FINAL DECK PRODUCED

On Wednesday I produced my final deck of cards. The image below doesn’t do my cutting out skills justice, but it shows you what the final product looks like.

I’m still trying to refine my rules so that they squeeze onto 1 side of A4, so I thought I’d experiment with photographic diagrams… does a picture say what 100 words can’t?

ABOVE: You can play the SPRAY card on top of any of your opponent’s suit cards; this instantly changes it to one of your own symbols.

ABOVE: A BOMB card is played into an empty space, exploding in one turns time. On explosion the BOMB takes out every connecting card.
This card can be DEFUSED.

LIGHTING

In a seminar this week I was given a dark room to light in 3DSM.
With some guidance from Andy I placed 3 lights in the room, an omni light
(in the bulb), a spot light (above the lamp shade facing down, to reinforce the omni light) and a rectangular spot light coming out of the TV set.

... and then Gav said – “let there be light”... *see below image*

CARD GAME

My main project at the moment is card game – “To devise, design and refine an original Game System to be used in a non-digital card game.” A brief written by my games tutor Brad Warren of Free Radical Design.

On first impressions I thought this brief would be a walkover, but… on first attempts I fell flat on my arse… so to speak. My initial card game was a weird mutation of Magic mixed with Top Trumps, it was awful. I only played it with a few people and I’m glad I didn’t show it to any more than I did. *shudder*

Defeated, I went back to the drawing board and after weeks of playing many casual games… Solitaire, Hexic, Chess, Go, Tetris Attack… just to name a few, I finally came up with a card game system I was happy with.
I prototyped the game and played it out countless times with various people, changing and adapting the rules to produce an all round fair, enjoyable and tactical game.

Here are the final designs for my cards. I’ll be posting a printable deck along with the final rule sheet around hand in time. I do have to say that I really like the outcome of my efforts on this project, I love playing my card game and it seems the people I play with like it too…

VERTS & POLYS

Spent the last two days working on my 3DSM skillz. Started back at the beginning learning the basic toolsets and trying to build my confidence with modelling. Below is a park bench I made as a bit of possible level scenery for an FPS or 3D adventure game. Managed to get a stick to a low poly count (122) and still get some good shape in the bench. I didn’t copy the reference image exactly, used it more as a guide, I think it looks pretty cool.

After some research I found out how to set up reference images properly with-in 3DSM. I found some pretty sound head profile images HERE and started an attempt at modelling them. (There is a special box to be used for a human head. This box must have one length and width division, and two height divisions - read that in a tutorial.)

I’ve taken screen shots at regular intervals to illustrate my progression, see below image. I’m find the facial features pretty hard going… best keep at it.

POOP IN MY MOUTH

As per usual I’m fighting to comprehend 3DS Max.
Andy Love (my animation tutor) has been great, helping me model and rig my first character. Below is a screen shot of said character, he’s some sort of weird slug type thing and yes Andy… he is looking pretty cool.

Recently a friend pointed me in the direction of some great video and walkthrough tutorials by a freelance games artist, Ben Mathis.
(example of his work shown in below image)

I’m finding them a little hard to follow at the moment, but I’m determined that my understanding will increase. Check them out HERE, right up your street if you’re into 3DSM!

DEMO POST - NEWGROUNDS.COM

I haven’t posted for a little while, I've been busy…
One of the projects due for hand in this December is a Flash game; my creation is called “CLICK”. Its simple really, the user clicks on the correct symbol, as indicated in the upper left corner of the screen.

It’s a game designed to test the player’s reactions and observational skills. I’m still in mid production with it, but I thought I’d push a demo out there to see what people made of the concept. I got some great reactions along with some positive reviews. (even had a few people ask me to e-mail them with the final version of the game, as they liked playing it that much, which is a nice feeling)

Play the DEMO by clicking on the above "PLAY THIS GAME" image, which will take you to newgrounds.com where you can launch the game. If you do play please leave your comments and feedback, this is a work in progress and I’m wide open to hearing your thoughts / suggestions...

INSPIRATION SURROUNDS US

Inspiration surrounds us in everyday objects. I have chosen two hardware interfaces to look at and examine. These two objects have found their way into my hands on a lot recently… if you know what I mean.

1. Xbox 360 Wireless Control Pad

On first impressions this current game pad from Microsoft looks very similar to the first Xbox pad before it, but with some slight alterations. Most game pads seem to have evolved into this sort of boomerang shape, smoothing out over the years from boxy hard edge devices that kind of hurt your hands over long periods of gaming, to smooth polished devices that are a pleasure to hold in comparison.

This pad is divided up into two main sections, the right hand side and the left hand side. On the right your thumb, index finger and middle finger have the X,Y,A,B buttons, Right Stick, RB Right Trigger and Start button all in range. On the left you have the D-Pad, Left Stick, LB, Left Trigger and Select buttons all with-in scope.

Having owned many different console’s in the past thus using a wide range of diverse game pads it didn’t take me long to get familiar with the 360’s pad layout. I use it on daily basis now and I find it feels very natural to interact with. The wireless feature works great and it’s a first for video games.

2. Nintendo DS Lite

Nintendo’s DS had been out for 12 months or so and had gone un-noticed by myself… that was until Nintendo re-designed the whole system and re-launched it as the ‘DS Lite’… put it this way… I certainly noticed it then!

On first impressions I was amazed at how small and slim it felt in my hands.

The whole system is smoothed off and is very neat. It reminded me more of an I-Pod instead of a next generation Game Boy. Personal I’d prefer the ‘power button’ and the ‘volume controller’ to swap positions on the device.
My reasons are that the volume slider would be in a more ideal position to alter when playing games and that the power button would be tucked out of the way, making it less likely for the user to switch it off accidentally, which has happened a few times with myself.

Also I noticed that there are minimal icons on the system itself, e.g. – One of the DS’s big selling points and major game play factors for most of its titles is the touch screen (bottom screen) that is operated by the stylus pen. If I had been totally oblivious to the DS and had just picked one up for the first time, I’d be clueless about the fact that the bottom screen is different to the top screen… maybe a ‘touch screen’ icon would help?