The “Behemoth Sledge” gotta get the detai and poly count on the hammer’s head as when you are using it in 1st person it will take up about 1/3 of the screen XD

Looks like lighting in Skyrim is going to be an issue (talk of using torches + spells to light the way) so I thought, “Hey why not have a light in your shield?” and thus the “Bright Shield” was born! Idea is that the gem in the middle will emit a light that will help you see in the dark, at the expense of enemies knowing where you are (Very paladin like ^^) If scripting allows it I might also try to implement a blinding flash ability to stun foes, but we shall see ^^

reverse of the “Bright Shield” Need to get some nice detail on the top right section of the shield as again when playing in 1st person it is going to take up a great deal of the screen when blocking. thinking maybe a verse or piece of parchment with a prayer on it? something for the player to see when they block? ideas? “Go back to the shadow!” is my fav so far XD

I’ve been making some good process and one of the requirements of the competition is to keep an up to date forum post documenting the creative process.

So I thought I would quickly drop off the link to my post so that if folk are interested they can follow the progress without having to wait for blog updates…since I know how desperate everybody is for more coverage

While you are over there take a look around WOLD, t’is a great site with a good community behind it.

Until next time…

Ciáo!

Now that I am all finished with University for the time being I find myself without a gaming related project to participate in (as long as you don’t count playing Demons Souls on hard as a project).

Lucky for me a new level design challenge over at http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/ has just started up, now that’s some perfect timing

The guys over at WOLD do some great work raising awareness and holding competitions in level design but I have regretfully missed the opportunity to partake in past challenges due to university commitments, so I am glad that I will finally have the ability to take part and follow the other competitors.

The challenge involves taking a set of pre-fab assets and creating an environment with a pirate theme (Yaaaaar!). I’m planning on building a small island with a gold mine and a pier. so without further adeú I present what little work I have done so far…starting with some quick sketches!

“My attempt at making a small boat using the pre-fab planks” 

“A Ghetto mine cart!” 

“The quick mock-up of the Island”

I’m looking forward to seeing how this all pans out, I have until the 22nd of July to complete it, and with the new job I will be only able to work on it on evenings and weekends, so I’m trying not to bite off more than I can chew (I always bite off more than I can chew!)…but we shall see

I’ll keep the blog updated on my progress, until next time…

Ciaó!

Another update to touch base with the followers and let you all know what I’ve been up to.

Well the launch day of the Abertay Digital Graduate Showcase (that’s a mouth full) was last week. This is the time when myself and every other graduate at Abertay has to experience the wonderful trials and tribulations of publicly displaying your work.

I had a number of teething problems with technology and getting the whole set-up up and running (in the end I had to bring down my own base unit as the university computers were somewhat…eccentric) but in the end I’m happy with how it all looks.

So I set up my stall and spent the majority of the day talking to various members of the public and students at Abertay about my project, I received a surprisingly large audience at times, considering the show was fairly quiet anyway, and all round positive feedback from the viewers.

I was a bit disappointed that not too many people actually sat down to run through the entire project, but I wasn’t really surprised. The project takes about 10mins to fully experience and it really is an educational tool, showing how to design create and use re-usable assets etc, so I didn’t expect the public to be thrilled as such. Although one of the highlights of my day has to be a 1st year Computer Artist sitting through the whole thing and at the end turning to me and saying “That was…just inspiring”… I got a nice +1 Ego Boost from that

Despite the lack of people running through the full level, everybody really got the whole idea and point behind the project, this was due in no small part to the video I made -shown off in the last post- to go beside the running demo.

I’m really glad about this, as I was somewhat worried that on the surface the subject was a bit dry, and that people would not understand the significance or importance of what I was trying to talk about.

But all in all I think  it went rather well, and apparently so did other people!

I won myself an award for “Proper Use of Technology” from the Proper Games crew (Thanks again guys!) and a nice £50 with which to break my “£0 Gaming Challenge-fast”.

You can see some of their overage on the Proper Games website at http://www.proper-games.com/

The showcase will be running until the 3rd of June, so if you want to see my project first hand, why not take a trip down and stroke my ego a bit more

After the awards and what not, I spent a glorious night of having all my drinks bought for me while reminiscing about our time at Abertay as it draws to an inevitable close…

Now the real challenge begins…getting a job

Until next time…

Ciáo!

