The final days of the Microsoft Accelerator Program are coming, it´s incredible how the time flies being here. It has been an amazing adventure moving to London and meeting so many interesting people, especially the members of the other start-ups participating in the program. If you are involved in the start-up world and thinking about participating in a similar accelerator program, don´t even doubt whether you should do it: the synergy and spirit working among other people with the same interest and passion about technnology is absolutely incredible.

We are polishing the game to be played during the Demo Day, the final event of the Accelerator Program. Besides adding new features (and fatalities!), we are solving some major and minor bugs, and the team is working very hard on the menus and the UI. The Art Department has started our third arena - Jotheim, the main town of the Durno - and the Celea 3D character, so in a few weeks all the five races of Skara will be modelled. From then, we still will need to add the rig, the skinning and the animations, so don´t expect to play with a Tamvaasa very soon, but we are in our way to complete the game as we always wanted.

And finally, some good news! Our team is expanding and next week a new animator and a programmer will join the team. That means that we will be able to advance faster and deliver the next playable races sooner that expected!

As we moved through the last days of February, the experience during these first weeks at the Microsoft Accelerator Program have been just amazing. Not only because of the incredible office space - so modern and big compared to ours - but of the advice from our mentors and advisors and the amount of incredible, creative and intense people from other companies and start-ups we got to know everyday. Last week we had a one-hour chat with one of the main worldwide speciallist in psycology behind videogames, and then moved to a dinner with some members of Microsoft Studios, where we discussed the problem of LAG in multiplayer games, server infrastructure and overly salty burguers. A very interesting and enriching experience.

We released a new alpha gameplay video a couple of days ago, showing new fighting movements but also our upcoming arena: The Lava Coliseum. For those of you who follow Skara via our forum and Social Media, it should be exciting to finally watch this suffocating environment coming to life. It took only two months from our Environment team (I mean, Javi and Miki. Remember we are a very small indie company) to complete the scenario, and now they are preparing our biggest challenge: The Jotheim Citadel, a huge, walled town of the Durno race; a scenario with lots of buildings, ramparts to defend and alleyways to place nice ambushes. Perfect for Siege game mode, don´t you think?

What´s to come next? We are implementing ranged weapons in the game mechanics, and it is simply hilarious! It adds so many different possibilities to the game play: Now players need to be careful and calculate if the opponent has enough ammo (something that will have a huge importance in the game), gain high strategic positions, etc…

It´s been a year since we started this amazing adventure. Some of you may remember our first days drawing in David Güell’s father’s studio, just two crazy artists working on the pre-production of a new game.

We slowly made the team grow as new members joined the team. In just a couple of months we prepared a first version of the game, flew to LA to show the progress at the E3, got some incredible meetings and the money needed to continue working and improving Skara. It was the confirmation of the good feeling that we have, the game was starting to attract some attention of the media and gamers around the world, and every time we set up a multiplayer match at the office we discovered Skara as a great and fun game.

We always found it hard to beat Luis Rojas in a Skara fight, but you know, he is the guy in charge of programming the combat system and knows perfectly the timing and accuracy needed to be a master. The rest of the team are still learning and improving, but in every game we enjoy and laugh like little children. And we can always imprison Luis in the bathroom to get rid of him if we occasionally want to win a match.

We are especially proud of our community of players, as we always wanted to develop Skara in collaboration with gamers, hearing the advice and improving the game as we go. They are actually generating content for the game, creating factions of each race that will be released in the game by the art department. It´s the prize that we are offering to those who are walking with us in this journey, and it’s exciting to see the progress and the stories that they created, assimilating and enriching the world and background of Skara. A big applause to them, they are the true core of The Blade Remains, and we consider them as part of the family.

And finally, there are exciting times to come in Skara. During the next couple of weeks we’ll adjust and balance the combat system and invite some of our fans to play with us in the first worldwide test of the game. Those who won a Beta Invite participating in our forums will receive a secret invite with specific instructions to join us in this first epic battle.

In February some members of the team will move to London to participate in the first Microsoft Ventures Accelerator. We will tell you more about this adventure, we are excited to be part of the first cohort and pretty sure that Skara will make great strides forward during these three months.

Thanks for adventuring with us,

Pablo Rodríguez

We have released a new video featuring the first Faction Battle! Introducing the Khärn warriors, figthing in an epic 8vs8 battle against Durno soldiers.

It´s important to clarify that right now all the characters look the same, but in the final version of the game players will be able to configure and customize their fighters, so don´t be afraid, your characters will distinguish among the others.