February 2003 Here’s a sneak peek at our upcoming Real-Time Tactical hit, Nexagon: Deathmatch, from the developers’ eyes. Take a look inside Producer Jay Podilchuk’s diary. Nexagon: Deathmatch has finally reached the last leg of the development race! We (the dev team) continue to polish and add the final touches to the game in our quest towards going gold, which should happen around the middle of next month, come hell or high water! For those of you that haven’t been paying attention, Nexagon: Deathmatch is the first of a new genre of game soon to sweep the gaming world... A Real Time Tactical with a completely destructible environment; an ambitious endeavor to say the least! This is something that has been problematic on more than one occasion when we have attempted to explain the concept to people who have never seen or played the game! Nexagon: Deathmatch is a fast paced action packed game of mortal arena combat emphasizing small unit tactics and featuring character and fortress building in a high stakes blood sport. Recruit an unstoppable team of cracker-jack combatants with varying fighting skills and weapons. Construct an impregnable fortress of defenses laden with deadly traps and devastating weaponry. Traverse an unforgiving arena collecting rewards and finally infiltrate your enemy’s sanctum in a desperate bid to destroy his Nexus. Nexagon delivers the full package of character building, strategic resource management, and a never before seen depth of real time tactics. This is always the best and worst time for every project. On the one hand the compilation of years of hard work really starts to become evident as features get integrated at a staggering rate. The silent levels we marched our thralls through testing and tweaking the engine are now alive with music, ambient sounds and crowds cheering. Explosions are getting bigger and more spectacular and our days usually end with a couple of action packed matches played amongst ourselves or against the QA crew! Yet all this excitement is taking its toll on the entire team. For every new surprise I find integrated into the game upon my arrival in the morning I know one of the code warriors skipped a meal and went home late to get it done... you would figure the darkening of the circles under our eyes and the increasing pastiness of our skin would reflect decreasing moral and overall burn out, but let’s face it... when push comes to shove we are still making games! And a bad day of games making beats any good day doing just about anything else :) So as it stands now we are testing the current build internally and if everything goes as planned we should have another public beta up in a couple of weeks. For all those wishing to be part of it can follow this link http://www.strategyfirst.com/beta/ and sign up! Just remember, it is all about presentation! You have to understand that the only introduction developers have concerning the applicants is the information you people choose to give us. Remember to be specific and please include a valid reason for wanting to be included in the beta; give us a reason to choose you because we ALL love games! Thks, Jay Podilchuk Nexagon: Deathmatch is scheduled to ship in Q2 2003.