Things are moving at a fair good pace now as the project deadlines approach and the showcase is setting up.

In an attempt to keep posting I thought I would drop off a video that I will be using to promote my honours project and displaying at the showcase.

Hopefully I will be back to regular service in a few weeks…as I know you are all DYING to know how the £0 Gaming Challenge concluded…

Until then, enjoy the shiny moving images!

Ciáo!

Of course I know I am not the only one to experience this phenomenon, if the number of bleary eyes class members I have seen around the university is anything to go by, but I find it interesting non-the-less.

During this time my poor blog suffers greatly from neglect and disrepair…If it was a puppy it would be solemnly displayed in black and white to the sound of R.E.M on some charity advert. But today I have found myself with a bit of extra time away from the project having met all my goals for the day. As a result I present to you a meagre offering of some screenshots of my project!

It is near completion and the degree showcase, the big recruitment opportunity of the year, is on Friday, so all in all I’m pretty happy with the stage it is at.

Anyway…enough of my blabbering! Enjoy the pics while I go curl up in a ball somewhere and try to stop seeing the world in Tris…

Until next time…

Ciáo!

“An Example of Orientation Dependant Assets”

“Modular Pipes Room”

“Clutter Assets”

“The Finalised Corridor!”

For those who missed it, last week I spent a great deal of time playing lots of XBLA game demos and blowing up space pirates in Black prophecy, all in the name of science of course

This week I was lucky enough to be introduced to a fantastic resource for free gaming, namely the yearly 1Up free games lists. The guys over at 1Up do a pretty good job of putting together a comprehensive list of free games you can play online, categorising them into such useful genres as FPS, Arcade, Adventure and “WTF” (I bet we all know which ones I was instantly drawn too?)

So after spending a good deal of time scratching my head at some of the more…eccentric titles out there, I fired through a bunch of them to get some opinions of my own and see which ones really stand out.

While the games listed generally have a widely varying level of polish and gameplay associated with them, the one that really stood out for me was a simple but genius re-imagining of the infamous “Oregan Trail.” Now I remember playing this game in my higher History classes, a simple game tasking young minds with traversing the dangerous Oregan Trail across the colonial American frontier. This task was made treacherous by requiring the player to make crucial decisions, manage numerous resources, hunt for food, ford rivers and generally avoid the slow and inevitable death of each of your party members, until you either all die or you reach your final destination…

I remember loving my time with this game back when I was a kid, it taught me allot about survival in the old west and the harsh realities of keeping a group of people alive, but arguably the most important thing it taught me was that games can in-fact be used to teach…

What could possibly be done to improve on this legendary game for a current generation audience?…change the setting to a zombie apocalypse of course! And thus “The Organ Trail” is born!

“how fast was that bus moving?”

As of writing this post I have lost a whole two nights to this game, herding my small groups of survivors across America in the back of my trusty station wagon. Strangely enough I found myself caring more about my group of imaginary survivors than I have about a large number of protagonists from other games. After an unfortunate zombie attack I spent a good 10min wrestling with myself over whether to kill one of my infected party members or not…he may not turn…he can still fight…but what if he does turn?…-BLAM!- When I crossed that finish line and made it to “Safe Haven” I was ecstatic, sure I lost most of my party, I made decisions I regretted, came across some moral land mines and had some nail bitingly tense moments but after it all, I made it!

“The apocalypse is a tiring place”

So if you have a night to kill I would definitely recommend taking a look at it…pro tip: try naming your party members after friends and loved ones…it makes it all the more interesting XD

Other than my adventures in the post apocalyptic wastelands I have spent an unhealthy amount of time playing League of Legends a game recommended to me by some peeps at work. For those of you not in the know (this included me up until about two weeks ago) League of Legends (aka:LOL) is an interesting mix of RPG and RTS games based on the old “Defence of the Ancients” Warcraft 3 mod. Basically you play some super powerful summoner who pits champions form different dimensions/worlds/times against each other in strategic arena combat.

