We realize that this hasn't been updated in awhile. Some of the reasons for this are:

• The fact that we scrapped most of the work we had done to recode in a much better engine.
• The departure of Tom Hall and two of the game's programmers
• There wasn't much new to report.

--- Joe Siegler
Apogee Software

Update: 07/19/96

This just in: Ladies and gentlemen, the Prey Team has been ordered by a top secret organization to have a news blackout until they finish top secret work for an unnamed party. More news as it breaks in this amazing story of human perserverance, mind-boggling ingenuity, and hot intrigue...

(Well, actually, we're really busy moving to the new engine, so we're putting a moratorium on new pictures until we have something mind-blowingly rockful, or as William says, "rock-fuel". See you then.)

Update: 07/12/96

Here's the wireframe and phong-shaded model of the Prey character by Doug Wood. Of course, the character in the _game_ won't have this many faces, but it gives you a little insight into what the artists have to do to construct a character's model. If you'd like to see a much larger version of this file, click here. This file is somewhat large, it's 267k.

There's a pool party this weekend at Tom's. Mark and Jim are planning for their SIGGRAPH trip, and William is absorbed by Dream Team basketball. Doug wants to play Super Bomberman 2. Steve's kids just visited and had a great time. Mark and Jim bought a bunch of cool classic arcade games (Heavy Barrel, Dig Dug, and a number of others).

Update: 07/05/96 (sort of)

This week's update is cancelled due to the July 4th holiday. However, we did manage to do something over the holiday. That's see Independence Day. If you haven't seen it, you should go see it!

Update: 06/28/96

This is the dark access tunnel between the auxiliary control room and the energy cell room. This heavy door can be opened "elsewhere". The bottom of the plasma core emits a cool glow.

The "cold" is going around--it's hit Jim and many others. Steve has an upper respiratory infection. Doug had to stay home sick. Tom's family is visiting with colds and a horrible cough. It got up to 115 in Dallas last week (with the heat index). It's alternating rainy and sunny days here. Mark and Jim played Sniper (or Subspace) on the Internet. William is mumbling something about "ternary operators--I LOVE em!".

Update: 06/21/96

Here's a shot of a platform above the energy cell room. Waiting for the real energy cell graphics, and a few more specific textures. There's only one more room in the Energy Monitoring Station, and that's the fusion pool that you can barely see through the lower left doorway. Mark's working on our cool new data format, Jim has the new editor doing cool stuff, and William's so close to having the engine up in the new paradigm. Tom collated a big list of things he wants to do in levels, worked with Steve and Doug on NRG decoration, and worked on two test levels.

This week, Tom introduced his girlfriend to the World Wide Web, and hasn't see her since. Jim's out for a New Orleans weekend with friends Robert (our manual dude) and his wife Sheila. William eagerly anticipates June 28th (if ya knew him, you'd know why), and Mark just got an incredible deal on RAM--like two bucks a meg or something. (Okay, it wasn't _that_ good...) Steve got a new computer and Doug had a friend visit, experience a few catastrophes, and leave. Oh yeah, and Joe Siegler, the guy who does our Web site, and puts these updates online for y'all to see got engaged - he'll be married in October!

Update: 06/14/96

Here's a shot from the Auxiliary Control Room. Things are buzzing along. Mark's working with Jim on the actor/object code dealie, and William's finishing off the new engine. Steve and Doug continue on their fine textures for the Energy Monitoring plant.

Steve, Tom, Doug, and two other dudes went disc golfing in the totally unreasonable Dallas summer heat (it musta been 100, and incredible humidity). Tom chowed down with Mark, Marianna, and a friend (former Apogee employee, now TRI dude Joe Selinske). Mark and Marianna have a crezzy fish pond. Jim stayed up until noon Friday, I guess figuring that if he's going to have a rotated schedule, why not go for it? William is adjusting his workout schedule, from once every four days to once every seven. Soon, he may wait three months, then rip all his muscles off the bone, then let them heal for three months...

