Finally Got to Play Bastion

Tonight marked a milestone for me where I can officially call the game “beta” … It’s playable start to finish, and there are no crucial pieces left to add.  Features are locked.

I’d been saving Bastion as a reward for getting to this stage since it came out… and so far it has not disappointed.  I didn’t read any reviews or anything before playing, so all I knew was from the glimpses I got at E3.

What I’ve seen so far is great.  The narrator doesn’t get interrupted and always has something interesting to say.  This means no tutorial and things keep moving briskly along.  The core concept of the Bastion is something very dear to me, the rebuilding of a lost city like SoulBlazer.  This is a theme that’s been neglected for too long.

Amazing hand-painted artwork and a nice variety of music ranging from folk tunes to Chrono Trigger style dreamscapes.  Would have stayed up all night playing it, but I think I should be a more responsible game developer and finish my game.

Congratulations SuperGiantGames

Tonight was the Bastion launch party, an awesome event for many reasons.  First, I got to play a new game called Joust, which I suppose every indie developer should know about, but I somehow didn’t.  Here is me playing:

I lost every round but one.

Second, it was great to see the crew after they had accomplished something many set out to do but few succeed in: band together and create a high quality title independently.  This is somewhere I want to be in a little while.  It can be done.

Third, something Amir said during a brief toast, really struck a chord with me: that most of the people here he did not know before he began building Bastion, and that he never expected that making a game would make him this many friends.  Hell yeah!   This is game development at its finest.