S.A.G.E. 2008 Continues with more awesomeness, entertainment, and more! http://sagexpo.org Be sure to read the news on the bottom left corner for event info...
Richard Jacques, composer for Sonic 3d Blast, Mass Effect, and others graced us with an audio interview! Please note that the audio file has about a minute of silence (besides a whiny sound) before anything actually starts.

Fear his British Voice!!!
http://networkapproach.com/SAGE2008InterviewJacques.mp3



Chris Senn ran his Game design workshop as promised and here's the materials:

PDF document:http://www.senntient.com/hire/GameDesignWorkshop.pdf

Workshop Q/A Log (His comments highlighted): http://www.sagexpo.org/chatlogs/Chris_Senn.html



Finally, Lee Brotherton who did a song in Sonic 2006 and runs Remix Factory did an interview with us as well...

http://www.sagexpo.org/chatlogs/Lee_Brotherton.html




There will be a with Howard Drossin!
Composer for Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic Spinball, Comix Zone, etc. Many
great games under his belt, as well as his work composing scores for movies.
Check http://sagexpo.org for the time.



Finally, you can look here to find some reviews of the games featured at S.A.G.E. 2008. I recommend the original titles "Everlasting Song" and "Nothing", and the fangames "Emerald Ties: Crossing Fates," "Mecha Madness"," Halo: Out with a Whimper", "Sonic Nebulous" and "Super Mario Kingdoms"

http://www.tssznews.com/
http://sonicfangameshq.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=14

And especially here... This guy's sly method of bashing the not as great titles is great...
http://www.sonicstadium.org/category/features/review

I'll have my own personal reviews of my favorite (and least) games there posted here later on... (Namely Everlasting Song, and Nothing)

Some random Screens:






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Anyone who got their free... I mean tickets for Digital life already may have seen this in their emails:

"
[b]The DigitalLife show scheduled for September 25-28 has been postponed. After reviewing plans for the show, the organizers weren't confident that they could present a show experience that was consistent with the successes of prior years. Hopefully a bigger and stronger DigitalLife will return in 2009. We will make additional announcements about the future of the show when details are available.


DigitalLife Show Management
info@digitallife.com[/b]
"

So it's postponed this year... not to be confused with Canceled...



Does this mean developers and publishers have already lost interest in the event? Not to mention electronics vendors and such... Were they not seeing a big enough turnaround, or is there just some lack of funding caused by everyone who goes to digital life having a free ticket?


I mean, you got a free ticket too, right?

It's a pity, NY needs a show like this... Let's hold them strong on their claims on a kick ass show for 2009.

As promised, the log of his interview. If you were there, you'd be able to ask whatever questions you wanted...

Here's the raw interview log: I didn't bother to clean it up here, but the highlighted blue comments are from Eric Iwasaki.



http://www.sagexpo.org/chatlogs/Eric_Iwasaki.html

Here's his homepage http://akira3d.com/ With links to other places you can find him... LinkedIn shows pretty much an overview of the games he's done...

I noticed he removed the link to his facebook profile likely due to ridiculous amounts of requests/messages people must have sent him from this event (and you know how annoying facebook is with hundreds of requests... I still have his profile link however... muhahahaha!!!)


A log of Chris Senn's Workshop today should be posted soon... He plans on inviting other devs of the ill-fated Sega Saturn Sonic Xtreme project and will answer all your questions on Wednesday...

Guest list as always is here: http://sagexpo.org/expo/special_guests.html
Logs will be posted here: http://sagexpo.org/expo/bonus.html

Main event site: http://sagexpo.org

SAGE 2008.

Eric Iwasaki, a veteran game developer of Naughty Dog, is blessing us with a rare interview Sunday the 17th. This man has worked with Naughty Dog since Crash Bandicoot, and probably will continue to.

Lee Brotherton, also known as Bentley Jones, or even LeeBro depending on where you may know him, is best known for his song "Dreams of an Absolution", featured in Sonic The Hedgehog 2006. Lee Brotherton works out of his own establishment, "The Remix Factory", along will collaborates of his.


