Along the Trail

Hello my friends. Here’s a looooooooong overdue update on the Planet’s Edge: Fractured Frontier project. This time around I show the decoration progress in the first section of the Proxima Centauri B pyramid, share some news about the addition of a new Ulysses crewmember, and finally have some news regarding the status of the Planet’s Edge license holder.

Planet’s Edge: The Point of No Return was originally developed and published by New World Computing in 1992. I was both the lead narrative designer and RPG lead level designer for the project. Currently all licenses and trademarks for Planet’s Edge are held by Ziggurat Interactive, and they are not involved with nor responsible for the development this current indie project: Planet’s Edge: Fractured Frontier.

A preview of our 2014 award winning noir horror short, The Case of Evil!

In this first update on the build progress for my reimaging of Planet’s Edge, I’m showing some of the layout work I’ve done on “First Contact” — the first planetside scenario that players encounter in the game. I also show off the rudimentary beginnings of the dialogue and character selection systems.

This one will be free for all users, but for future progress videos, I’ll probably be restricting them to the folks paying to follow the blog.

Hope you enjoy this sneak peek.

(CORRECTION: I mentioned that I’d modeled everything in the demo myself, but the android you encounter is the default “Manny” from Unreal.

Start writing today. Use the button below to create a Substack of your own

EPISODE 6 - Meditations On Mortality - How the life-threatening events in my parents' lives shaped my childhood pre-occupations with mortality.

Host Neal Hallford and his wife Jana Hallford take a trip to the Kahnawá:ke Reserve in Canada to explore the native traditions and history of Jana's family.

This is part two of my special Osiyo (Cherokee for "hello") series about the indigenous influences in my immediate family. The subtitle of the episode, Shé:kon, is "hello" in the Mohawk language.

POSTCARDS FROM THE RESERVE - A vintage view of the Kahnawá:ke Reserve where my wife’s grandmother Bianca was born. Over the years, it has been labeled incorrectly by non-native outsiders as Caughnawaga and Kahnawakee.

Host Neal Hallford serves up the connections between his less-than-obvious indigenous heritage and the annual, just concluded Strawberry Festival held in Stilwell, Oklahoma.

HOME OF THE STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL - This past weekend, on May 11th, Stilwell celebrated its 76th Strawberry Festival. While outsiders might assume that the event is just another food-based celebration, it actually has deep roots in the Cherokee culture.

For Easter, I explore how my fervent childhood devotion to Christianity led me into an ugly and profoundly regrettable confrontation with my best friend, but also opened my eyes to faiths and cultures which were very different from my own.

THE GANG - In elementary school, playing Army was what I spent most of my time doing with the kids in my cohort. (Left to right: Neal Hallford, Jim Palmer, David Guthridge, Scott Roberts. Photo by Ruth Guthridge.).

Snapshots of Christmas Past: Getting gifts in the Great Depression, a catastrophe in Sears, and a memorable Eve in a bowling alley.

A recklessly romantic GI risks a trip to Leavenworth Prison for a Thanksgiving Wedding.