DUCK POND (hero)

I’ll hold my hands up straight away and state that this is a development on someone else’s notion, SB’s for that fact, check it out here (play the game at the end)

You play an old lady; this particular old lady likes feeding the ducks, but every time she goes to her local pond to feed them, a crazed wild duck bullies the others out of any food (bread).

After the initial menu screens, play, options, input player name…etc you visit the convenience store and stock up on items before you head off to the pond. You only have £10 to spend and 3 item spaces to fill. Bread is essential for gaining points... see concept image below, click to enlarge.

This image below is a design of how the game screen could look, none of it is set it stone but I like the overall look so far. Basically the aim of the game is to feed the nice ducks bread and stop the nasty duck bullying all the food for him-self, via the use of your chosen items. Click to enlarge.

This concept image below shows the hardware interface (controls) and how they relate to what’s happening on screen. It also labels each element just in case anything on the game screen seems a bit vague in the personality dept
... click to enlarge.

PHIDGETS

Chief project this term is to design and produce a Flash game, a five minute (average) level / stage, based around Phidget sensors used for the player control interface.

“Phidgets are an easy to use set of building blocks for low cost sensing and control from your PC. Using the Universal Serial Bus (USB) as the basis for all Phidgets, the complexity is managed behind an easy to use and robust Application Programming Interface (API). Applications can be developed quickly in .NET, Visual Basic, VBA (Microsoft Access and Excel), LabView, Java, Actionscript, Delphi, C and C++.” - phidgets.com

The game must work with Phidget controllers and entirely with a standard keyboard and mouse input also, doing so permits for a mass accessibility.

As an exercise I have developed my Asteroid Storm game from last year, keeping in mind the player reviews from Newgrounds.com and the Phidget hardware I have tried to add to and improve the design.

Check out my concept design below, click to enlarge image…

ANALOGUE 2 DIGITAL

After the initial success (a fair working game system & pleasurable to play) of my card game I decided to start work on a digital version of “Connect Wars”. The two main advantages of a digital version is accessibility (more people can access and play) and playability, basically the game system is enhanced by the pros of it being on a computer.

Below is a concept design of how the Connect Wars game screen could look…

TEXTURING AS GAME PLAY?

Forza Motorsport 2 has a unique facility with-in the game that allows the player to take a photograph from ANY angle at anytime during a single player race. Then if the player is hooked up to Xbox Live they can upload their photos to the web, allowing PCs and other devices to download and view them. (The whole process takes seconds)

What makes taking and uploading in-game photos “worthwhile” is that Forza 2 also has a massively deep paint box tool that allows players to paint and customise their rides layer upon layer, like how Photoshop uses layers. This combined with a vast library of material at the user’s disposal makes for creating very unique looking cars every time… like a Texture Artist would texture a 3D model. (I’m sure there’s much more to the job role than that)

Below (1^st photo) is my Audi TT, its my first car in the game as I’m a n00b!
I’ve spent little time in the paint shop on it, more of a test really.

Bottom (2^nd photo) same Audi... moments later... I’ve just slammed it head on into a brick wall… nice damage effects…

CONNECT WARS!

As promised… a printable deck and rule sheet... enjoy!
(click the file image below to download)

If by some miracle anyone does decide to download, print, cut-out and play my card game, let me know what you think!

LIP SYNCING

3D modelling and audio by Andy Love (NTU)
Animated by Gav Cooper (ME)

WARNING: integrated swearing ahead... F&@*!

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?

MY FIRST RENDER

Since the start of the multimedia course I’ve avoided 3DSM for a number of reasons, but now it seems like it’s now or never… so now it is then.

Here is my first render of a weird blob like character, it’s not much but I am finally getting to know the lay of the land when it comes to 3DSM’s interface. I need to devote more time to the program really, no more running away and hiding from it.

