PJ & Co

Dev Diary 68: Level Up!

Heya mutants!

Sorry for the late update but another incredible week is behind us!

I finaaaaaaaaaaally got back access to my old Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/f3vanburen with 4,000+ fans. After I updated the page with a link to the latest release the page simply exploded! Just look at those numbers! Fans were throwing comments, likes, hearts and shocked emojis our way for days. We'll never forget t...

Dev Diary 67 :)

Hello mutants,

PJ here with some gooooood news! 

So for the last few days I have been reaching out to some members from the old 2014 team and guess what? Some of them replied back willing to return to the team!! :D :D :D

So far, we have the main writer, mapper (who turned pro in the meantime) and composer (who also turned pro in the meantime) back!

Additionally, one artist and a designer might also come back soon. Let's hope others come back too :)

So with...

Dev Diary 66: All over the place!

Heya mutants,

hope you've had a great weekend!

It was a pretty chill weekend for me with progress being made on multiple fronts. I finished two new special encounters, wrote 4 dialogs and worked on new art for Dogtown.

I was also doing some scenario writing for a few CGI cutscene ideas I had. Feel those are a must and are much important for immersion. Black Isle Studios developers also had quite a few CGI cutscene ideas so why the hell not put all of those in the game? :) ...

Dev Diary 65: Whoa!

Heya mutants,

I just realized we're already at dev diary number 65. How time flies when you're having fun! :D

Since fun means a lot of different things to different people, my gaming fun this week was bringing characters to life through dialog. 11 new dialogs have been written in the past few days! I am happy with the progress and will take a short break from writing. It is time to plunge once again into mapping! This time for some more challenging Dogtown maps.

Although R4 ...

Dev Diary 64: Words. Words, words, words

Heya mutants,

as you might guess from this dev diary's title, the last week was all about writing dialogs.

My fingers hurt and my brain is cooked but I managed to finish 15 dialogs over the last 7 days. That's how I function - when I focus on something I tend to overdo. I'll try and keep at it as we will have a whooping cca 90 new NPCs in R4 needing a dialog. Boy oh boy, look at those numbers, this game is all about breaking records... largest world map, largest number ...

Dev Diary 63: Gaps

Hello mutants!

This week I was focused on two things: 

1) Adding finished Dogtown dialogs to the game. All of the dialogs except for a few characters have been finished.

2) Working on the main story.

Dogtown dialogs are self-explanatory so let's focus on what "main story work" did I do? I promised to talk about this a few weeks ago and now is the time.

As many of you know, many things related to the main story were left out of the Van B...

Dev Diary 62: Dream Team

Heya mutants,

let's start with the most exciting news! An artist specialized in creating environmental art and successfully modding games such as Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 3, Skyrim, Morrowind, KOTOR II, Gothic 2, System Shock 2 has joined our team. He has already started working on one location slated for a later release. Depending on his progress it might even be included earlier, we shall see! 

And now back to our regular news. The Mesa Verde scripting has...

Dev Diary 61: Back!

Hello mutants!

Guess who's back with a new keyboard! And not one, but two new keyboards (just in case)! :D

As promised last week, this will be a bigger update.

First of all, let's recap of what has been done this week. 

Almost 1200 new pieces of art required for one new location have been added to the game! It has been incredibly challenging to find the right tools and methods to properly cut and place all of that into the Fallout 2 engine. B...

Dev Diary 60: Cuts & Keys

Hello mutants,

how's it going? This will be a super short post because of 2 reasons xD

1) I spent the whole week cutting up big new art and putting it inside the engine. 

Many tools failed in funny ways due to art's humongous size but thankfully good old ImageMagick saved the day!

2) My laptop's keyboard broke and I am typing this using On-Screen Keyboard. 

Yes, the physical keyboard got FUBAR'd although it's still glowing but it doesn't write anymore :...

Dev Diary 59: The lovey-dovey of it

Hello mutants!

It has been another productive week! 

I've resolved most of the issues with companions and finished building the biggest piece of artwork ever. Now putting it into the engine will take a week or two of time but you gotta do what you gotta do - greatness awaits us!

Another thing I started yesterday, is implementing additional Van Buren specific mechanics which add further layers to your classic Fallout gameplay. All of those come from info I got from BIS d...

