So far we had the habit to keep quiet about the work happening behind the screens of Age of Empires II: Forgotten Empires. Even though we will maintain that principle, I decided to write a little blog report every week or two to keep you guys up to date on the things we’re working on.

Campaigns

The stories for the campaigns start to shape up, and the first scenarios are being created. Making a real “official” campaign takes so much more work than just a stroll down the scenario editor. Not only must we create an immersive experience for the player, the stories must also be translated, suitable music must be composed and cut scenes are to be drawn up. And god knows if we’ll ever go down the road of voice acting 😀

Scenario Editor

New scenarios obviously require new objects, heroes, buildings and units in the scenario editor. Which has been our main focus this week. Small things like a flock of seagulls swarming over the seaside just make it all more vivid. Or something more robust, like a fire tower? The objects we can add are limited, so we must consider which objects are worth adding eventually and which are not.

Music

This week, we received the final version for the Forgotten Empires Opening Theme from our composer, Vitalis Eirich. Check it out!

Balance & Small features

One of the things we have been playing around with this week was giving villagers the ability to garrison villagers inside rams, similar to soldiers. Could it lead to some extra tactics? Some extra nice moves one can pull off? We surely think so 🙂

Graphics

Work has also started on our final graphics set. A cold, chilly, yet robust Slavic stable to start with. And last weeks, we also came up with a new icon for AoFE.

Installer

A new game also comes with a new installer. It is meant to make it easy for players to stay up to date with the latest patches of the game without any tedious or complicated copy+paste hazards. Hit the button and *poof*, you have the latest version. We’ll have some work on this one for the coming weeks =)