Update: 06/07/96

Here's the Hangar bay, mostly textured. Pretty soon this level will be fully textured, and there may be a gap in pictures as the new editor wraps up. There may be a strange source of pictures soon--we'll leave this as a mystery until it happens. Doug and Steve did a good job on the textures. A little touchup here and there (and a few lights stuck in) and it will be good to go.

We are little bit crunched as the room where we stored stuff is filled up with Duke CDs to ship! Things are beginning to come together--a few weeks and these shots will get really interesting! More Frisbee golf this weekend. Doug, Mark (& Marianna), William, Jim, and Tom went to a place called the Lizard Lounge last Sunday. Let's say the crowd was "interesting": one woman's top was made of tape, one guy wore a full Scottish uniform, and one woman led her mate around by a dog collar. So, y'know--back there next week!

Update: 05/31/96

Here's the Energy Monitoring Station control room. Doug and Steve are pumpin' out them textures, man! Mark and William are getting the new engine ever-closer, and Jim's slammin' out the editor code. Sketches continue flying out of Doug for the Prey dude. Tom's making up a bunch of different story arcs with strange situations and stuff.

Steve just got DSS (lucky stiff), Jim had a happy birthday balloon for a day (HBJ!), William slightly changed his workout habit, Doug's girlfriend went away for a bit, while Tom's is practicing Cosi Fan Tutte. Mark is setting up ketchup packets in front of the Developer Cam, and playing Karateka. He is up to "the bird".

Update: 05/24/96

The reactor room is starting to shape up. A few more textures, some object definitions and this room would be ready to go. The engine revamping is almost complete, making it both flexible and powerful. As William polishes it off, Mark perfects the network and communication code, Jim bangs away at the editor, and Steve and Doug do the textures you see here. Work continues on coming up with amazing things for you to do in the game. It will be fun.

Jim's away this weekend for a friend's wedding in Atlanta. Tom and Mark both have a nasty cold--probably picked up from the plane ride to E3. Doug got his new girlfriend Lynn some flowers and went rollerblading. Steve's all excited about his new desk and chair for home. Tom's sore from dancing at E3. Don't ask Mark about "the black flies"--you don't want to know. Check out the live Developer Cam--it's pointed right at us! (Most of the time.)

Update: 05/17/96

This week's Prey development has been cancelled due to the fact that the Prey team is all off at E3 in Los Angeles, and there's no one here to give me an update. In the meantime, here is a very silly picture of Tom Hall, the Creative Director of Prey. :)

Update: 05/10/96

Here's a 640 x 480 hi-res screen shot from the Energy Monitoring Station. We're supporting the 3DFX card, and this is what it'll look like. It is so cool, we're having a hard time looking at the normal game now. Check out the card at E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo) in LA. You can actually walk around in Prey, and in hi-res it's a dream! (In a nutshell, we think the 3DFX card rocks.)

Tom's been spending days poring over books, looking for cool names for the character in Prey. Everyone's been throwing in suggestions, and we've been talking about the character's personality and background, too. Mark's been working on neat elegant network stuff, Jim's on the awesome "Preditor" and helping Mark, and William is doing insane incredible new engine stuff. Steve H. and Doug are whipping out some cool textures, some of which are in the screenshot. Ummm, and Doug and Tom can't recommend the movie "Twister". Three words: evil tornado chasers. Ooh.

Update: 05/03/96

A few more textures and the core of the Energy Monitoring Station is looking better and better. Next up: an animated energy texture instead of this old blue one, a few improvements to these textures, then on to the reactor room, which is going to look texturrrrific!

We've been working with 3DFX for a cool Prey demo on their card for E3. It looks, in the special vocabulary of William, "rockful" and "TOO sad". Jim is working on the editor while Tom drools in anticipation, and works on cool names for stuff in the game. William is polishing some new stuff in the engine code, and Mark jumps between net stuff and 3DFX stuff. Steve and Doug are texture-men at this point. More Frisbee golf was played last weekend and Wednesday. A cool sport: eight bucks and you're in. Twenty-four and you're as equipped as the pros! E3 in two weeks. Guh-boy!

