Cognition: PayPal Fundraiser, Voice Acting Auditions, and New Website!

by on Feb.01, 2012, under cognition, featured, news, screenshots

We’ll be posting the running total from the PayPal fundraiser here!

Current total: Over $825!

A lot of Cognition updates today!

Cognition PayPal Fundraiser
During our Kickstarter run (over $34K raised–you are amazing, and thank you yet again!), we had a number of fans who wanted to support the game but were unable to use the Kickstarter system, or who missed the dates to get in on it. So, starting on February 1st, we’re running a two-week mini-fundraiser through PayPal, offering all the same great rewards as we did during the Kickstarter itself! If you or someone you know are interested in Cognition, you can donate at the Cognition website!

If you are donating, (1) Thank you!! and (2) Be sure to include the reward you are selecting in the message with your donation. All the rewards offered from our Kickstarter are available with the PayPal fundraiser as well.

Voice Acting Auditions
Coming up on Feb. 11th, we are holding voice auditions for the Episode 1 cast! They will be held in Folsom, CA at the Sutter Street Theatre from 1 PM to 5 PM (or longer if necessary). We are primarily looking for people who live in the Sacramento area and would be able to record in person with our Voice Over Director.

If you’re in the Sacramento, CA area and interested in auditioning, email casting@postudios.com for more details, sides, and to schedule a timeslot.

Job Openings
We’re still looking for applicants for three positions on the Cognition project team. Head over to our Jobs page to read more about these openings:

Assistant Game Designer
Cinematic Artist
Systems Programmer

Cognition Website
The Cognition website has been redesigned and given a beautiful new look. Head over and check it out! Plus, new screenshots and music from the game are available in the new Case Files section–enjoy! The front page of the Phoenix Online site has also been updated, so stop by there to check it out as well!

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Cognition Fundraiser Rewards

by on Feb.01, 2012, under cognition

As seen on our Kickstarter site, these rewards also apply to the new PayPal mini-fundraiser donations!

Here’s that list of rewards, for reference:

$1 or More
SUPPORTER:
Your name will appear in the Special Thanks section of the credits!

$5 or More
EYE WITNESS:
An exclusive digital Cognition image, a digital copy of the soundtrack, plus your name in the Special Thanks section of the credits!

$20 or More
PROBATIONARY AGENT:
The previous prizes, plus a full copy of each episode of the game upon their release, and a subscription to the exclusive monthly newsletter! You’ll hear about our progress each month and get access to exclusive images, soundclips, songs and more!

$40 or More
INVESTIGATOR:
The previous prizes, plus a hard copy of the game and of the soundtrack!

$60 or More
SPECIAL AGENT:
The previous prizes, plus the Special Edition of Cognition! This includes a signed hard copy of the soundtrack, a hard copy of the game, a Cognition poster, and a copy of the Cognition prequel comic, written by the designers and illustrated by Romano Molenaar!

$100 or More
SENIOR SPECIAL AGENT:
A signed hard copy of the soundtrack, a hard copy of the game, a Cognition poster, a signed copy of the comic, beta-testing access to the first Episode, plus we’ll put your name somewhere in the game—on an FBI Agent’s ID card, a name in the newspaper, a street name, whatever it may be, you’ll be able to see it! ***You must sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement and adhere to the rules of Phoenix Online and Khaeon Gamestudio.

$200 or More
AGENT IN CHARGE:
You’ll received signed hard copies of the soundtrack, game, poster, and comic, plus beta-testing access to all Episodes of the game! But wait there’s more! You’ll get an inside look at our development process! Receive special access to a members-only area with a range of exclusive game development assets such as art concepts, pictures of our 3D models, the game design document, music, voices, and more! You will also have the opportunity to become one of the betatesters of the game. ***Disclaimer: 1) This membership will last only through the development of the first episode of the game. 2) You must sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement and adhere to the rules of Phoenix Online and Khaeon Gamestudio.

$400 or More
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR:
Signed hard copies of the game, soundtrack, poster and comic, and a batch of homemade cookies of your choice, made with love, in heart-shapes! Plus get an inside look at our development process by becoming a Team Member and getting signed on to the team’s mailing list, where you will see the team’s interaction process of making the game! Get into special scheduled skype sessions with the developers as they discuss different aspects of the games — you could be in a session with the writing team discussing the plot and then in another with the director and composer discussing the music! This is a great opportunity to learn how games are developed, as you see how we take the game from concept to its final build! You will also have the opportunity to become a betatester. ***Disclaimer: 1) This membership will last only through the development of the first episode of the game. 2) You must sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement and adhere to the rules of Phoenix Online and Khaeon Gamestudio.

