Shiny Boxes Revealed!

Behold! After many, many, many requests we finally decided to reveal the packaging that will accompany Pier Solar's descent from the heavens. Or, more likely, delivery by a bitter member of the postal service. Regardless of its mode of transit, this is what will await you upon the game's release (and subsequent purchase of course!)

The final boxes have been given the seal of approval by the Fonz and now they wait for their union with the finished project.

Speaking of, we've been busy producing new monsters, refining some cutscenes and building new locales all of which we think you'll really love. Here's a bite size sample of one of our more Arabian themed areas:



Remember, our contest to win a free copy of Pier Solar is still ongoing. All you have to do is toss together a Pier Solar themed wallpaper, attach it and hit us up at wolfrider31 at hotmail dot com with your subject reading Pier Solar Submission. Multiple submissions are allowed and the best one will be notified by email and have their WP enshrined in our hallowed halls / posted on our website.

Here's a sneak peak at the inside of the instruction manual - good advice dwells within!



See you all next week!

-WM

Christmas Give Away Time!

We at Watermelon Development were witness to something disturbing this week. Our intrepid project leader Tulio stumbled upon a spy in our midst, hungrily rummaging through our development vault in an attempt to get an early glance at our game. This vicious villain went by the last name "Claws" and sported the most horrific red attire - surely dyed with the blood of the innocent.

When confronted with his crimes, he used the smiling faces of gamers on Christmas morning as a defense, threatening to add us to some sort of "list" (a hit list we presume) for delaying our upcoming RPG and destroying the dreams of countless old school gamers.

Needless to say, The Fonz would have none of his threats and the picture below tells the story of what happened next.



Nevertheless, our defeated foe's words struck a chord with us and we thought it unfair to leave you all Pier Solar-less during the holiday season. So here's the plan, but it requires a little work on your part.

We're giving away one (1) free copy of Pier Solar to the person who designs the best PS wallpaper. Use whatever you want to put it together, just make sure it looks good on your desktop. Once you're finished, email it to wolfrider31 at hotmail dot com with the subject line reading Pier Solar Submission. The best of the best will have their choice of a free Pier Solar game in any flavor they wish.

Go forth anonymous artists, and bring us Pier Solar greatness.

(Oh, and you'll also have your WP published on our site. Which in some cultures is considered an honor.)

Happy Holidays everyone, and tune in next week for another Pier Solar progress update!

-WM

New Screens and "The Fonz" Battles a Chinese Factory Boss

Perhaps "battles" is too strong a word, but there were indeed fisticuffs - complete with wire teams and slow motion drop kicks. In the end, our fabled graphics designer emerged victorious and The Boss (think Hattori Honzo with cardboard... and... Chinese) agreed to emerge from retirement and do this one final task: Assemble the boxes for Pier Solar.

Okay, so martial arts drama wasn't exactly part of our man's plane trip but he did make the arduous journey to see the boxes being birthed in their native land. Thankfully he was well pleased and no blood had to spilled. Again.

While Fonzie was busy ensuring our packaging was of the utmost quality (and desperately trying to resist the seductive power of Communism) back at the salt mines we were busy injecting Pier Solar with pure liquid excellence. At the moment our script is being worked over and a second draft will soon be delivered to our translators. Of course little changes will be added right up until the very final stages of development, but this version will represent the official and completed plot.

That is until we tire of it and decide to replace the whole cast with mimes. You know, so we can get that whole "art-game" label.

For you, our loyal Solarites (can we call you that or is it too cultish?), we have a few new work in progress screens for you to enjoy. Below are a few locations both in and out of battle and an early example of one of our cutscenes.







In the spirit of the holidays we have a special contest coming up where you, yes you, could win a free copy of Pier Solar. Check back in next week for all the details.

- WM

New Look, More Updates, and a Teenie Tiny Gift

Welcome one and all to the brand new, ultra improved, won't-beat-your-computer-to-death-with-a-nine-iron, HTML only Pier Solar website!

[Pause for polite clapping]

Needless to say it's been a rocky few months for those eagerly awaiting the first new Genesis game in centuries - but fear not! Despite the coal we gingerly placed in your stocking upon announcing the delay, progress on the development side has been steady and things are shaping up to be well worth the wait.

So what have we been up to? As you read in the last update a significant number of assets had to redeveloped when we lost one of our art guys to an unfortunate smelting accident (there was a midget involved - don't ask). Opportunity however can be found in the strangest places and the sudden changes we had to make forced us to re-evaluate the game's script. In an effort to lessen the impact of having to develop so much new art we made a couple of significant changes to the narrative. Far from being a reduction, the alterations allowed for a much tighter and more personal story and for what we hope to be one of the coolest (and weirdest) moments in the game.

Meanwhile, on the more tangible side, we've finalized our packaging and sent it off to the magical land of printing where it will return - no longer an idea, but a BOX. And a BOOKLET. And some other fun stuff. We know this glorious unveiling has been kept from you but let me assure you, and I say this as a registered cynic, it looks "wicked cool". At least, I think that's what the kids today would call it.