The game plays allot like an isometric real time strategy game with the exception that you only have a single champion at your disposal. Each champion has their own various strengths/weaknesses special abilities and generally fall into one of the holy trinity of gaming classes, aka: Tank, healer or DPS. You team up in groups of five champions and take on other groups with the goal of pushing back the enemy to their base and destroying everything they in their life hold dear…and their base.

If there is one thing I can tell you about this game it’s that it is not an easy game to get into. The game has allot of subtle but important gameplay mechanics and rules that are never fully explained in the tutorial. The lack of this knowledge is something that can and will make you die…die hard. You may think to yourself that dying in modern games is no big deal, what with short respawn timers etc but one of the important mechanics is that every time a player kills you they gain a huge chunk of experience…which helps them level up…which makes it easier for them to kill you…and the vicious cycle repeats. And with the average game lasting between 30-45mins it can be demoralising to invest such a great deal of time for a crushing defeat. So all in all the game is very far from beginner friendly.

On the other hand there is a great deal of fan made information and tutorials for beginners that, with a bit of research, provide simple but game changing tactics and gameplay mechanics that suddenly make you realise what you were doing wrong. There is nothing better than beating a group of people due to simply knowing the game better than they do XD

I think one of the greatest aspects of the game is the extensive and ever growing list of available champions. As of writing there are currently 74 different champions available to play with new champions being released on a weekly basis. Each one feels unique with their own skills and style of play and it is a rather addictive process trying them all out to see which ones you like and don’t.

“And you though Street Fighter had allot of characters!”

The champions seem to be where the developers “Riot Games” make their money. While there is an extensive catalogue of champions, you can only play them once they have been unlocked, either via in-game currency, which can take some time to save up…or of course you could pony up a few quid and get a new champion instantly. To maximise the chance that you will want to buy a character here and now, Riot games take some of the best lessons from the drug trade and apply them to their game by allowing people to try out a random selection of champions for free every week…just for a taste. This means that you spend the week getting comfortable with a champion only for it to go of “rotation” and suddenly you can’t play it again until you unlock it…genius!

All in all I have had a great time playing LoL even if it takes a bit of research to get into it, once you are past the initial learning curve and manage to find your own playstyle and favourite champions it can lead to some fantastic experiences. I would say it’s definitely worth a play…especially since it’s free!

In closing I shall leave you with a video of myself and TheMissingNin from over at Pagoda of Gaming playing the game, with some NSFW audio shenanigans!

“Disclaimer…please do not try to use this video for strategies or gameplay tips, we are not 1337 and never will be…”

Next week I will be trying out the new Battlefield Play for Free in an attempt to see how a free FPS turns out. I will also be delving into the rabbit hole of Facebook games to see if there is anything worth picking up amongst the myriad of farming and shoping games.

Until next time…Ciaó!

The first week of this experiment is officially over, and while I have had a few tough times (with the ultimate low point being standing in a store with a copy of Dragon age 2 in my hand only to realise that the evil “Past Iain” had removed my spending money card, and store loyalty card, in anticipation of a moments weakness) I feel as though I have already gained a bit of benefit from it.

My first port of call was spending a good few afternoons trawling the X-Box Live Arcade, for free demos to see what style of small arcade games are popular nowadays. To my surprise there was a fantastic variety available! Putting aside the numerous zombieand avatar exploitations games, over the course of a few nights I played about 10 different games, from slash-em-ups, racing games, puzzle games and even co-op city building I got a good look at plenty of titles I didn’t even know existed.

Now I understand that playing demos only allows you to play a small portion of the game, but I find that most demos are pretty much perfect for the purpose of this experiment. The reason for this is that the purpose of most demos is to show of the games unique selling points(USPs) then leave you wanting more. Now this is just my opinion, but when you play most games you are shown a handful of gameplay mechanics, say shooting, running crouching and jumping, and then for the rest of the game you are simply using these same mechanics over and over again for 8-10 hours till the credits roll. It is not that often new features are introduced later on in the game. So from a design and analysis point of view, demos allow you to quickly look at the USPs, UI, character design etc and then when the time runs out you move on, instead of playing the same game for 10 hours to gleam maybe one or two interesting ways the mechanics are used. As a result I can play 10 different demos and experience 10 vastly different gameplay experiences in the time it would normally take me to play one game. Something I have rather enjoyed ^^

Other than demo playing, I have spent a good deal of time playing Black Prophecy, a newly released free to play space dogfighting MMO. Below is a short review/summary of my impressions.

