From the InterWave Studios team: The last month has been a very busy time for us, with development, and also exams, and other commitments. We have still been working hard on DistantHope, and we are making good progress. This post explains parts of what has been going on behind the scenes.

What is Distant Hope again?
Distant Hope is an upcoming HL2 Orange Source engine based mod (and later on a full game) that combines First Person Shooter action with Tactical enhancements and unique gameplay, created by the team of SteamFriends, called InterWave Studios.

Introduction
Death came swiftly on wings of night. The crisis and conflict that sent the first ICBM roaring into the sky is now lost to science, but one was all it took. Defence networks were triggered, automated systems kicked in, and before the first night of World War III was over, most of mankind’s population centres, army bases and supplies vanished in a thousand flashes of light, silent and surgical.

There was no deployment, no strategy, no engagements. Missiles - chemical, fusion and fission wiped most of mankind clean off the map. The survivors woke to a world in ruins, with most infrastructures gone, no governments, no standing armies, no direction. World War III was both the shortest and longest war in the history of warfare: it was over in hours, and yet ten years later, we are still fighting in its throes, lost and broken, our very days a struggle for survival, a human race where the victors get to live to fight on another day. Our one, distant hope, is to fight hard enough and long enough that a bite is taken out of the chaos that our world has become, so that we can sit and rest for a day... one single day without bloodshed and violence.

As always the logic and rules of the actual game play are still being worked on, and improved. The latest thing to get implemented was the scoring system. Each team will start out with a score (depending on what map) and this will be like your teams ‘lives’ if you will. The team who’s score reaches 0 first will be the looser.

The score will decrement each time you spawn, so you should try to stay alive for as long as you can, so no running straight out into the battlefield without thinking!

Xanthi, Lead map developer: "One of the biggest challenges so far has been the lightning and atmosphere. Distant Hope is all about warfare and we really wanted this "gritty" and "dark" feel to the game. I think we've struck a nice balance between the "dark" style you've seen before and the more colourful style I'm working with now. Especially the indoor areas look improved compared to earlier builds. I'm sure you understand that development hasn't finished yet. All the images released so far are work in progress and although we're messing around with different styles we haven't finalized the look yet."

Want more? Checkout the preview screenshots and even more information at distanthope.com.