Ever wanted to know how Miner Wars 2081 came to exist? Keen Software House has released a kind of timeline of their history, up until now when a demo has been released with the final game being scheduled for release at the end of the year on PC and an Xbox 360 and mobile version to come later.
2001
Marek Rosa, a veteran programmer devises a game which focuses on giving efficacy to programmers, prioritising strength of coding over artistic facets.
Musing over what is absent from the market, an idea for a game with six axes movement and destructible environments arises. A simple proof demo is devised and created using both OpenGL and C++.
A rudimentary engine is coded together, as well as a program which allows the user to mosey around the inside of an asteroid destroying aspects of the environment.
In the search for employment and food, he turns to freelance programming, and assigns the vocational venture to part-time status.
2002-2006
Still performing freelance and contract work, Marek continues with his side project late into the night. Like Bruce Wayne with an indifference towards the crime of Gotham city. He saves not maidens, but capital, waiting until he’s raised enough to work full-time on his new entertainment enterprise.
The original project receives massive overhauls in sophistication and scope.
The engine VRAGE is coined. An engine developed solely by and for Keen Software House.
2007-2008
Marek Rosa embarks upon the project full-time, lifting a solitary finger to the corporate machine – also a reliable wage. He creates his own company, Keen Software House, and sets upon realising his prospects of authoring a video game. Propped up at his desk, he dims the lights and vigorously thrusts out lines of code from his programming loins.
Miner Wars is officially in production.
‘Phase Two’ begins. Implemented in C# and XNA, the game takes advantage of advanced rendering capabilities on a wide range of graphical hardware.
Targeted for the PC and Xbox 360 platforms, gameplay will include both single player and MMO versions in a realistic sci-fi setting.
The name Miner Wars is chosen for the franchise.
2009
www.MinerWars.com is established.
An online community is built up. Forums, participation, social endearing and audience input are put forward in a cunning marketing model.
Marek – still a one-man team – makes a trailer for his game and uploads it to Youtube.
Dan Wentz, a pre-eminent composer and audio director for dozens of video games, stumbles upon the video and supposes it to be a sequel to Descent – a game that he had previously worked on. E-mails and compromising photos are exchanged; and within a few weeks Dan becomes the second member of the team.
2010
Team members are actively recruited in April: Slobodan Stevic, Michal Stefan, Nick Miller, Richard Waldron, Thomas McInturf, Piotr Szekalski, and Adam Smithare of particular note. Marek Rosa employs programmers, designers, art specialists, writers, producers and administrators to work on a voluntary basis. They were likewise hopeful for the endeavour, dedicating thousands of collective hours inbelief in the project’s imminent success – if not a somewhat perturbed by Marek’s dark sense of humour.
The first title is proclaimed Miner Wars 2081.
Marek collaborates on a book for advanced programming.
In October the Pre-Alpha is pre-released at a 70% discount to allay costs, an alleviation which allows for continued production. The response is vastly beyond what is predicted, and thousands of Euros pour in each day.
2011
The gameplay demo is released. Many customers are pleased with the demo and sales hit a new record high. Upgrade to a new storage server on account of higher fan traffic.