GAME CITY 2007

Since last Thursday (25^th) until this Sunday evening (28^th) Nottingham has been host to Game City, a four day festival hosting a boat load of different video game related events and displays. Firstly I regret not going to as many as I could have, but I did end up a good number of shows and events including an exhibition put on by our very own Andy Love showcasing some interesting level design for the Unreal FPS game.

I also went along to a talk by Alexey Pajitnov, the creative mastermind behind probably the most played game in the world… Tetris! It was very interesting, talking about the mechanics behind Tetris and other puzzle games alike. I managed to ask him a few questions as well… he’s a big World of Warcraft fan so it seems and a really nice chap.

Nottingham's Market Square hosted a big tent with various consoles running inside, to be honest I wasn’t that impressed with the titles “on play”. The only game running that stood out for me was Guitar Hero, it’s been out for a while but this was my first exposure to the addictive button bashing, rhythmic frenzy that is Guitar Hero, such such fun!

I made some good contacts and swapped MSN addys with some guys from De Montfort University, Leicester, who were stewarding some of the events and are also studying games design, always good to know people in the field.

To round everything off myself and my girlfriend (Claire) managed to get our names on the guest list for a Microsoft party. Free beer, some freebies and I got my arse kicked on Gears of War (after spending 3 rounds out of 5 teaching my n00b opponent how to play, typical, I should have just PoWnEd him from the off) I had an awesome night and Claire won herself an Xbox 360 Elite in a prize draw… WOW!

I’m already looking forward to next years Game City and I really want to get involved, something that I am aiming to achieve.

YU SUZUKI

Recently I was asked to choose someone in my prospective industry that I admire and value, and then compose a short blog presentation about him / her.

Yu Suzuki works for AM-2 (Sega Amusement Machine Research and Development Department 2) He first worked for Sega as a programmer and then quickly moved onto the role of a producer, working on such classic titles as Space Harrier (1985), Out Run (1986), After Burner II (1987) plus many more… In 1993 Suzuki directed his first game, Virtua Fighter, a 3D computer graphics fighting game, which became enormously popular and spawned a whole series of sequels.

My favourite game series that Suzuki has created is the infamous Shenmue (1999). Original planned to be set over 16 releases (we are currently on number 2 btw) it follows the story of Ryo Hazuki who is on a quest to find his father’s killer. In this frustrating world where “ever game must fit into a category” (FPS, RPG, RTS…etc) Shenmue mostly falls into the RPG genera, but it’s not just an RPG, it’s a world that transcends games. Suzuki describes his own concept denoted as "FREE" (Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment)

The majority of the game play mode is spent moving around the atmospheric, life-like eastern locations in a third-person 'chase cam' mode (talking to people, searching for things, solving puzzles, and so forth), it is interspersed with many 'mini-games', including forklift and motorcycle races, bar fights, chases down crowded alleys, full versions of old Sega arcade games such as 'Space Harrier' and 'Hang On' (both originally programmed by Yu Suzuki himself), dart games, and 'free fighting' sequences. Despite all of these user interactions and the fact that the whole project cost 70 million USD the game has a simple control interface, so even children can pick up and play.

My favourite aspect of the game is something called “QTE” (Quick Time Events). During QTE sequences, a button will flash on screen briefly and the player must press the relevant button or combination of buttons to trigger Ryo's actions. The story (thus also the game) can take on a different direction depending on the players success in QTE events. It made me wonder to myself when playing…“where would I be now if I had succeeded in that last QTE”… not unlike real life maybe?

If I ever accomplish a back catalogue of work like the mighty Yu Suzuki I will be a very happy man indeed.

