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REACT! GAMES ANNOUNCES ARCHON FOR THE IPHONE

January 26,2009 4:01 pm no comments

Salt Lake City, Utah: January 26, 2009

React! Games confirms it has started development of the classic title, Archon, for the iPhone as the first platform to be available in the second quarter of 2009.  Already in development is PC/Mac platform.

“We’re very excited for this platform, it’s ease of development and user base.  Initial tests confirm that the touchscreen and accelerometer will be a fun and interesting experience for everyone.”  Says Chad Lee, founder of React! Games.

Also confirmed for the iPhone is multiplayer across wifi, a worldwide leaderboard, 3 AI settings and an additional surprise game mode for 1 player only.

React! Games is a privately owned company.

For more information, visit React! Games at www.reactgames.com and the Official Archon website at www.archonclassic.com

Playing the Prototype…

January 23,2009 2:52 pm 4 comments

We played the 2 player prototype today on the PC.  The window will be scalable in the future to any size…just drag the corner.  It featured rough art (well, existing Evolution artwork) which worked well enough.  We are in the process of redoing the icons and backgrounds.  The icons will be 256×256 and look FABULOUS!  Even with the rough tests we did, they come across beautifully.  I can’t wait to get some of the finished models rendered and into the game.

Right now, the Basilisk is modeled and the Knight is coming along.  He, the Basilisk, will be the first creature done.

We will have an exciting announcement next week, so stay tuned.

First week of real production work…

January 15,2009 11:07 am 2 comments

Well, the business of doing the business end is finally coming to a close.  Now we can really start on doing the work.  We’ve spent the week designing the characters because I’ve realized the icons and artwork we did before won’t work with the stuff we’re doing now.  Currently, the icon artwork we have is 32×32 pixels and not anti-aliased, which gives each piece a really hard edge.  Now, with the new engine, we can use alpha channels and the size is more than 3 times that of the originals…

I’m really excited about this new version we’re doing because the artwork will be much larger than I anticipated…that’s great because now, you’ll be able to see all kinds of details in the artwork (my art production timeline just doubled.)  We’ve done some preliminary tests on the Basilisk and Knight pieces, which I’ve posted in the Gallery section.

After meeting with our lead, we’ve laid out the timelines for programming and got the art specs, so we’re off to the races.  Archon is REALLY underway now!!! (If I’m overly excited or don’t make any sense, it’s because I’ve been up all night working on the model tests…so I’m going to bed now…not sleeping for 30 hours can’t be a good thing.)

Happy New Year!!!

January 5,2009 9:16 am 3 comments

We hope everyone has had a great year end to 2008.  This new year, a new beginning, opens the door to many new things.  One of them being the great game of Archon, which we’re calling “Archon:Classic”…yeah, I know, very original name, but it describes perfectly what we are creating with this license.  We thought of all kinds of cool, innovative names to have for this license, but I kept coming back to “Classic” because that is what this game is, and how we’re approaching it.  We figure the gameplay was the perfect balance between action and strategy, the pieces matched up perfectly, everything was perfect.  So why mess that up?

The only thing we’re doing for this version is redoing the graphics to bring it onto today’s modern consoles.  Obviously an 8×8, one color sprite isn’t going to compete with what is out there today, so we’re going to fix that.  Here is a screen shot of how the original game looked on the Atari (and yes, the Atari 8-bit computer was what the original was developed for.)

We have BIG plans for this version…even though we’re keeping the gameplay the same, there are other things that are very exciting.  As they are developed and come available to talk about, you’ll hear it first right on this site, so keep tuned and register on the forums to become part of our community and help support the game.

Anyway, I hope your New Year is the best one yet.  It will be for us…I can’t think of a better way to start a new year than with the opportunity to re-create one of the best games ever made.  Archon.