Dev Diary 58: Report from the frontline

Hello mutants,

hope you're all doing well. This week has seen action across multiple fronts!

Let's keep it short and summarize what has been worked on:

- Support for High Resolution mod is in! 

- Started improving companion control and bringing them more in line with Fallout 2. Still have some bugs to iron out and tweak the AI but it's halfway there.

- Wrote dialogs for two new companions. More on their way for R4 which introduces a who...

High Resolution mod support for R4

Heya mutants,

just a quick update to let you know that R4 will support High Resolution mod!

After talking to some players, I found out it's working fine for them and although I couldn't make it run fast on my own computer, I'll add support for it in the next release.

Perhaps one day, the reason for low FPS that some people are experiencing will be found and fixed.

UPDATE:

OK, I think I discovered what's causing the slowdowns. If HI-RES mod is turned on and your g...

Dev Diary 57: FAQ

Heya mutants,

this update will be a bit different than usual ones as I feel I should answer some frequently asked questions.

But before I do, here's a recap on some of the things I've done this week.

- added talking heads to some characters

- started writing code for Mesa Verde. This means that Mesa Verde will be the first playable location for R4.

- Upgraded Pip-Boy from to 2000 model to Lil' Pip 3000 model.

- Added two encounters related to the main story...

Dev Diary 56: Rinse and repeat

Hello mutants,

this week has been productive! 

I finished Mesa Verde maps and then I spent the weekend working on animations for new creatures: mutated rattlesnakes, giant bats, CRB-S units, new ghouls, and desert stalkers.

Although seeing new creatures in the game is always exciting, adding them inside the Fallout 2 engine isn't much so. 

Thousands of images need to be organized, edited and imported manually. Rinse and repeat! But we're getting th...

Dev Diary 55: Maps, art, maps!

Hello there mutants,

here I am with the late update. Was planning to do one yesterday but got tangled in work and was so tired that I left it for today. It's better to write when you're well rested, who wants to read gibberish from someone half-awake? XD

Between work on Blackfoots and bug fixing (no more holodisk crashes!), what kept me so busy this week have been locations and custom art for Mesa Verde. Everything was going smoothly until I reached the upper limit of new art a Fa...

Dev Diary 54: Lost N Found

Hellooooooooooooooo mutants,

I have some phenomenal news for you today! 

While looking for a lost piece of artwork in my extensive online archives, I found all the "lost" maps for a Van Buren project I was amusing myself with, prior to going public in 2014. Some of the maps go waaaaay back to summer of 2008! This is incredible as I though these were long lost in a HD crash. Hooray! :D 

So what does this mean for the game, you might be asking yourself? 

W...

Dev Diary 53: Good One

Heya mutants, 

this was a good week! Both the second writer and a mapper/programmer started working on the game this week. I look forward to seeing how they will leave their marks on Fallout Yesterday!

For me, this week was mostly spent working on Dog Town maps, introducing writers to the tools and game, as well as fixing some bugs. As with the 3rd release, I will include some world map locations to the 4th release that I won't reveal but will let you discover on your own :)<...

Dev Diary 52: Happy!

Hello mutants,

here I am with some fantastic news and much Fallout love for all of you!

During this week, I was approached by three fans who offered to add their skills and experience to Fallout Yesterday! Yes, the Fallouty team is finally growing!

One of them already started working as a writer and I'm still waiting for a confirmation from the other two who should work as a writer and a mapper. Which is fantastic as it will speed up the development immensely! I am attachin...

Dev Diary 51: Next stop

Heya mutants,

hope you've been enjoying release #3 and didn't spend too much time reloading! It's a release with content that considerably raises the difficulty bar! 

Two annoying bugs in Fort Abandon have been found so if you encounter any issues there, be sure to grab the latest installer where those are fixed. 

With that said, let me give you a little tour of Fallout Yesterday's next stop.

Out next stop is R4 which will be a HUGE release. After making 3 sm...

THIRD RELEASE DETONATING EVERYWHERE!

Yes, my mutated brothers and sisters, the third coming of Van Buren is here!!! Share it, spread it around, play it!

