7 May 2011 - week 32

After about 10 hours work this is what I have to show for it. 

May 5 2011 - week 32

My second attempt at the bibliography task.

• Rex Van Der Spuy, 2009 - Foundation game design with flash, New York, Springer-Verlag
• Todd Perkins, 2008 - Nitendo Wii Flash game creators guide, McGraw-Hill
• Clark N Quinn, 2005 - Engaging Learning Designing e-learning simulation games, San Fransico, Pfieffer
• Edited by Dario Compagno and Patrik Coppock, 2009 - Computer Games between text and practice, Italy
• Costikyan 2002 - I have no words & I must design: toward a critical vocabulary for games
  http://www.costik.com/nowords2002.pdf     
  [Assessed 26.4.11]
  
  
  Doug Church, Gamasutra July 16^th 1999 – Formal abstract design tools
  http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal_abstract_design_tools.php  
  [Assessed 26.4.11]     
  
  
  Costikyan,1998 - Don’t be a vidiot
  http://www.costik.com/vidiot.html    
  [Assessed 26.4.11]     
  
  
  Venturelli, Gamasutra July 11^th 2009 – Space of possibility and pacing in casual game design
  http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MarkVenturelli/20091107/3497/Space_of_Possibility_and_Pacing_in_Casual_Game_Design__A_PopCap_Case_Study.php           
  [Assessed 26.4.11]
  
  
  Prescott and Bogg, 2011 -  Segregation in a Male-Dominated Industry: Women Working in the Computer Games
  http://genderandset.open.ac.uk/index.php/genderandset/article/view/122/259
  [Assessed 26.4.11]
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
  

May 5 2011 - week 32

Over the time around Christmas we began a sub course into sound in video games. This was hosted by Matt Applegate a former student, over the weeks he showed us how clever use of music can add more than the sum of its parts to the game. An example of this was Banjoo Kazoie, which used the same track but changed the instruments used, another is L4D which used subtle sound effects to warn of oncoming dangers. This knowledge will probably help later down the line when we are developing our own game.

May 5 2011 - week 32

John Wagland was a guest speaker from the BBFC who give ratings to digital media. It was a unique insight to this end of the pipeline and shows how blurred the age boundaries can be. We were shown a few clips but the Japanese anime one takes the cake for being the most shocking one (no surprises there then).

May 5 2011 - week 32

Guest speaker Johnny Ingram showed us how he breached a new frontier of short films by using a game to act out the scenes. This has benefits and costs to the normal method of hiring actors, namely being that you don't have to pay huge amounts to rent a set get the proper lighting and make-up because it can all be done in game. But this can in some respects be a bad thing as you cant shot some scenes in all angles at once.

May 5 2011 - week 32

In a video documentary that we watched today, we saw how ancient games have evolved into the games we know now. Priests and commoners used to carve some form of naught's and crosses into the stone of a chapel whilst they were waiting. Interestingly the church thought that dice are the spawn of the devil as they rely solely on luck and can easily be rigged, the alternative was a spinning top which all be it the same problem of luck didn't seem to bother them. It also seems that older games were adapted to the host culture so that they would sell better, snakes and ladders was a rendition of the Hindus game of life from hundreds of years ago.

May 5 2011 - week 32

Here is my KS1 game analysis which has at the end a biblography, I will expand on this in my last post:

With particular reference to the readings you have undertaken this year what are the major design issues you have faced in developing a game for Key Stage 1 children.

During the initial conception of the game we knew we had to make a game that would appeal and be achievable for KS1 children, so we looked at our readings for help. The challenges basic issues and challenges were mainly gameplay related, and a few other more modern ones. We will look at the gameplay ones first.

In Costikyans’, 2002, ‘I have no words & I must design’ he breaks down a game into sub categories; interaction, goals, struggle, structure and endogenous meaning. For interaction he said ‘ A game needs elements that the player interacts with and this interaction must change the state of the game’, although this didn’t fully apply to the game it made us rethink how the puzzles should change; or whether they stay the same. When the player completes a puzzle the puzzle then becomes locked like that forever altering the game prior to this upon completion the puzzle although completed would revert back to its default state making it slightly confusing to the player. But also in this article Costikyan, 2002, says that ‘a puzzle is static, a game is interactive’ and this is true. We had to make an educational game fun to play so we avoided asking direct questions, rather hiding the questions as puzzles that needed to be solved to advance and rewards the player for doing so.