I'll keep you guys posted on when the logs/transcripts for these interviews are available... Remember, YOU ask the questions, they answer!

Along with Previously mentioned:

Richard Jacques: Composer for Sonic 3d Blast, Mass Effect, Head Hunter and Sonic R.
Ryan Drummond: Former Voice of Sonic
Christian Sean: Developer best known for the ill fated Sonic Xtreme

http://sagexpo.org

Sonic Amateur Game Expo 2008


It's free, 100% online, and not 100% Sonic... That's right, there's a Halo fangame project, Kirby project, Mario projects, and some original game titles... This is one event that shouldn't be missed...


Check back to my blog for reviews, and more news about the 13th iteration of this event.

Today we will discuss color. Now, you know that I don't see race. But I do see the 16 million+ colors that my TV and monitor can display...

So why is it when developers try to get your money's worth out of your TV, people complain?

Just like with Halo 3, same thing with Diablo III... Color automagically makes everything less hardcore and more kiddy...

Well, let me tell you one thing... The darkest things happen in the brightest places... That only makes them even more creepy...

Imagine having the Joker run around and do what he does in broad daylight? It was once only the darkness to be afraid of but now we have the daylight to worry about as well...

And seriously, what's more ironic than Death & Rainbows? Besides being an awesome band name (do they exist?)...


Real men play with their Wii's and Boom Blox, with it's colorful, exploding goodness! Anyone can play Gears, Resistance, Resident Evil, and other 'hardcore' monochrome titles and claim manliness.


With that, I end my pointless rant with these puzzling words: Staple remove

August 17th will mark the start of the 13th Sonic Amateur Game Expo!

8 Years of events, special guests, and most importantly games has finally evolved into what looks to be the best one yet!


Best part of this expo? You don't have to go anywhere! It's 100% online! No tickets to buy, heck, there's nothing to buy to view, download, play, and participate!

More info can be found here http://sagexpo.org

Here's a quick promo video. Be sure to click "View in high quality"




The Sonic Amateur Game Expo, or SAGE, is an online gaming expo held annually at http://www.sagexpo.org/ to showcase the latest in the fangaming community. Traditionally its main purpose has been to showcase fangames based on the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise, however it is open to any freelance developer that wishes to participate. 2008 marks the event’s 13th iteration. In the past we’ve had many great games introduced, special guests, fun events, and this year will hopefully be the best yet. It’s a huge opportunity for fangamers and indie devs just starting out to show off their latest product.


We usually draw in about 5000 unique hits per day, going off 2004’s statistics, and the participation continues to grow.

This year, our special guests are:

Christian Sean: Designer of Sonic X-Treme. Find out why this Sega Saturn game never made it, and all about Project S, a project he initiated to build a fangame inspired by his work. HE WILL BE RUNNING A GAME DESIGN WORKSHOP!!!!

Richard Jacques: Composer for Sonic 3D Blast. It wasn't the best Sonic game, but it had some of the best music in gaming for its time...

Ryan Drummond: Former Voice actor of Sonic the Hedgehog. He's an actor, voiceover artist, and more... You'll be surprised that you may have heard his voice somewhere else before... http://www.ryandrummond.com/index.shtml


Mike Pollock: Current voice actor of Dr. Robotnick (Eggman). He also did English voices for Yu-Gi-Oh, Bezrek and Pokemon.





There are many, many games already confirmed for SAGE, some Sonic Fangames, some Mario Fangames, and some completely Original work. Here are some featured titles:




There'll be concerts, contests, Karaoke and more!

Some performers include: And don't worry, they're good. Besides, if you don't like 'em, you didn't pay to show up to the concert anyway... and no $8 drinks either...


It's a fun and exciting event. Yearly it's been a blast... So what's stopping you from showing up? It's like Otakon, minus the leaving the house!