It seems that Lost Continents may be back on track because of a hardcore group of Developers who have not aloud their dreams to fade. Here is what the Lost Continents Website has to say:
Toiling away in the dead of night away from the watchful eyes of the public, a team of developers has been surreptitiously working on Lost Continents since the game was suspended in April. They have held firm to their beliefs in the game and have risen to every challenge in their path. Thanks to that core team, I’m pleased to announce that we have made significant progress towards bringing Lost Continents back into the light.
During the recent downtime, the core development team has continued working on Lost Continents. We have finished the basic game systems and built out a few zones to completion as a prototype of the game. The results are spectacular. The areas are gorgeous, as you can see from the screenshots below, and they allow us to begin experimenting with the in-game results of combat, traps, and quests. We’ve also begun actively seeking partners interested in helping bring Lost Continents to a shelf near you.
We haven’t spent the last few months sitting idle, but instead used the time to thoroughly review the design of the game in light of the changing marketplace. This has brought us to make some changes to the core design that strengthens the unique appeal of Lost Continents. In a lot of ways, we’re starting again from the beginning, but with the benefit of having a lot of the work done already. Here are a few of the major changes that we have made:
New Graphics Engine – Shortly after the production suspension, we spent a while checking out what commercial graphic engines were available and to our great pleasure, we came across a perfect fit very quickly. The engine has all the features we had planned to build ourselves and by licensing it, we can take the development time that would be have been spent crafting the engine and apply it to enhancing other areas of the game. At the moment, we’re in the final stages of licensing the engine. More details will be available when the deal is complete.
Higher Graphical Quality – In addition to the engine change, we’ve also decided to raise the minimum machine requirements allowing us to greatly increase the visual quality of the game. Below are several example screenshots taken from a pair of new zones that we’ve been working on recently using the new specifications.
New Team Members – There have been some significant changes in the team developing the game. Some have moved on to other projects and at the same time, we’ve added new members to the team. Of particular note is the addition of Doug Shuler who brings his considerable artistic experience to the team. You can see examples of Doug’s work in the screenshots and concept art displayed here.