The goals we setup in this game were simply to solve puzzles and escape. ‘Games can be susceptible to goal directed objectives to the point that it’s a good game despite no win state’ – Costikyan, 2002, our allure of victory (escaping) is the primary goal but we added some secondary goals like least time taken and collectables which break up the main goal and allow the player to explore the environment a bit before continuing. Collectables and time taken weren’t added until we found the main goal got stale very quickly as you had no distractions other than looking at a non-intractable environment and we looked for a way to make it slightly more interesting and fun. The players’ decisions are limited to a few options inside puzzles and even fewer outside them; this was necessary evil as puzzles only have one solution but different ways to get there. Outside the puzzles the player can decide to look around or push on forward.

‘Challenging but possible’ – Costikyan, 2002, this was a constant struggle for us to make the game doable for KS1 as we weren’t that age. As our main interactive medium was puzzles we created a list of conceivable puzzles and challenges that would be challenging and yet still fun for the player. As a game requires players to struggle towards a goal we steadily raised the difficulty and complexity of the puzzles and eventually then straight forward questions as they near the end, this gave the player a sense of triumph over ever increasing odds and still coming out victorious. We found though that concentrated testing was needed to ensure these challenges were doable by those who would be playing it and also to see where they found it boring so we could tweak it ready for a wider audience.

‘A games structure shapes the player behaviour but does not determine it’ – Costikyan, 2002, for our game we wanted the players to believe that they’re all playing the same game and that the goal is important so the behave accordingly. To do this was difficult for what is essentially a side scrolling puzzle game, players would automatically complete the puzzles to progress so their behaviour was very predictable but we wanted to add some random feature that the player could then alter their behaviour and playing style to complete. Collectables were our solution; the player would have to be actively looking for them as they are hidden but also complete the puzzles. A few other ideas were thought of such as adding a penalising system so if the player got too many things wrong they would be sent backwards a predetermined amount. Loss of collectables, recorded collectables and major failing like restarting from level 1 were all put on the table for possible implementation but weren’t as although these would be common place for harder games this is a game for young children rather than teenagers who would better understand the consequences and reason for these events.

Endogenous meaning was described by Costikyan, 2002, as ‘Has no real value outside the virtual world that it is found’, for us we already had collectables that we were going to add so this now justified us adding them to the game. We noted though that although our test group had found all of the collectables they got no reward for this feat also despite this they would brag to friends about their amount. Although this was to be foreseen, we didn’t believe it would happen on such a large scale; on your own the achievement is relatively hollow as you can’t brag or tell anyone, but in a single room with multiple players each on their own computer changed this. We noted though that there was no reward for finding them all, this seemed as a let-down for those who undertook the challenge to search for them and came back empty handed. We already had some ideas of what to add to the game the most obvious one being a hidden characters or more challenges, we decided on adding a hidden character that the children wouldn’t perceive happening but it wouldn’t surprise them completely.

In ‘space of possibility and pacing in casual game design’ written by Venturelli, 2009, was broken into 2 main parts pacing and space of possibility. For our games space of possibility Venturelli, 2009 said ‘Design a game is designing a space of possibility. It is the collection of all possible actions and outcomes inside the designed space of the game’, it was very hard for us to expand on this virtual space as we had no real world that the player could run around in, for the player to interact with the environment they had to click. ‘When a game no longer has surprises and all patterns have been exhausted then there is no more fun to be had’ – Venturelli, 2009. This problem was apparent from the beginning; puzzles although they have multiple routes only have one ending, which means once the player has learnt all the answers there ceases to be any challenge. To overcome this we added randomized puzzle elements, which although had the same solution varied the route enough to keep things engaging, with the addition of hidden items it added a new layer. ‘A player must be seduced to agree to enter the games’ experience, but must then be kept seduced’ – Venturelli, 2009.

