History!

Ever wanted to see how a game got to the way it is? Now you can.

Players can now navigate from turn to turn, and the Team Standings and What Happened boxes change along with the map. This feature has been long in coming as we've been working on other not-yet-released features (see below), but we're all glad to see that it's finally here.

Also in this week's release, the territory info bubbles have been cleaned up. It's now a lot easier to see where everyone is moving or attacking.

Longbow: GXC 2.0

Ski resorts in British Columbia. Large cats. Projectile weaponry.

What do they all have in common?

These are code name themes used for major software development projects for Microsoft, Apple and GXC, respectively. While we’re not building an operating system, we do have a new platform in the works. And we think it’s pretty special, so we’re giving it a name.

For its simplicity and rapid creation, our current site was known as Spear. Several months ago, GXStudios (the parent company of GoCrossCampus) began work on Longbow, a project notable for its flexibility, range, and use by dirty Englishmen.

This is the reason why we’re often slow to address minor technical issues or build new features in current games. As I explained to one player earlier this week, we prefer that our site improve 20x in a year than 20% every month. Once our current site was stable, we really wanted to focus on the next quantum leap.

Currently, Longbow is scheduled to be released in phases, with the first phase coming in June. The most significant new functionality, however, will be realized later in the summer—hopefully in time for all of our Fall 2008 games.

While in the past we’ve only hired software developers, we are soon going to start opening some positions for business development associates. If you are at all interested, shoot me an email at brad@gocrosscampus.com.