba realized that the storyline of SOTE seemed to be made on purpose to be translated into a graphic adventure: dynamic, long, intricate, with lots of characters and travels.

Part I: Dark Voyage to Tatooine

Hunting the Hunter (included in the above)

For installation info or other troubles, check the README ;)
Tech Demo 1.1 (english/italian/german)
(also on eMule / edonkey, clicking here)

previous versions:
Tech Demo 1.0
(also on eMule / edonkey, clicking here)