Update: 04/26/96

More stuff from the "NRG" level. Please remember that this is a work in progress, so you can see how a level goes from architecture to finished coolness. Steve Hornback's getting new textures for the plasma core. Tom's cooked up a huge long list (which is almost finished) of all the textures for the level. Doug's working on some, too. William's got the new rendering stuff working, which should make the engine pretty speedy. Jim's continuing on the editor. In Billy Z's words, "That is the best DOS editor I have ever seen." Mark's finishing off about ten different things, which is also a pun if you're in the know.

Mark and Marianna are, in the local lingo, "hitched". A honeymoon awaits them after they uncoil from the tension of setting the whole thing up. William is visiting his friend Chip this weekend. Seven of the 3D Realmers went out Frisbee Golfing, Tom's favorite pastime. Scott Miller (bigwig) lost a disc to a recently rain-widened stream, as did Doug later in the course. Tom is considering taking a blowtorch to his MX-6 so he'll fit in it. No kidding.

Update: 04/19/96

This is from the Energy Station level--there's lots of cool stuff in it, and it should be a blast as a multiplayer level. We're switching over to a new map paradigm, so Tom'll have to redo it, but it should be easy. Mark and Jim should be free of Duke stuff now, so it's full on-Prey now!

Mark and Marianna get married on Sunday. Good luck to them both. Jim and Tom were up late last night playing Duke. It is really fun to play, but gets SO tough! William has switched from tuna to egg whites as the protein in his pasta, protein, and flax oil meal regimen. Tom and Romero from id had lunch Thursday, and laughed a lot, as they are wont to do. Jim's getting close to having the DOS editor up, and soon after that will be the Win 95 version. Well, that's enough for this week. Also, thanks to Rob and Ray at LucasArts for the great bounty. Later!

Update: 04/12/96

Here's what the start of the level design process looks like: the hallways and rooms are made, a couple lights thrown in, ordinary textures just to have something on the wall. Soon specific art will be drawn, some nice details around the doors, places set up for items, and so on. This is the center of an energy plant, with monitoring facility and routing station. What looks like some blue nothing will be flowing energy, and there will be cool stuff everywhere. Jim's getting the DOS editor working. William's enginizing, and Mark is making sure Duke works on TEN while working on code and stuff for the game models.

Plus Mark is a week away from wedded bliss--oh, the stress! William and Jim like Viewpoint and are going to check out Resident Evil on the PlayStation. Tom meet's his girlfriend Misti's parents this weekend (gulp!). The rest of the squad are all finishing up Duke. Duke is a bunch of fun, I tell ya! I got to this cool fusion reactor and...well, you just gotta play it yourself!

Update: 04/05/96

Update: 03/29/96

Update: 03/22/96

Update: 03/15/96

Update: 03/08/96

Update: 03/01/96

Update: 2/23/96

Here's a picture from the test level QuadRock (which, if the truth be told, should be called "OctRock", since there are eight offshoots to rock in, but it's QuadRock because there are four ways off each of the two main rooms, and...oh, dear, I'm rambling. Still working on stuff. So close to net play it hurts. Really.

Update: 2/16/96

Here's a shot from a Prey room called HexRoom2, which will be in a later section of Prey. Tom's worked this week on the Prey Bible, enemy design, and level specification, William worked on collision in the engine, and Jim's doing hundreds upon hundreds of routines for dealing with actor code. Mark's been fixing up stuff for Duke Nukem's controls, as well as making the optimum version of the fade table. The artists have been working on room visualizations and had some awesome ideas at a design meeting.

Update:2/9/95

Work continues on the engine, editor, actor code, and levels. Pictured here is a scene from QuadRock, a level being built to test all the elements that will be in the game levels. Some of the team's time is being taken by support for Duke Nukem 3D (the Prey Team did the Setup program and sound routines).

3D Realms welcomes new artists Don Allie, Doug Wood, and David Demaret.