The pacing of the game was very important to use and thus was hard to get it correct. ‘Pacing is the overall rhythm of the game. By indirectly crafting the player experience through mechanics, aesthetics and dynamics’ – Venturelli, 2009, to use as player interaction was limited we had to make the sensory interaction more engrossing. Using what Venturelli said we decided on a more basic break down; movement impetus, tension, threat and tempo. Movement impetus is the players desire to move forward which we achieved by constantly rewarding the player, which although didn’t work very well on older test subjects worked surprisingly well on younger audiences. We also used other parts of the breakdown to push players onwards.

We viewed the game as designers: Mechanics – Aesthetics – Dynamics

Audience viewed the game as players: Dynamics – Aesthetics – Mechanics

To improve the game we conducted focus testing.

The threat to the player is generated by the games mechanics, which were our main focus. As there was no enemy shooting back the adversary would have to be the environment (puzzles), but we found this rather boring as the player would know that in the next room would be x amount of puzzles that they could tackle in their own time. So to alter this we added a couple of things which created a new division of threats and also influenced tempo in the process. One of these was adding a mini game where you throw tomatoes at a man in stocks, but we didn’t want players spending all their time on this, so we gave them an ammo counter. Once this counter reached 0 a question would appear, answering correctly result in more ammo and incorrectly result in the man escaping forcing the player to continue. This alters the tempo from its steady rate as your only answering questions to a bit more frantic as your having fun to a bit more frantic once you reach the final room. We were always going to have an end game boss, but we didn’t know how to implement it, we decided to add the mini game prior to this boss so the players would be a little more engaged and it would come as more of a surprise to them. The ghost asks a series of straight forward questions that will be worded as they would be in exams, as this is the ending we needed it to carry more weight. You need to answer 3 correct answers in a row to escape, originally failure 5 times threw you back to the first room but we thought this was too unfair, so we left it as you just need to get 3 correct in sequence.

‘Aesthetic resources such as sound and graphics can be used to create tension but not threat’ – Venturelli, 2009. We abided by this very closely as this was an asset heavy game, sound and art style needed to suit the each other and the theme of the room as well as the atmosphere. As our audience were young children we could have anything too frightening but we wanted a mood to reflect the room and situation, the art style we chose was a sketchy cartoon look similar to things like South park and Scooby Doo. Although these are at the extremes of viewer types we only used them for the art style, with these child friendly environments we wanted the player to be drawn in. Our sounds also had to abide by the rule of not scary but uneasy, to accomplish this we used generic noises for weather effects and back ground noise. The music however, although with the same rules had a bit more design creator freedom to operate; so long as it fitted the mood and the theme we didn’t have any targets. To emphasis a light hearted bit like the mini game we used more airy, funny sounds but for the final fight to help with the frantic, dire nature of the situation we used a darker eerier track.

We were aware from the beginning that we needed a male and female avatar; this was made even more apparent by the National Gamers Survey 2009, where statistics showed that 74% of men and 71% of women play games. With so many female players and when we knew females would be playing this as well we justified the addition of another avatar. We also saw from “Prescott and Bogg Segregation in a Male-Dominated Industry: Women Working in the Computer Games”, 2011, that woman in the work place have an impact on the types of game made but a usually found in HR and are in decline. From this we asked a few women to help out balancing the games male and female allures, this would hopefully mean a larger audience as it should now appeal to both genders.

 

By using the readings and articles from the year we have improved our game in areas that we either weren’t aware of, didn’t know how or both. This improves have hopefully delivered a better game on the whole and should appeal to both genders, and maybe different ages groups.

References

Costikyan 2002 - I have no words & I must design: toward a critical vocabulary for games

http://www.costik.com/nowords2002.pdf     

[Assessed 26.4.11]

Doug Church, Gamasutra July 16^th 1999 – Formal abstract design tools

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal_abstract_design_tools.php  

[Assessed 26.4.11]     

Costikyan,1998 - Don’t be a vidiot

http://www.costik.com/vidiot.html    

[Assessed 26.4.11]     

Venturelli, Gamasutra July 11^th 2009 – Space of possibility and pacing in casual game design

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MarkVenturelli/20091107/3497/Space_of_Possibility_and_Pacing_in_Casual_Game_Design__A_PopCap_Case_Study.php           