This post also marks the first of many more weekly website updates where we'll bring forth new screenshots, development details and compromising photographs of the development team freebasing in their bathrooms. Some people have called this development "exciting" and "a way for WaterMelon Development to assure people that they have not run off with their money and purchased a small island nation." We would agree with both assessments.

So what else do we have for you? A little preview of some of the unholy creations our art guys have cooked up. Creations that you will soon be able to kill yourselves you burgeoning little psychotics you. Feast your eyes!





That's all for now folks. See you next week!

- WM

Important Notice Regarding Pier Solar's Release Date

Dear Fans, Followers and Customers of Pier Solar,

As you may have heard in the last couple of months, we lost a member of ourgraphics team and a year's worth of their work on Pier Solar; we tried ourbest to resolve the issues with this team member but failed.

Since then we have been working around the clock to try and replace thegraphics including what this team member did for the project, our resourceshave been stretched to their limit and sadly we have been unable tocomplete the missing work within a suitable time frame.

This issue combined with the enhancements to bring the graphic quality to ahigher standard has caused the project deadline to slip considerably. It gives us great regret to announce that we will not make our 24th of December 2008 deadline and will be delaying the game's release until next year.

If you have any questions or comments in response to this announcement then please email enquiries at piersolar dot com

Best Wishes,
The Water Melon Development Team

Thank you!

Happy 20th Anniversary, Mega Drive/Genesis fans!

Today is the day our beloved console was first released in its native land of Japan, two decades ago.

As you know, Pier Solar and the Great Architects comes in two editions, classic edition and posterity edition. The posterity edition is limited to 500 copies and the last day to preorder it (which gives your name in the game and extra goodies) - is also today! There are still some posterity orders and some hours left, so if you still are hesitating about giving us your extra support - the time is now! We are very grateful for every preorder and all support we get and we promise to deliver a truly great and special game full of surprises.

When the posterity preorder time is out, we've followed a suggestion from our supporters and decided to put a donation button on our website instead. We will take any donation with great gratitude.

From the fans to the fans,
The Water Melon Development Team

Japanese translators needed !

Hello everybody,

We are currently organizing translation tasks, and, although other languages received many translator candidatures (thank you all!), we are still searching for Japanese (native) with some English skill for the ... JPN translation.

If you know anybody that may be interested to help, please pass the message!

Thank you, please PM Fonzie or Tulio Adriano on the board.

The Water Melon Development Team.

Pre-orders open! Pier Solar Beta released.

Hello friends of Pier Solar.

I'm proud to announce that the Pier Solar Beta is released to public. We hope you enjoy playing the game as much as we enjoyed making it. Please note that it reflects the developments as they were in April/2008.

Along with the this Beta demo we want to announce the that the final release date has been pushed to December 24. The reason is that, unfortunately, Alex Landgren - one of our Graphic Designers - left the team. Since Alex didn't authorize our team to use the pixel art made by him, we have to rework many graphic items of our game, making it impossible to have all done and tested by October 29. We wish Alex good luck on his projects.

Now the moment many has been expecting: The pre-orders are finally open. Along with them a lot of news:

- Pier Solar will not come in MD and MCD separater versions anymore. Thanks to Fonzie's blasting technology, we'll be offering the MD version capable of playing the songs from the MCD if available. That will guarantee that all players have the same graphic experience, and the players with MCD can experience a Stereo near cd-quality sound.

- Pier Solar will be multi-language. Based on our message board polls we'll be offering 3 language packs: US Pack (EN, ES, PT); EU Pack (EN, FR, DE) and JP Pack (EN, JP). Note that the languages may vary depending on the availability of translators.

- We're selling Pier Solar on 2 editions: Pier Solar Classic and Pier Solar Posterity. Both editions will include: 64 Mega Cartridge, Mega/Sega CD disc for enhanced HiFi soundtrack, goodies, color booklet, a finely crafted clamshell box and a Pier Solar poster. The posterity pack is a way for people to donate to the project and help us to prepare the games for the posterity. Those who purchase the posterity pack will have their names displayed on the game credits and on the manual credits. We also might draw some names to take part into the story as a NPC.

Head now to the Pier Solar Website and pre-order yours!

Warm up for the demo!

Hi everyone!

We started the preparations for the release of our demo, and to warm up, we would like to share a few scenes from the demo gameplay. The songs are from the Mega CD version and they're the ones played on each scene.



Here's the link to Youtube and here is the link to GameTrailers.

The demo will be released on September 1st, so stay tuned on our website to download it, and for more news!

Multilanguage poll

If another language is added to Pier Solar, what language would you like it to be?
That is the question posted by Tulio Adriano on our message board !

http://www.piersolar.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=57

We need more answers, thank you very much for your point of view !

PS Team

Mapping has never been so...

Yesterday great Tulio added a unique feature to the map editor.
This feature simulate almost perfectly all the MegaDrive's video modes and let anybody make a map without the usual headache.

We reached a new level of efficiency with this great tool update, stay tunned!

