azurebot.com News Archive

May unfortunately turned out to be a bit of a slow month, but we hope you appreciate it regardless. Have a look at the collection here:   http://drawmeasmile.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html

Here to Help is a new running project in conjunction with azurebot Ver. 3, which will consist of a series of tutorials.   This first tutorial is How to make a distressed brush [Photoshop], which we hope you'll find useful. If you got any requests or questions regarding the tutorial, please drop us an email!   The tutorial is available here: http://www.azurebot.com/heretohelp/grunge/index.htm

A few nutty pieces of art was made last month! Here's your April recap:   http://drawmeasmile.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html

This month's short story submitted by Matt is called "The Bandit Queen", in which is based upon the Nocturnal Stillness' mascot with the same name. The story is available here

Another good month for Draw Me a Smile. Here's the March recap:   http://drawmeasmile.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html

This month's short story submitted by Matt is called "Azure" and is available here

Welcome to azurebot Version 3.     As you can see, there's been made a few of changes to the azurebot website [and some are yet to come], but also to the community structure and our ideas. With V3 we want to be more active, more fun, include more people and test the water on other platforms by branching out from PC.    One of our upcoming core projects in conjunction with azurebot V3 dubbed "here to help" will consist of a series of tutorials we hope you'll find fun and useful. We plan to cover a lot of nifty hints and tips in Photoshop, 3DS Max, iPhone development and much more; both technical and aesthetic methods.   We will of course also carry on with Draw Me a Smile and Cybernoid IV: SAMSARA, and with all of this, we hope to give people a better reason to visit.   Thanks for supporting us through V2, and we hope to continue seeing you in V3. Feel free to drop us a mail anytime!

I feel February was the month where we really managed to kick things off properly with Draw Me a Smile, so without further ado, here's the first of many monthly recaps:   http://drawmeasmile.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html   * Many thanks to Mirre's contribution!

This month's Matt's Tales' is called "My Death" and is available here

Fly Bernard, fly! is a picturebook coming to the iphone and ipod touch soon. Its creator, Jonathan Howard, is branching out from his day job as concept artist on games such as art academy for Nintendo and more recently Aragorn's Quest for Warner Bros. The art style is heavily influenced by games, and game art; particularly square-enix.    Click here to view trailer.

Following up from last month's short story, here's another piece kindly submitted by Matt!   Click here to read "Alana".

It's a new year, and one of our new years resolutions here in azurebot is to ramp up with more frequently updated free entertainment for everyone to enjoy! -One of which is a new collection of horror fiction, called Matt's Tales, by Matthew Bellingham.   This month's short story is called "Sarah", and is available here

Even though most of our time and resources in azurebot  these days is spent on Cybernoid 4: Samsara, we wanted something else to keep the readers busy with. -Something fun and frequently updated.    One of our new projects is called Draw Me a Smile, which is an art collaboration between Jan-Wah Li and myself, Daniel Nilsen.   The philosophy behind Draw Me a Smile is simply to make you smile, and we sincerily hope you'll enjoy it and watch it grow over the years to come.   http://drawmeasmile.blogspot.com/

Way of the Penguin ver.2 is online!    Although most of my time in azurebot is spent on Cybernoid 4: Samsara, last weekend I took the liberty to update my personal art gallery. If you've visited my gallery before, you ought to quickly spot that the website layout has changed quite dramatically, but hopefully it should be a little easier to navigate now.   There's not a vast amount of new content on the site [although, there's a lot in the works, so expect further updates soon!], but I did post some brand new artwork from Nintendo & Headstrong's latest game, Art Academy. [Now available from the DSi Ware shop in America for 800 points. European and Japanese versions coming soon.]        www.azurebot.com/wotp

It's about time for a long overdue update on Cybernoid 4: Samsara.   In azurebot we've had a slight change of team members on Samsara, and in that process we've also acquired some pretty interesting tech, in which after careful consideration, we decided to use on Cybernoid 4: Samsara.   Although, it was a small step back in terms of pure game progress, we believe that the results will be far more interesting and a lot more rewarding to both the old trusted fans of the series, as well as new players. As tempting as it is to show some bits and bops right now, I think I'll hold on just a little bit longer, until we can show some really decent shots of what it's like, and where we're heading with it.   Nonetheless, we won't leave you entirely in the dark, so here's a quick update on where we're currently at:   We got the basic playability down, and we have a new GUI, alongside with a new protagonist ship, and 70% of the enemy models are complete, as well as various additional game art graphics. It's all looking mighty good!

Just a small update. There's some artwork from House of the Dead: OVERKILL to have a look at in the 3D galleries. Do have a peek if you fancy some grim looking zombies. Official website: www.sega.com/hodoverkill

Yesterday Team SAMSARA submitted all of their assets for the initial build of Cybernoid IV: SAMSARA, and right now we are busy updating the game website with some premiere game content for you to have a go at. However, I thought I'd cut in before that and promote a series of short films made by our very newest azurebot member and a great colleague of mine at Headstrong Games. In June 2008, writer & director Paul Herbert created a short film series called "Is anyone out there?" Evacuation is the renaming of this series. Check it out! www.evacuation-movie.com