[Assessed 26.4.11]

Prescott and Bogg, 2011 -  Segregation in a Male-Dominated Industry: Women Working in the Computer Games

http://genderandset.open.ac.uk/index.php/genderandset/article/view/122/259

[Assessed 26.4.11]

May 5 2011 - week 32

Went out and did some serious drinking a few days ago to celebrate finishing our group project. It wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done, but it was a good laugh. Apparently this blog is getting looked at tomorrow so I'm going to unload all the posts that I'd saved in drafts for some reason. Also to get use to using photoshop I've ordered a graphics tablet, not an expensive one but one that was recommended.

May 1 2011 - week 32

Just watched 'Remember Me' and had an idea, the film is good but grim ending. As a future project I plan to use After Effects and airsoft weapons to do a short film. Just food for thought.

April 18 2011 - week 30

A few notes on the gender divide in games and the people that make them. Typically most games are aimed at men, for obvious reasons, men have been playing them for longer and in greater numbers since their conception it was also men who made these first games. Over time though the types of games diversified to reflect the demands of those who bought and played them, this then led to it becoming more socially acceptable for women to play games too.
The stigma attached with games was that it was always the spotty teenage nerd who lived in his mothers basement and only saw sunlight through his computer screen. And sadly this remains true to a certain extent. Many games are now solely designed for different ages groups and genders, and this could be because of a higher social tolerance or because women are now working in the design of games. 
Many of the women who work in the game pipeline are in human resources or events planning, where as the 'core' areas of art, design and coding are mainly filled with men, this is also true of the corporate ladder; many of the high ranking places are only filled with men. Whether this will change remains yet too be seen.
I however don't believe the game industry has shifted because of the introduction of female employees, but rather the industry recognising that women are now playing games as well which opens up a whole new market.

April 11 2011 - week 29

Back in Horsham now and have ordered some new parts for my computer, it hasnt aged very well. Got a lads night tonight which usually means getting drunk and dicking around with kinect, so photos should be interesting. I'm staying at my families house as they have gone to LA on holiday and wont be back for 2 weeks, PARTY!!!!!! Good thing we have a swimming pool and the weather is supposedly going to stay sunny, so I will grab some beers, get the BBQ going and throw a swinging party. Shame that the people that can read this cant get here, sucks to be you.

Mar 30 2011 - week 27

I have now stopped work on the PSP for my project, going to do a ring, it may not sound as complicated but I'll have to manage the textures and lighting well so that it doesn't look stupid, probably will at the end though. Also as its only 2 weeks until we make ourselves ill I'm happy because there's a tonnes of chocolate that needs eating. 

Mar 29 2011 - week 27

3DS Max has decided to screw me over and lost all my work for me, thank you Adobe I love having to do my work twice. Will get it upgraded to 2011 over Easter also going to get After Effects to learn with as well. Before it broke I managed to do those candles, but what is a candle without a flame? An unlit candle who would ask something so stupid, regardless I will upload the net step and the progress on my PSP model tomorrow.

Mar 24 2011 - week 26

Been another week and some other work. Below are some pictures I made in 3DS Max, just playing around with the lighting and materials

18 Mar 2011 - week 25

Stupid blogger wouldnt let me sign on and make new posts over the past few weeks, so this ones delayed. Been at home, work on the Normandy has stopped for now. PSP work has stopped until the arc tool behaves its self, which it likely wont be doing any time soon. Crysis 2 ships next week which mean access to sandbox 3, so more level building fun.

01 Mar 2011 - week 22

Very tired now given up trying to do this neatly. Cant remember last time I slept, really should go soon. Trip to London soon, 3d model of PSP has go past its basic mesh phase, flash game code needs assests' to go with it and script needs some minor tweaking then its done.

18 Feb 2011 - week 20

Entry20/18.2.2011
Been a while since I last posted, been a bit preoccupied especially with water in the computer. Never good for it. I'll keep this one brief finished first night working at Isaacs, which was cool. Hopefully get a job there.

31 Jan 2011 - week 18

Entry18/31.1.2011

I said a few weeks ago or maybe it was before Christmas... either way at some point recently i said that i would write a review on Two Worlds II and so here's a preliminary review.