“In the grim darkness of the far future, all women have bright read hair…for some reason o.O”

So first things first, while the game sells itself as an MMO I wouldn’t really call it as such, at least not in the same way as what commonly jumps to mind when that phrase is used. There are no persistent shared worlds, no capital cities, no exploration and no random encounters with other players, hostile or otherwise. There are some RPG-lite elements involved, with skills you have to level, enemies dropping loot, missions and the odd crafting here and there, but in essence this game has much more in common with a map based FPS like Team Fortress 2 than something akin to World of Warcraft. Whether that is a good or a bad thing I shall let you decide.

So while it’s MMO status is somewhat debatable, it is definitely a very fun game to get into. You can launch missions very quickly through a relatively streamlined interface, that gives you the choice of solo and team PvP or Pve missions, before creating your very own instance and launching you guns first into the fray. The missions on average take no longer than 5-10mins each so it makes a great game to play if you have a quick half an hour to spare. All in all it is a very good game to pick up and play, I guarantee you will be spending allot more time blasting noobs in space than looking at your character panel (always s good thing in my opinion.)

“A random mission accompanied by my random thought process”

Aside from the basic gameplay it is worth noting that the “story missions” (mandatory missions you get every now and then to progress and fill out some back story of the universe etc) are generally good fun, each with their own cinematics and full (if somewhat ropey at times) voice acting. They are all very well thought out and provide a good blast of “epic-ness” to the experience. I was also very impressed by the music in the game, the proper orchestral soundtrack lends a richness and passion to allot of the dogfights and complicated flight manoeuvres you are bound to encounter (missions taking place in asteroid belts or around space stations are by far my favourite, if simply for all the crazy flying you can do.)

Also a super special note has to go to the fantastic text to speech system they implemented to give a voice over to the randomly generated missions. I lost count of the number of times I burst out in laughter at some of the words and phrases this poor little emotionless voice has tried to express. It’s hard to take peril seriously when it reminds me so much of playing with Microsoft Sam in secondary school.

All in all I have enjoyed it very much, and I will probably keep playing, even if just to see where they are planning to take the game next, and I would definitely recommend it to anybody interested in some good old dogfighting action.

So that’s been me for the first week, next week I’m going to hit up some League of Legends and see if I can finally find a game that will cure me of my fear of RTS games ^^

Until next time,

Cíao!

Unfortunately our team do not appear much on the first episode (and I don’t see us appearing too much anyway) since we didn’t have any particular earth shattering drama during the competition. We made our plan, stuck to it and delivered on time…great for us, but not so good for television

Anyway here is the episode, you win super points if you can spot me in all my awkwardness.

“For the next month I shall not spend a single penny on playing games!”

“But why!?” I hear you all shout, well I do actually have my reasons.

With graduation coming up, followed by job hunting etc, it is fairly likely that I will find myself working in a small studio somewhere, and as a result I should really begin to familiarise myself with the types of games these companies produce.

A large portion of the games made by these companies are so called “free-to-play” or “Freemium” games, so over the next month I am going to try and saturate myself to as much of this type of content as I can, and hell…why not blog about my findings?

So without further adieu here are the two simple rules…

1. I cannot spend ANY money on games, if it has micro transactions etc I can comment on the but not use them…
2. I have to try at least 1 new game every week and write up a short blog post about the good and the bad…

All in all I think it should be an interesting experience. I have infact already scoped out a few good free to play games that I will be taking a look at over the next two weeks, they are…

League of Legends: A co-op RTS/RPG hybrid

Website: http://www.leagueoflegends.com/playnow?redirect=http://www.leagueoflegends.com/

Black Prophecy: A new space dogfighting MMO

Website: http://www.blackprophecy.com/

I’m taking any other requests that people may have, so if you have played something free you thought was brilliant (or abysmal) let me know! and I’ll do my best to check it out!

I’ll obviously continue with the Uni work and get some more content up on the blog…just as soon as I get some decent video capturing software that doesn’t record at 5FPS ^^’

Until next time…

Ciáo!