- MEGA: https://mega.nz/file/94UGEJhS#nnjsA1Eye0uZ4A8QFg7VDDtIS9IP9eoPO8ozu8q7l8I 

If MEGA asks for a decryption key it's ...

Please Stand By

Heya mutants! Most of you know what this post means :D
For those unfamiliar with my custom, this post means a new release is imminent!

I have locked the 3rd release's content and am now assembling the final build files. Expect it in a day or two!

See you soon, very, very soon,

-PJ

Dev Diary 50: One more thing

Heya mutants!

Guess who has to finish just one bigger quest and call this release ready to go into your hands? :D 

This week has seen me doing two special encounters and all sort of smaller tasks, mainly polishing everything and doing bugfixes. As I still have to finish one bigger quest and test the entire third release, I can't promise it will go out next week but in two weeks? That's certain! :D

With these happy news, all I can say for the end is:
Please, Stand By...

Dev Diary 49: 90%

Hello mutants, this will be a short but sweet update. 

As you can see from the title, 3rd release is around 90% complete! Hooray!

I still have some dialogs and a few quests to finish but most of it is there. Spent quite some time playtesting it and having fun with it. Can't wait to share it with you! 

This sort of formula where I work on more than one area for an update suits me very well and I expect to stick to that way of working in the future. I also have some ...

Dev Diary 48: Getting there

Hello mutants, 

thanks to everyone who replied to my questions and gave suggestions. We even received new patrons. All of that is much, much appreciated! I still haven't decided on whether to switch over to big updates or keep it like it is but I feel that decision is best left for after we get the 3rd release out.

This week flew by and I can't say that I focused on just one thing. I worked on dialogs, programming, tweaking maps and testing new world map encounters. What I li...

Dev diary 47: 2021 here we go!

Once again, all the best in 2021 mutants! Hope you've had a blast celebrating. We're in a lockdown so it was pretty tame but what can we do except make the best of the situation. 

Besides celebrations, this week was quite busy! I was writing code and dialogs for all the new areas: 2 full fledged locations, 3 smaller ones, and 2 teaser locations. Plus a special encounter. Yes, it seems I just can't stop myself from adding new locations to this update.

So from the looks of it, ...

Dev Diary 46: What a year

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, mutants!

Here we are in the 2020's last update. Hope you are all enjoying the festivities, resting and having fun. And also looking forward to ending this year and leaving all the bad things behind us. Lots of good things happened in it too, and I consider my coming back to Van Buren as one of those things. 

I made great progress with the upcoming release recently. I expect the Brotherhood to be completely finished in the next two days. Aft...

Dev Diary 45: Lucky 5

Happy winter solstice, mutants!

I'm back with more news on the epic progress. Yes, I will be adding two more locations to the world map! It sounds crazy but as one of these will for now only be partially accessible, I know I can do it!  Brotherhood, Fort Abandon and VACCS were already previously confirmed. 

However, for the sake of surprise I'll keep my mouth shut and let you discover what these two new ones are for yourself. It will be worth it :)

All I can say is...

Dev Diary 44: Good stuff

Hello mutants,

here's an earlier Sunday update which can mean only one thing - plenty of progress has been made on R3 :)

I'm happy to announce all of the new maps have been finished!
What awaits me now is dialog writing and programming for the two areas.

I will try and include all of the Brotherhood quests although some of them are tied to Hoover Dam which isn't yet accessible. But the beauty of Fallout is that you can achieve things in various ways, not just one.

...

Dev Diary 43: Something's cooking...

Heya mutants,

sorry for the late update. I actually took a break from the computer yesterday as my left eye became bloodshot and a bit painful due to constant gazing at the screen. I must have overworked myself while working on mapping the new areas. This is a big project so it requires extra effort but maybe some more sleep would have benefited me as well haha

But that didn't stop me from working on the game, I just switched over to my little sketchbook and continued writing and ...

Dev Diary 42: Three's not a crowd!

Hello there mutants!

Here we are, one week after the second release. I do hope you've been enjoying the game ever since. As for me, I never took a pause and went straight back to development of the third release. It has been going great, much faster than I anticipated!

So what I can say now with certainty, is that the next release will add 3 locations ready for exploration. Fort Abandon, Maxson Bunker and VACCS! As a matter of fact, VACCS is complete while Maxson Bunker is almost ...