October 8th, 2004 - We hit Florida and Full Sail Real World Animation for the Fall meeting of the Game Design and Development Degree Program Advisory Board.

We also were in a fantastic panel discussion with some of Full Sail's other distinguished guests for a few hours and answered many questions from the inimitable Dustin Clingman and then from students themselves. Full Sail ROCKS!

And oh yeah, don't even ASK Liam about Galaga... :)

September 20th, 2004 - Critical Mass Interactive delivered the gold master of the United States Air Force flight simulator kiosk game, USAF: Air Dominance, to the Air Force. This game was built for recruitment and will be played from kiosks on the USAF's tours across the United States.

September 9th and 10th, 2004 - This year's Austin Game Conference was held on September 9-10, 2004. Critical Mass Interactive was there and met with clients, as well as gave a talk. The session was entitled: “Customer Service – In House or Outsourced?” We were very happy to talk to and with everyone that came to the discussion. Thanks for participating!

The Austin Game Conference is dedicated to meeting the needs of professionals focused on next generation game development in multiplayer internet-based games and mobile games. Over 70 visionaries and veterans will provide detailed insight to attendees.

September 8th, 2004, 2004 - We spoke at the How to Break Into the Game Industry Conference and Resume Workshop on Saturday, September 8, 2004, 8:30am to 3:00pm at the MCC Building in North Austin.

This event is the fifth in a national event series designed for students and professionals (artists, programmers writers, musicians and designers) looking to get into the game industry.

August 26, 2004, 2004 - Billy has joined the Production SIG at the IGDA. Check out the link and if you're a producer in the industry, and a member of the IGDA, please join us!

The Production SIG is dedicated to refining and formalizing a structured approach to game production, one that outlines proven practices for development teams taking on interactive projects. Instead of reinventing the wheel, inexperienced and veteran development teams can both benefit from a toolbox of production strategies drawn from the experience of industry leaders.

June, 2004 - Work has begun on a flight simulator for the United States Air Force. This is a game (featuring three unique missions) that allows everyone to get an idea as to what it is like to pilot different types of vehicles from the USAF. Ultimately, the game will be played from kiosks on the USAF's tours across the United States.

May 17, 2004 - We just got back from E3 and it was a blast! Bigger and better than ever with no holds barred. For everyone we saw there, we want to say thanks for the great times! There were a number of companies that want to start working with us, and we're very excited to get them off to a great start. And others that want to continue their relationships, so we're very happy about that. Return business really is the best validation that you're doing good work!

If there's anything that you need for your projects (or projects that you need done) for the mad push for Christmas this year, we would be glad to help you out. With our expanded list of services, we can handle just about anything you throw at us.

April 29, 2004 - Here's an update on some of the wireless work we've been doing 'behind the scenes' for the last few months... We provide artwork redos for cell games as well as professional game review and feedback to developers so you are getting playability feedback before the game ships or even goes to a carrier for their playability feedback. We have provided this service so far to a number of games, starting with Air Attack II, which you can see the results of on the right column of this page.

The other games we are working with are still in production and therefore under wraps. I can say, however, that one is a licensed sports title (soccer), one is an action game with tons of cool features and unlockable levels, one is a movie license (UPDATE 8/17/04: The Day After Tomorrow), and one is an action game that appeals to girls and the younger set. We are also working on another that is heavily story driven and comes at gaming from some pretty interesting angles that we can't give away at this point.

We are proud to provide this service to the wireless community and look forward to showing off more of our successes just as soon as we are allowed to bring them out in the open!

March 23-26, 2004 - We were at GDC demoing our latest projects, one of which is SWORD OF DRACULA. You can read the original CMI press release for SWORD OF DRACULA here. We've been very fortunate that the gaming press has caught hold of the coolness of the license.

It was great seeing all of our friends and colleagues at the GDC this year. We even got to stay an extra day on Saturday, where we spent almost the entire day fishing on a reservoir in Santa Cruz. It was beautiful and Grant and Billy actually managed to catch a couple of rainbow trout!! (Pictured are Manuel Navarro and Billy, along with a suspiciously large fish!)

We look forward to seeing everyone next year in San Francisco!

February 6, 2004 - We've completed two new projects this month. However, it's not likely we're going to be able to make them public for a good while. In the meantime, here's as much detail as we can give on them...

Project One was to create around 300 in-game assets for a technical game demo to show the 'look and feel' of the finished product. Assets included character creation, animation, rigging, and texturing, tile creation for multiple seasons and multiple terrain types (they had to seamlessly tile with one another), low poly trees, rocks, grass, bushes, flowers, architectural elements, and many other miscellaneous items. Work was done in a short timeframe, as this work was to be used to form the basis of our second Project with the same company.

Project Two was to take the same in-game assets for the demo and create a full screen cinematic, showing off features expected of the completed game. We completed the two minute, fifty second full screen animation that mocks up gameplay for an upcoming game. The work included: animating four human characters, two bipedal enemies and a boss, camera manipulation, level creation, skywarp creation, interface, rendering, texturing, special effects, and doing all of the post-production work (including adding sound effects, music, text pages, additional interface work, and putting all the individual pieces together into a cohesive whole).

We're working with a high-profile license now and are preparing a game demo for GDC '04. We'll be sure to let you all know more as we get closer to GDC in March!!

January, 2004 - We started two new projects this month! More info when they are done in February...

We've started negotiations for a licensed game... More info as it becomes available...

Critical Mass Interactive Partners with periMind to Create Air Attack Sequel

NEWS UPDATES!!