In our Black Sierra update this month, we have a couple things to mention. One of the nicest changes we’ve made; happens to be the new website we’ve moved to. Yes, yes, we took everyone’s suggestion and got rid of the freewebs site. The new website will allow everyone to access everything all in one easy ad-free environment, this will include all our updates that we have here on Moddb, and some more exclusive information that will follow along the progress of production more closely. In addition to a much cleaner website, we’ve imbedded a new and professional forum in the same place.

As for actual game updates, Black Sierra has fixed the way it handles map switching. We’ve managed to link all maps together which allows for a quick ingame loading time, along with keeping all the information about the player, such as points, health, ammuniton and weaponry thoughout a whole game. This puts players into a position where a more logical approach is required to finish the campaign, as well as giving players a better reason to use team work. If a player rushes into battles, and loses health, his low-state of health will transfer to the next map resulting in higher chances of death later on.

We have also managed to put another weapon in-game, it is an effective fully automatic primary weapon that can be selected at the beginning of the game.

And that pretty much sums up our post this month, we appologize that it’s a little small but we’ve been perfecting a few really big things this month that we’re just not ready to show off yet. However, I promise it’s actually a nice leap forward and it’s coming along very steadily. We are all very hard at work here, and we hope everyone has enjoyed this update. So until next time, keep BSin’!

A small, yet rather important overhaul is being conducted on Black Sierra to clear some things up when it comes to defining Black Sierra. The Moddb profile has been cleaned up, and rewritten for the most part to allow players to have more of an idea of what to expect out of Black Sierra and how it’ll play out. In addition, an idea has been playing in my head, and I’ve decided to give it a chance to see how it plays out. In-between our monthly posts (if we make them on time that is) I’ll be giving out some smaller updates every now and again sort of like this one, mainly just text based updates to describe different things being added and removed for Black Sierra, smaller things that won’t be included in the large updates (well, for the most part). If the community responds well, they may get more detailed as we get further down the road. This would technically be the first one of them, and it’s simply stating the overhaul that’s taking place, and will be continued to flow for the rest of the week. As I was saying, the overhaul is here to enlighten the community more on Black Sierra, along with the Moddb profile being updated, the forums activity will be increased, as some of you may know the forums haven’t had much of a special purpose, but in the coming weeks more images of work in-progress will be posted, some polls will be initiated to get the community’s opinion and the like. The website will be updated later down the road as well.

I’d like to also mention, that even though our team is still getting things done, we could use a hand here and there. We are getting things covered, but production tends to bog down quite a bit at times, simply because we don’t have the time to do it all at a fast paced. But don’t let that bother you, Black Sierra won’t stop production, and it’ll continue forward. However, the positions that follow are still open.

Texturer - Player Modeler - Coder - Concept Artist

Okay, so even though we skipped a month, we’re still sure you’ll be as excited as ever to read our update.

For the past two months we’ve been working on some core game play techniques, including such would be a working flashlight, and a reload code. The flashlight isn’t your typical horror game flashlight, and we’re proud to say that. It’s more of an accessory than a necessity, where as most horror games you are forced to have a flashlight that either A. lasts only 5 seconds before needing recharged or B. requires being held without a weapon. In Black Sierra that’s not the case. Rather than having the popular shoulder flashlight, or even a headlamp; your weapons are equipped with a flashlight. These flashlights won’t die on you, they’ll actually allow light further than a foot in front of your face, and they are also dynamic, meaning that when you reload, the flashlight follows where the weapon is pointing, not always sitting in the middle of the screen. However, not all weapons are equipped with them, in fact most civilian weapons won’t have one to balance it out and mix it up.

We have also had another interview this time with the Total Gaming Network. It was another small interview, but it gives some more insight on where we’re heading with Black Sierra, and we always enjoy answering questions from the community. As always, if any major questions have been left out, we encourage you to ask away in the comments section, we’ll be happy to answer. Apart from getting some of the more highlights implemented, we’ve also been tweaking code, better atmosphere, and working out a lot of the basic story-line that the players will follow. Although we’ve been making a whole lot of good progress, in one of our last chat sessions among the team, we’ve decided to officially rule out melee weapons. We may add it in at a later date, but currently we feel that it’ll just take a lot away from the feel and game play of Black Sierra.

And that pretty much wraps up our update for the month, we are hoping to be able to get some better screenshots, and possibly a small video in the next few months so we encourage everyone to stay tuned, sign up on the forums, and give us a shout out with your suggestions, and feedback.