BTW : For those who did not know, MD's display isn't always (ie : not many games) limited to two flat layers, it also support layer mixing (so part of the bottom layer appears over sprites or front layer), in real time !

Internal demo released

Yep guys, the moment is very close. We released an internal demo, our first release candidate. Our team is reviewing the game and based on the reviews some adjustments will be made.

Haha, I hope they take at least one day so I can breath once in a while... ;)

See you soon with more news!

A new teammate and major redesigns

The last weeks have been buisy with preparations for the demo and the final game. Helping us improving what we already had, Victor Gomez, a professional designer from the industry and die-hard Sega-fan has joined our team and given the main characters a major visual overhaul. He has proven a great help to us, and we are sure the result will now be even better than ever imagined. Of course this has given us some new work, as sprites have to be redone, but it´s all for the best of the game, and the planned release date is still standing! Stay tuned!

And the engine took conciense of itself

Player, my player, who is the prettiest ?
>You/Not you!

You should continue coding then, programmer!

Major bugs in sound system fixed !!!

After having major amount of headache with my sound system, I've FINALLY managed to get things working 100% perfectly !!! I did quite a few rewrites and I have nicely optimized nearly everything, thangs are better than ever !!! I feel GOOD :)

Nothing else to say really, 1 day of school left, 4 exams to take and tremendous amount of pretty much free time ahead after them !!!

-Music Magician Tiido-

Retro Gamer-feature

As announced a while ago, our friends of the british Retro Gamer Magazine have made an interview with grandmaster Tulio and his humble servant Daniel.
Retro Gamer #49 is now available in the UK for 4,99 GBP; the fellows at Imagine Publishing offer international shipping of course, so enjoy!

FM SFX fully working

After some major pain and trouble, FM sound effects are done !!!

To be totally honest... I have finished SFX about a week ago, but as everyone who konws me, knows that I forget everything !!!

There's lots of work to do in SFX part... making them is not the easiest task, but in the end, it will be worth the trouble !!!

- Teh Sound Wizard Tiido

Another Mass Coding Weekend :D

We recently put lot of programming effort on the fight part of the game.
And great game need great programming... And great programming need great amount of time (for Tulio and Me, seems).

We just updated lot of things around the attacks, tools and game-code while Alex worked hard on the gfx part. And it's not finished!

Good luck all! :D

Mass coding weekend

This last weekend was crazy coding all day long.

Several editors updated (which means features improvements) and one new editor coded from scratch (which means a new feature being added). ^_^

Now, I just want to let everyone know that we are working as hard as possible to release the public demo.

I placed a poll on Pier Solar message board, here is a direct link.

See you soon. :-D

Retrogamer Coverage and news

Yep, you heard me!

We are going to feature on Retrogamer Magazine!!! A team interview as well as details of the project will feature on it. If you want to order your, you can do it on http://www.imagineshop.co.uk.

News!

The game development is flowing well and steady! Magic efects are under construction... oh dear... those things are not easy, but they please the eye! Hehe!

We are preparing some walpapers for you guys, so you can decorate your desktop with Pier Solar artwork.

Stay tuned for more Pier Solar news! :)

Tulio turns 28

Today is a special day; our dear Tulio´s birthday! With the biblic age of 28 he is now officially one of the weirdos who can´t let go of kid´s play like the Mega Drive although he is physically an old man! We wish him the best of luck for the little time he has left in this world...donations to the Tulio-retirement-home-fund are always very welcome!

Pier Solar in high demand

Pier Solar has not only gained the attention of many gaming-sites and forums since our new website was launched, it has also has attracted several companies that have expressed their interest in publishing and distributing the game. Although nothing is decided yet, and we are still also considering doing the publishing all by ourselves, this is a great sign and should assure the fans that this game will not only come out, but that we have the chance to deliver the best quality possible.

Sonic boom!

I am glad to say tha Pier Solar is a hit on the net.

Searching for quoted "Pier Solar" on Google returns almost 8000 matches of websites spread around to the world, all languages here and there are telling the news of the new RPG soon to come for Mega Drive/Genesis.

To all of you supporting Pier Solar a big THANK YOU from our team.

Ah, news, of course... Polishing weekend... the demo is taking a really good shape and it is becoming very, very hard to find software bugs now! Big thanks to Fonzie for sacrificing his sleep to polish the engine.

TRPG's official name: Pier Solar and the Great Architects

It is finally decided! The final name for our project, until now codenamed Tavern RPG or TRPG, is Pier Solar and the Great Architects!

We are also glad to announce that the game has being evolving in a nice pace!

We know that everyone is urging for a demo, we are working on that. Soon we will have news about it and have a link for download, so, stay tunned!

FM driver bugs fixed

2007 has been a busy year... especially last days of it as I was searching and squashing bugs in the FM driver. Special thanks to Zable Fahr for giving me a hyper valueable tip on the nastiest bug !!! I hope there isn't any more bugs left.
Oh, and tracker got a nice addition in the last hour of 2007, extra percussions.

Happy new year everyone !!!