Design, Toys and Pre-Registration!

The Collector Figures came for final approval!

WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! The final proofs are here! Sorry for the blurry photo. I took this picture with my phone as the box was being opened. (This way we can share the moment as if it were happening now... except with some sort of quantum time delay.) There are 2 boxes: Artix & Sepulchure. Each box comes with the figure, weapon, 5 special cards for the card game, and because these are the 1st figures ever made for the game... each box contains a code that unlocks an INSANE treasure chest of exclusive in-game items for AQWorlds. Depending on which one you get it comes with the Paladin HighLord or DoomKnight Overlord class, armor, weapon, helm and castle (with a trap door that lets you send your friends to the dungeon!)

These are the final prototypes. Coming in APRIL!

You may have noticed that there is a BLACK version of Artix and Sepulchure in that box too.... *nods* they call those "Variants". We made a very limited number of them. So I guess that makes them the ultra rares. After carefully inspecting everything one last time, I am approving these, and production will start today! (Listen carefully and you might just hear the factory cry with tears of joy  -- considering the crazy/obsessive number of revisions I have made to the figures over the past several months.) Even the packaging took months to get perfect -- it was really fun working with Mido on it.

If production stays on schedule, they should arrive at here at the lab's HeroMart and at Toys"R"Us in April. We will be launching "DoomWood 2: Reforging the Blinding Light of Destiny" at the same time. Also, I am contacting a talented stop motion animator to make a cool action video with them! What song should we use? Maybe BattleOn by One-Eyed Doll?

Design! Late nights, Grids & Phi

Today, while the rest of the team adds a "mysteriously dark and dragoniod flying thing" to the pre-registration walk through, Yergen and I are working on the AQ3D interface design. I was up until ~3am reading and experimenting with really interesting things like this 960 Grid Design site. It really changed the way I look at how to display things on a screen! It just so happens our game window will be 960px wide so it will be interesting to see if this results in something far more polished looking than we have ever made before. I am a huge fan of using Phi in design. Pronounced "Fee", it is also refered to as the Golden Ratio. It is a a pattern that commonly exists in nature... and art, websites, and interfaces which use it have a powerful and pleasing effect on the viewer. Also... I made lends flares. LOTS and LOTS of movie style lens flares. I think we should just make this game a giant lens flare. With lens flares on the lens flares. And spikes on the lens flares.... and on... kidding!

Pre-Registration

As of this morning's group huddle -- things are working! PRE-REGISTRATION, the way for players who have supported our previous games to reserve their AQ3D names, will open NEXT THURSDAY at 5pm EST! To see if you qualify, you can log into Portal.BattleOn.com -- there will be a message at the top of the screen letting you know if you qualify.