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In response to requests on its official forums Basilisk Games has posted a status update for the upcoming RPG, Eschalon: Book 1. In addition to discussing the difficult process of desiging a game, the post reveals that a new interview will be released sometime in June and that a gameplay trailer is also in the works.

Right now we are in heavy crunch mode. Internally, we thought we could start the final beta test by June 1st, but we just didn't make it there. There are no technical hurdles in our way, it just happens that producing decent content takes more time than you'd think. Creating a single side quest involves the initial design, usually some rendering, scripting, dialogue writing, testing, and often programming when we discover a hole in the system. It is a huge accomplishment to get one working side quest implemented in one day.

I would never have thought from the beginning that the process of game creation would be so involved, especially a project like Eschalon where we purposely want the game to be "old-school". We weren't going to design a game with Radiant AI or a graphic engine that competes with Crysis; we are making a better looking Ultima style game with touches of Might & Magic and Wizardry. It turns out that quality game production on any scale takes time, and an RPG is about the most time consuming project of all. The variables that must be considered are staggering at times.

Eschalon: Book 1 Forum: More News!

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