The depths of winter, and postcards...

While I've long since grown used to the cold and precipitations associated with Maine winters, these are still the weeks I dread: when the sun sets right after 4PM and night falls at an hour you would usually associate with "mid-afternoon."

All of this coincides with the most intense parts of the holiday season in the USA, which adds an an extra bit of stress, and a bit of downtime here at the office.  Conveniently enough, it's also the time at which the next generation of influenza wafts through town, meaning just about everyone is either ill, or will be, soon.

In other words, ideal working conditions.

However, as evidenced by our recent alpha release for Mac, we've managed to stay busy.

I was also able to bring in a new post-process stack, which brought the game's lighting and graphics to the next level:

I confess that this brought with it a TINY hit to performance, but in coming days, we'll be finding ways to optimize this.  I've NEVER seen our oceans and sunsets looking so brilliant:

As you can see, there still remains a bit of work to be done - that sand is looking kinda "plastic."  However, I've expanded the facelift of the island beyond biomes- we're bringing in a new shader profile to the terrain that will ensure things look even better, and will be adding completely new roads.

Work, of course, continues on just about every front: just about every day, I am jumping from a meeting with the musicians, to another with the coders, to discussions with our AI developer and our animator, and reviewing new concept art from our 2-d artists:

Rarely does a spare (or dull) moment pass around here.

NOW- AS ALWAYS:

IF YOU HAVE CONTRIBUTED $25 USD OR MORE TO THE PEACE ISLAND PROJECT, AND HAVE YET TO RECEIVE YOUR POSTCARD SET, PLEASE EMAIL US DIRECTLY AT PEACEISLANDLLC@GMAIL.COM, SO WE CAN SEND YOUR PREMIUMS!

See ya, next week!