Have you ever wanted to truly affect the life of a developer? Now is your chance. I’ve brutally forced both NeoSpider and Nikaji to sacrifice themselves for the betterment of our community and they are submitting their hair color for the greater good. 

This is how it’s going to work.  Take the pictures below and Photoshop the hair color that you think would be a good change for our battle hardened developers. 

The first picture is of Nikaji, a brilliant UI coder of epic proportions, he currently sports a “gradient shades of blue do”.

http://static.netdevil.com/dyn/img.php/w=800/assets/jge/media/gallery/Nikaji.JPG

Next we have “bug killer” neoSpider who while fixing the unfixable, keeps his auburn tresses a natural shade of red.  Should he go fuchsia or perhaps pea green? You decide!

http://static.netdevil.com/dyn/img.php/w=800/assets/jge/media/gallery/NeoSpider.JPG

There will be two winners (One for each developer) and they will win a signed Jumpgate Evolution print as well as a guaranteed closed beta slot. Winners will be chosen by popular vote once five choices are selected for each respective victim… I mean developer. Standard rules apply, keep the Photoshops PG.  Entries must be posted in this forum thread to be considered.

The contest starts now Wednesday May 7, 2008 and submissions will be locked on Monday May 19, 2008. Voting will start Tuesday May 20, 2008 and the winners will be announced Monday May 26, 2008.  Good luck and may the best color win!

You can enter the contest here.

Good luck!

You can peruse their collection here.

Enjoy!

You can find them here.

Enjoy!

You can visit this new Jumpgate Evolution page at Mondes Persistants.

To my great surprise, on letting my stubby fingers manoeuvre my spritely little fighter-jet into the infinite blackness of space, I was afforded the greatest of control. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that controlling Jumpgate: Evolution felt not just good, it felt right.

Best quote ever! You can read the entire article at PCZone.

While we haven't announced when the closed beta is going to start, we've provided Jump with a few guaranteed closed beta slots to give away to our community.  Find out how you can WIN at Joystick Required.

As you may know, we held a Limerick Contest in which the winners were to receive a beta key upon winning.  The voting process took longer than anticipated because there were over 220 entries much to our delight.  Narrowing down the winners was hard as there were so many incredibly funny entries, but this year, the “Academy” would like to congratulate

Wyx – winner of “The Most Entries Known to Man” award. She not only received a new forum title of Jumpgate Evolution Bard, but will also receive a slot in Jumpgate Evolution’s closed beta.

Tyndaleon – winner of “The Make Awen Laugh until she has mountain dew shooting from her nostrils” award.  He will be receiving a slot in Jumpgate Evolution’s closed beta.

DuVel – winner of the “Limerick Sparring” award. He caused much snickering and giggling with his infamous limerick duals with Wyx. He will be receiving a slot in Jumpgate Evolution’s closed beta.

With that said, because Awen is such a softie, there are three honorable mentions who will also receive the coveted beta slot to Jumpgate Evolution’s closed beta.  If you’ve been listed, please send Awen a private message with your contact information.

Congratulations to our winners!

Date: May 14th, 2008
Time: 7:30pm PST
Location: The Fish Club (Ask for Scott or Hermann) 2100 Alaskan Way, Seattle, WA 98121

Please RSVP on the forums as space is limited!

Find out about the interesting tidbits that escaped during this live interview.

Read the story here!

Read it here!

Find out what Hermann has to say about our upcoming release Jumpgate Evolution.

You can view the screenshot here.

This shot features a battlestion in Bleakstone Field.

Was crazy excited at first when,

she thought of a contest her fans could win,

a key to the beta

The Rules of the contest were easy,

A limerick created would be breezy,

While though the description was actually quite cheesy,

The fans could win keys to the beta.

So please keep it clean,

Or she’ll rip out your spleen

Please don’t make her mean

Or she won’t give you a key to the beta.

After suffering through that bit of torture, giving the top three winners of our Limerick contest a beta key to Jumpgate Evolution is the least we could do.  This key will guarantee you a slot in closed Beta.  Just remember, keep it PG!

Limericks will be judged based on humor and originality.  While there is no length requirement, please ensure that the topic is PG and based on the Jumpgate Universe.  Any submissions that are deemed inappropriate will be deleted and disqualified.  Please post your submission in this forum.

All submissions must be in by April 22, 2008 3pm MST.  Winners will be announced April 28, 2008 3pm MST.  Good luck and have fun!

Find out what they have to say about our upcoming Space Combat MMO!

Thanks to GRN for the great preview!

Connect was an important event for the Jumpgate Evolution team. It was the first time we showed the game and allowed the public to play in a more or less uncontrolled way. Whenever you prepare for a public demonstration of a game, there is a period of extreme stress and anxiety. You never really know what is going to happen. Will there be some odd configuration on the target machines that breaks the game? Will the servers run well? Things like that. Then there is the game itself. Will player's like it or hate it? There's added problems that MMOs face which I think other kinds of games don't have to contend with. The most notable issue is that MMOs tend to require a long term commitment. Players are generally expecting to sit down for many hours and really get into the game. Timed events do not allow for that experience and thus players may feel like their activities matter that much less.  

The competing issue is that it's really important to get feedback on your game as soon as you can. We have been doing testing for over a year at this point, but we have always had a great deal of control over the test. While we wanted to make sure that everyone had a great time playing the game we also wanted to use this as an opportunity to collect data on what could improve the game while we still have time to do it.  

I think Connect succeeded in both these areas. The game clients and servers ran well and people seemed to have fun playing the game. We discovered a number of issues which kept happening to people which we used to immediately improve the game. One of the dangerous things for game developers is to believe that we have all the answers. Many times we try and do something that we think is a great idea only to find out in testing that it's terrible. This is why we try and rapidly prototype as many things as possible. Fail early, fail often is a reasonably good approach to game development, early being the key. 

Beyond those things Connect was also a great time to just kind of relax and get away from the development environment a bit. We work pretty hard on getting the game working, adding features and lots of time polishing and those hours can get people dangerously close to burn out. We feel that without the work environment being fun, it will be difficult to make a fun game. Sometimes just getting away for a few days can work wonders for motivation. It was also very rewarding to sit and talk with people who are interested in the game. Some of them are just people who are casually interested, or had never heard of or seen the game before. Others were die hard, dedicated fans of the original game. These were the people I was the most interested in, and, to be honest, nervous, about meeting. Some of the people we met with have as much or more invested in the game universe as we do. I first knew about Jumpgate back in about 1996 when I first met Scott and he was telling me about this game he wanted to make that would bring to life the Star Wars movie experience. I thought that was a bold and crazy idea but he had the drive to push it through and despite all odds was able to finish and release a working game that runs to this day. The history of the original game weighs heavily on myself and the rest of the team and we want to make sure we are creating something that meets and exceeds the internal and external expectations. 

Whenever we travel we try and set up a time and place to meet with our fans and show them what we're working on. They are really fun visits and I think they help us a great deal. I'm constantly amazed at the range of people that play games. I'm also amazed at how many ideas and how much information people have about what we are working on. I hope we are able to go to many more events and I hope that they continue to go well and draw lots of diverse people. There really is no greater reward for a game developer than to see someone enjoying something you helped to create.

Please visit tentonhammer.com to check them out!

Check it out!

Check it out! 

Check it out here.  

Jumpgate Evolution Preview

Connect 08 Event Diary

Both stories are in German.  

Video Interview

QNA

Check them out here.

Check it out here.

Read the story here

Check it out here.  

Read it here!