$1000 or More
DEPUTY DIRECTOR #2:
Not only do you get signed copies of the game, soundtrack, and exclusive Cognition comic, and beta-testing access to all Episodes, and delicious cookies! Plus, become a Game Developer for the full 4 episodes of the game! Get an inside look at our development process by becoming a Team Member and getting signed on to the team’s mailing list, where you will see the team’s interaction process of making the game! Get into special scheduled skype sessions with the developers as they discuss different aspects of the games — you could be in a session with the writing team discussing the plot and then in another with the director and composer discussing the music! This is a great opportunity to learn how games are developed, as you see how we take the game from concept to its final build! You will also have the opportunity to become a betatester. ***Disclaimer: 1) We will always consider your feedback, but we will have the last word on development. 2) Direct contact with some developers may be difficult but you’ll definitely get to chat with the team behind The Silver Lining frequently! 3) You must sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement and adhere to the rules of Phoenix Online and Khaeon Gamestudio.

$5000 or More
FBI DIRECTOR:
You get access to all previous prizes, plus, you get to name a character that we’ll model AFTER YOU! And cookies, don’t forget the cookies. ***Disclaimer: 1) We will always consider your feedback, but we will have the last word on development. 2) Direct contact with some developers may be difficult but you’ll definitely get to chat with the team behind The Silver Lining frequently! 3) You must sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement and adhere to the rules of Phoenix Online and Khaeon Gamestudio.

$10,000 or More
J. EDGAR HOOVER:
Let’s face it, at this point we owe you a debt of gratitude we can only ever attempt to make up for! So you, sir or madam, get all the previous prizes, plus you get your name in the opening credits as an Executive Producer. And! A few of us will fly to wherever you are (if you are in the Continental United States), or fly you in to your city of choice (of the hometowns of the Directors) in the Continental United States and meet you there for a truly excellent dinner! Plus, delicious cookies of your choice, baked with love, and mailed directly to you! ***Disclaimer: 1) We will always consider your feedback, but we will have the last word on development. 2) Direct contact with some developers may be difficult but you’ll definitely get to chat with the team behind The Silver Lining frequently! 3) You must sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement and adhere to the rules of Phoenix Online and Khaeon Gamestudio.

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Developer Diary: Managing an Online Team on a Shoestring Budget

by on Jan.31, 2012, under cognition, developer diary, featured, tsl

The next entry in our on-going developer diary series, originally posted here.

Happy New Year! Mayan prophecies be damned, I think 2012 is going to be a great year. (That’s the last time I’ll mention Mayans, unless they turn out to be right and I’m still around post-apocalypse.)

With Kickstarter and the holidays behind us, Phoenix Online has been busy working away at Cognition with all due haste. Our programmers are getting familiar with the Unity Engine and creating the tools and pipeline for the game, our artists are hard at work on concept art and cutscenes, our animators are working on creating the pieces of the game itself, and myself and Cesar are furiously plotting, writing, and editing the first two episodes.

It’s an interesting and different beast than working on The Silver Lining, but the lessons learned in our nine years of development for TSL are serving us well now. We spent that time figuring out just how to make a video game, a trial-and-error of methods that didn’t work and ones that did. We learned how to organize a company that has no office, no budget, and whose members don’t all share a common timezone. Can it be done? It’s not easy, but if you’ve got good people who are dedicated, you can make it work. And while our Kickstarter funds are a huge help in making this game happen, we still need to keep a close eye on our spending. So we don’t overlook the number of programs available either for free or inexpensively that we found and used during TSL’s development.

Advances in communication technology have helped us immensely along the way. We started off on yahoogroups and MSN chat, but today we’ve got our own email system and servers, and Skype has been a great improvement over MSN. The ability to turn those typing chat sessions into free phone calls cuts down on time that was often wasted in trying to explain ourselves—an hour of typing is now a 15 minute conversation! Programs that allow you to share your screens remotely have been a great help as well—most recently we’ve been using Mikogo for this, another product that is free to use. And finally, we’ve run recent live events over Ustream, and plan to use it again when we do our backers-only stream of the demo.

On the production end, our file sharing has been greatly helped by Tortoise SVN and Dropbox. Once we were starting to put together the engine, using the shared files on yahoogroups just wasn’t an option anymore. That’s when we moved to setting an FTP and using SVN to make sure everyone had the most updated builds—it’s simple to install and easy to both update and regress to an earlier version if you need to recover lost files. Dropbox has been an excellent add-on to that as we started stretching our server space with the SVN builds. Though it’s more limited in how much space you have to work with, we could keep smaller projects there and save room on SVN, and it’s similarly easy to update so that everyone is working with the most current files. Then there’s Redmine, an online database that’s excellent for tracking assignments, bugs, and what’s been completed, what hasn’t, who it’s assigned to and so forth; and finally, Gannt, a project management tool that our coordinators swear by for tracking and scheduling.

Gannt in action for Episode 4!

In the end, utilizing tools and programs that are free-to-use has saved us a lot of time as well as money, by helping us organize and streamline our projects. Even now, as a fledgling commercial company, we’re working on a tight budget and every little bit counts. If you’re going to get creative and make a video game for free, be ready to get creative with how you make that feasible for your team.