PLAY TIME

Second year studies are slowly starting back up again at NTU and I’m yet to have my first ‘Games’ lecture and seminar, which I’m much looking forward too. I’m still working on my text adventure… slowly… but for now I thought I’d post about what I’ve been devoting most of my “play time” too. I use to PC game a lot and still do from time to time, but I’ve recently been playing Microsoft’s 360 console and Nintendo’s DS Lite (mine's black)

Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter (GRAW) – Ubisoft

Although this game is getting on a bit in terms of shelf life (I picked my copy up for £8) it’s an amazing game and one of the first benchmarks in “next gen” gaming. It’s a 3^rd and 1^st person tactical shooter with some great movement controls that allows the player to move and use cover in a very realistic way. Apparently the soldier’s outfits, communications kit and weaponry are based on actually items in development for the US. (maybe it’s an insight into what we might see being used in Afghanistan and Iraq before all that comes to a close?) The AI is pretty tough, moving for cover when needed, attacking in numbers, flanking… etc. Graphics are outstanding with dazzling dynamic lighting really setting the visuals off. The controls take time to get familiar with, but once I'd mastered the basics I was hooked for about 6 hours in my first sitting. I’m a big fan of army related tactical shooters and this is easily the best I’ve played. Watch the review below…

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass – Nintendo (DS)

I’m just a Zelda fan boy and I wanted to plug this game! Although it isn’t out till this Friday (19^th) I wanted to post a review I’d seen to reinforce the how much I’m looking forward to its release. From what I have seen it looks like it’s taken the DS to a whole new level of interaction with the touchpad and stylus controls. Watch below...

TEXT-BASED ADVENTURE GAME

To keep myself occupied on the creative front I have been looking into creating my own text-based adventure game. I came across a great program whilst searching the net that constructs your text-based game for you, minimal programming talents are required and it’s simple to use.
Check it out at www.adrift.org.uk

I’ve spent the last few days trying to come up with a suitable narrative to base a text adventure game on, but after coming up with nothing but generic fantasy themed stories I came to the conclusion that conjuring up exciting, gripping narratives isn’t one of my ’skillz’. (also made me realize why 95% of MMORPGs are fantasy based, the narrative writes itself).

Without a narrative, a text-based adventure would simply be a series of puzzles. However, the reverse is true; without at least the odd puzzle, there isn't much to do except wander around, waiting for the story to expose itself. So I decided to put the story telling aside for the moment and focus on the puzzles that would make up my text adventure. This method of writing the game has proven to be much more manageable, focusing on the gameplay first then building a narrative around that. I have posted a quick screen shot of what my text adventure looks like so far, no exciting 3D graphics here...
this is old skool!

My finished game will be posted up here for download as soon as I have completed it, watch this space.

ASTEROID STORM

* game my take a few seconds to load *
* there is audio *

* also available to play HERE @ “newgrounds.com” *

This game is the result of my spare time over the summer months.
Produced using Flash it’s a side scrolling space game inspired by such titles as ‘Zero Wing’ (Toaplan) and ‘R-Type’ (Irem).

There are 3 stages with-in the game which I have designed to progress in difficulty as the player advances. (stage 3 is my favourite)
I’ve also added a little sub story, mostly to support the game’s object and end goal, but also to attempt to draw the player in a little more and add to the overall feel.

My friend (Edd) produced the music which I think really sets this game going.
I also had some great help from my tutors, which without I’d still be sat here scratching my head.

See what you think… it’s my first game and my first valid project using Actionscript… I do have to say that I’m pretty proud with the end results, it makes me hungry for more! Please DO leave a comment letting me know what you think, you are my public after all...

ZELDA

A quick update about my game progress and also an excuse to show you a Flash game gem that I stumbled across whilst browsing the net.

My game is coming along nicely, adding the finishing touches and piecing the last parts together. Also a good friend of mine from Leeds has done some great 8-bit music for it, which really gives off the feel of an old 80's Sega game!

Until my game reaches this domain check out this funny take on the Zelda style games, just click the link below to play. I’ve really enjoyed playing through some of the Nintendo Zelda Classics on my DS this summer...
IT WAS RESEARCH!

The Legend of Zelda: The Lampshade of No Real Significance - Get the lamp to the temple...

I'm looking forward to this for the DS...