SHADOW WARRIOR DEVELOPMENT APRIL/MAY 1997 [ Main Shadow Warrior Page ] Update: 05/55/97 It's been a week since the last update, so we figured it was time. The response to the shareware version have been pretty overwhelming, and we appreciate all the mail we have been getting.

v1.1 Patch - We are working on a patch right now and we think it'll be ready sometime in the next week. Here are some things we are addressing.

Save/load locks - (DOS mode mostly)
Out of syncs

UZI fire (DOS mode again)
cheat codes that slipped through. SWTRIX etc
Going under water in Win95 locks (NOTE: We have noticed that this happens when people have an Ensoniq SoundSacpe.)

Small things like:

higher mouse sensitivity
Re-wording of 50 play message
Speed up start of level 3
Anything else we can do in a week

Thanks for the support again, and look for a patch really soon.
Update: 05/14/97

Well, as you probably know by now, Shadow Warrior's shareware episode was released yesterday to the world! If you haven't gotten your copy, go to the main Shadow Warrior Page and download a copy. So far the response has been incredible, and we're very pleased by the overwhelmingly positive responses we've received so far. Our Shadow Warrior page got around 11,000 hits in the first 4 hours after the game's release! The team is taking a couple of days off to rest up after the non stop 18 hour a day 7 days a week for the last several weeks pace they've been on, and then it's back to the grind to finish the registered version.

Today, Frank Maddin's wife Lucinda had a cake made in honour of the release of Shadow Warror. To the right is a picture of it. Several words were heard around the lunchroom at the time like "Whooooooo wants some cake?" We're told that the lady at the food store down the block who did the work on the cake almost didn't want to do it because she got grossed out by some of the blood in the advertising for Shadow Warrior. :)

[ Picture 1 | Picture 2 ]

Two more pictures from this mini party are available. From L-R in these pictures are: Keith Schuler (Map Designer), Frank Maddin (Programmer), & Jim Norwood (Programmer).

Update: 05/02/97

Since we're down to crunch time finishing Shadow Warrior, updates are going to very small, and may happen a lot. For the time being, you should look at George Broussard's Finger for the latest updates. Please go to our finger page for George's (and the rest of our) fingers.

Update: 04/22/97

We know it's been a long time again between updates, but we think you will all appreciate why. We are about 2 weeks away from releasing the shareware version and have been living at the offices, in order to finish it.

The shareware game is essentially done, except the final boss tweaking and other "little" things. The game is about 99% feature complete, meaning we are only fixing bug in the current code and not adding new items day by day.

We are having entire days of net play without sync or other errors, so that is very encouraging, and we are able to tweak the play to perfection now, because we don't have to spend brain cells dodging all the bugs. We can just focus on gameplay and balance.

Work is being done on the sound ranges for net play at the moment and We're having a hard time keeping Jim and Frank tied down with programming lists. What they do get is mostly tweaks, so they are done by the time George gets back to his office and they're calling George for more. The artists are doing last minute things like order screens, F1 help screens and all the housekeeping items to get the game into production release form.

The mappers are continually tweaking the levels and adding little things to polish them, but we feel they could be released "as is" now. We are just using the extra time to make them as perfect as possible. We are also starting work on registered version maps during the day, as we burn most of the nights with net play screaming and hollering.

We intend to try and freeze the code this Friday or Saturday (which means no more additions of any kind, and we only focus on bugs). After the freeze, the game could be out in as little as 4 days or so, if the testing goes well. But also bear in mind that the testing/debugging phase will take as long as it takes and the game will be out "when it is bug free" :)

In all honesty we expect a potential shareware release in the first few days of May, or maybe earlier if the planets align correctly. Thanks for your patience. You will be rewarded with an amazing game very soon.

In order to keep loading time to a minimum, only the current month's entries will be on this page. You can get older months pages via this index.

August/September 1997
July 1997
June 1997
April & May 1997
March 1997
January & February 1997

The older updates are still being worked on. When they're converted, they'll appear here again.