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Job Openings at Phoenix Online!

by on Jan.30, 2012, under cognition, jobs

We’ve just posted a few new job openings at Phoenix–specifically, these are on the team working on Cognition! Yes, that’s right, the one that’s working with Jane Jensen!

Here’s what we’re looking for:
Assistant Game Designer
Cinematic Artist
Systems Programmer

Interested applicants should review the details and submit their resumes, cover letters and other pertinent materials to jobs@postudios.com.

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What Do You Want to Know About Kickstarter?

by on Jan.05, 2012, under news

Hello Phoenix fans, Katie here! I’m working on a proposal for a panel at PAX East about Kickstarter. So tell me folks–what do YOU want to know about Kickstarter? What kind of details and topics would be helpful, or interesting? What kind of questions do you have about it? Please post to this thread in the forums and let us know!

Also, what appeals to you more–a panel with one group focusing on their experience (in this case, Phoenix Online), or getting people from a few different projects and therefore some variety of experiences? Both scenarios involve Q&A, of course, but with fewer (or just one) group talking, there is the risk of not being able to get as many details due to time constraints.

Your feedback is appreciated! If this happens, I want to make sure it’s a good panel.

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TSL Ep 5 and Cognition both in PC Gamer’s Best of 2012 List!

by on Jan.02, 2012, under cognition, news, tsl

PC Gamer has inlcuded both The Silver Lining: Episode 5 and Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller in it’s list of the best games coming in 2012!

Check it out here!

TSL Ep 5 was included in a similar list in the Swedish print version of the magazine as well (we’re checking into if it’s in the US version)–see the image below. The translation of the blurb reads:

“The fifth and last part of the episodic The Silver Lining, the adventure game based on the legendary King’s Quest adventures by Roberta Williams. The first four parts have received largely positive reviews, and now it’s time for King Graham to complete his mission, lift the curse from his family and save the world.”

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Happy New Year, 2012 Is Going to Rock!

by on Dec.30, 2011, under cognition, news, tsl

We’ve said it many times before, but it always bears saying again: thank you. Thank you for the last nine years, thank you for 2011, thank you for The Silver Lining, and now thank you for Cognition. This has truly been a banner year for Phoenix Online! Your generosity, your support, your belief, it is constantly blowing us away and making us smile. A Kickstarter total of $34,247! Hot damn!

Speaking of, sometime in January, we’ll do another mini-fundraising campaign for about a week through PayPal. We had a lot of fans saying they’d like to donate to the Kickstarter but for various reasons were unable to use Amazon Payments. Stay tuned for more information on this in the new year; and yes, the same list of rewards as we had for Kickstarter will be available for anyone donating through PayPal!

But really, the best part of all this? 2012 is going to be even better! Adventure-treff has ranked Cognition among their most-anticipated adventure titles for 2012, and Jane Jensen (I still think OMG! every time I realize we’re working with her!) has four titles on their Best 100 Adventure Games list! (#32: Gabriel Knight 3, #16: Gabriel Knight 1, #13: King’s Quest VI, and #3: Gabriel Knight 2)

We’re more excited every day as we’re working on Cognition, which is shaping up wonderfully, and even more excited about launching our company. Below you’ll see a new screenshot from the game, a truly beautiful background worked on by Romano Molenaar and Elisa Pavinato. I wonder who’s grave(s) Erica will be visiting? Or is it her own? You’ll find out eventually!

Plus, who can forget the upcoming exciting conclusion to The Silver Lining! Episode 5 will be full of some great stuff, and it’ll be a little bittersweet to say goodbye to the game we’ve spent a decade working on. But a great accomplishment for all of us here at Phoenix at the same time.

So Happy New Year to all of you, and here’s to a great 2012 to come!

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Space Quest fans, rejoice!

by on Dec.29, 2011, under news, tsl, Uncategorized

With Space Quest: Vohaul Strikes Back, a fan-made feature-length sequel to the Sierra Classic series, and Space Quest 2: Vohaul’s Revenge, a full VGA remake of the same title by the guys at Infamous Adventures, this will be a very awesome December for fans of Space Quest.

And seriously, who isn’t a fan? Let’s all adventure with our favorite intergalactic hero, the man, the legend, the janitor! Roger Wilco!

*scuddles off to play*

-Cez

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Happy Holidays from Adventurers everywhere!

by on Dec.29, 2011, under news

Adventure-treff has put together a Happy Holidays message from adventure game industry folks the world over, including Phoenix Online! Check out their video compilation–Cesar pops in at around the 20-minute mark, but there are a lot of familiar and fun faces in there, including numerous Sierra alums!

And of course, Happy New Year!

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Cesar & Katie interviewed by Alternative Magazine Online

by on Dec.19, 2011, under cognition, news

Check out Cesar and Katie’s interview by Alternative Magazine Online (AMO) and answer some questions about Cognition, the characters and series potential, and working with Jane!

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Support Cognition by Phoenix Online Studios via Paypal
Support Cognition by Phoenix Online Studios via Paypal