The Gallantry - Mini-Design Journal 1

Mini Design Journal I

Once again, we delve into the saga of the Gallantry and take a quick look on the production and progress of what is surely becoming a monumental project. What of the project and the progress? What of development and of the story? What of improvements over Celestial Irruption, E.D.A.S.T., and Fall from Grace? We take a look at this in the first of three Mini Design Journals.

The Gallantry campaign, along with the first two major episodes (each of which contain 1 to 3 maps a piece) are now set for full public release in August of 2001. After that, each new episode will be released on a 'when-it's-ready' basis. Originally, we estimated July, but since that time, The Gallantry has evolved from a simple side-project to fill up time until the next Celestial Irruption mission release to a full blown campaign. One major factor in this increase was that I have suddenly found myself, unexpectedly, working in a team-based environment. When working on Celestial Irruption, I knew what had to be done, and the partnership with Joel Steudler made it quick and easy to communicate ideas. Fortunately, things are prone to major change, as I can now rely on a team of what I consider experts to guide each field to an unparagoned level of achievement, which for me, was never before possible.

Who is this team of which I refer so admirably to? While the first design journal may have introduced you to each of them by name, we have come a long way since that was written, and I feel things have changed enough to re-introduce them all. First off, I would like you all to meet WarGiant. He is in charge of the technical aspects of this project. That meager sentance does not even begin to describe the multitudes to which this man has contributed. Using his technical saavy, The Gallantry itself now carries a unique arsenal of weapons which have taken days worth of effort and trial-and-error to perfect. From the powerful White Crystal Gun, to the ground based Psi Seekers, The Gallantry is now equipped with a totally unique arsenal of weapons, making the ship itself a unit to treasure in the battles to come.

The next person on the team I should mention is Eric. Although leaving shortly for personal reasons, Eric returned to the Gallantry team when asked for help. He has been immensely valuable in the department of wireframes, making sure every aspect of the Gallantry technical side meets up with the strictest paragons of perfection. One team member who constantly surprises me is Xavier. As many of you might know, Xavier once held a campaign of his own on StarCraft Legacy with his work, "The Legacy Saga." The reason I say he surprises me, is because he isn't afraid to tell me anything. If something I do doesn't meet up with his standards, he outright says that the work is that of an elementary school kid. Don't get me wrong, the guy isn't some mean egotist, but he is very selective of this work. For this reason, Xavier not only holds the posistion of voice actor, but is also our new script editor. Xavier's writing skill has been demonstrated to be excellent, far superior to my own. After a little convincing and putting my own personal feelings aside, I chose him to edit the scripts I write with his own personal revisions. This level of writing is something I have always aspired for in my campaigns, but have never been able to successfully pull off using my own skills. I have no doubt that Xavier's revisions will be well met with fans, while preserving the integrity of the story that I write.

Our voice team also consists of Magic, Maglok, Kalika, Razorclaw X, and Legion. Legion himself is one of two sound editors. Legion has assumed the responsibilities of voicing and editing the Protoss characters in The Gallantry. Few would argue that Legion's skills in Protoss sound editing is unmatched. He has followed in the footsteps of people he has admired, and has developed his own unique style and flare from that.

One of two. So who is the other sound editor? After we ran a test demo of The Gallantry for the crew, Xavier suggested that the Gallantry unit responses were edited. He however, did not possess the neccesary skills to do this. So he called in an old friend. Mingvana. Mingvana was part of the original Legacy Saga team for Xavier's campaign. After hearing his work, I knew that he could do a far better job of editing sounds then I could possibly manage. Now, Mingvana is part of the Gallantry team and has already started to make his mark tremendously, impressing the entire team with his superior sound editing techniques, myself included.

Finally, the last addition of the team is Joel R Steudler. Although originally assigned just for various artwork and unit graphics, Joel eventually chimed in that he would like to do music. I will freely admit that I was hesitant. From the very beginning to my mediocre beginnings in the troubled Crossworlds Saga campaign, music has been my staple. It helped define and shape the campaign in ways that involved the player on a more emotional level. Frankly, I didn't think Joel was up to the task to meet the needs I set forth. However, after much arguing about technique, style, and instruments, I was convinced that Joel could handle the huge task of definining this campaign with his original music stylings. Once again, Joel will be contributing a monumental part to one of my... to one of our campaigns. The Gallantry is truly a team now in every sense of the word.

So just how far along on the improvement train will The Gallantry go in comparison to any of my other past campaigns? Well, if you think about better script writing, more concise and intelligent story, far better sound samples, improved graphic art, technical perfection, and a great team of voice actors to be any indication, I will let you decide how much better The Gallantry can be. Till next time.