Two Worlds II - PC

Two worlds II is the sequel to Two Worlds which received mixed reviews. Set in a magical world called Antaloor, ruled by a powerful evil wizard called Gandohar and his right hand man, Sordahon. The player takes on the role of the hero from the first game to defeat evil and save his sister from their evil clutches, but does this game improve and fix upon the original.

            The short answer is a yes… well sort of; although the game is miles further ahead than its predecessor there are still some issues that prevent this game from being superb. But we will start on the good side of the coin. First thing that has to be said is that the visuals are hugely improved on the original, thanks mainly due to the new engine that powers it all (GRACE). This engine allows for more particles and higher fidelity models as well as improved ambient occlusion and HDR. However this also means that any flat and drab textures look surprisingly obvious, rock faces and caves all reuse the same basic texture just with a different colour. However the range of climates is nice and varied going from a sub-tropical island inhabited by frog monsters, to a savannah full of lions, rhinos and other critters, to dense tropical jungles swarming with a host of fantastical and somewhat curious monsters.

            The sounds very convincing for the most part but repeated and hollow dialog is very disappointing. For the most part the environment sounds are quite nice; sitting back in the savannah you can hear distant animals and close up insects. Even in the dense jungle things remain just as immersive. Animal sounds are mixed and varied enough to let you know what’s attacking you before you can actually see it, even idle noises are realistic as possible. Sadly however this again is drawn back by the somewhat hit and miss dialog, for some parts it’s well-placed and actors deliver their lines with heart and that really shows through. But it’s the continuous boring flat toned, one dimensional conversations with NPCs that really is noticeable, for example; me and a group of men were storming a gatehouse when I was told that I should hold here and defend any incoming forces. Despite me two dialog options one literately telling the NPC to back off and follow my lead and the other more submissive and agreeing. Despite selecting the option that to most it would sound aggressive, it came out with just as much feeling as you would give to a rock; it was boring and I was left wondering if the protagonist had a vocal problem meaning that he couldn’t shout. This sadly is the same for the idle talk; it’s repeated too much for my liking and after a while became trivial to hear a merchant say the exact same thing every time you walk by. In most cases the people of Antaloor are 1D with their voices with rare cases popping up every now and then.

            The music of this world is nice and varied and suitable to the world around you and that remains so up until you start fighting, same music for all the fights minus the boss fights. During your time exploring fitting music will play depending on your location; on the savannah it’s quite tribal and lively, in the cities it’s noisy and rich and in the jungle it’s intense and chaotic. Some boss fights also have well suited music to try and get you fired up for the upcoming battle but can sometimes drone on. But yet again there’s another side to this coin; long trawls through caves can already wear on the soul but more so when the music is dull, mundane and repetitive.

The gameplay should feel immediately familiar with any RPG player; you kill and complete quests to level up allowing you to get better gear and thus become stronger allowing you to take on harder quests and kill tougher enemies, this formula works well if the player knows how hard something is and know what they need to bring to save inventory space. Sadly however or maybe for the better, the game doesn’t display how dangerous something is, it’s up to the player to discover during their play through that some monsters are exceedingly powerful. However this had me stumped for some time as I couldn’t figure out what made this skeleton tougher than the ones I fought 5 minutes earlier, the only way to really know this is either prior experience or constant monitoring of your health bar.

The story is of simple revenge, saving family and ridding the land of great evil tyranny, nothing unusual there. The person you’re trying to save is your sister Kyra being held by Gandohar. He has you both prisoners in his palace and is using your life force to keep her alive while he tries to find a way to pull a fire god spirit out of her. Set five years after the first the conflict is between 3 groups; the Orcs, who are now all but extinct after a war with the humans, the rebels, led by a man call the ‘Captain’ seek to destroy the empire, and the empires forces who came into power along with Gandohar and the destruction of the old council, the oppress the local populous. You are sprung from his clutches by none other than a group of Orcs all having unique abilities, after escaping Gandohars’ palace, you are taken to the “Dragon Queen” who gives you some basic gear and a premonition of your sister death releasing the god of fire allowing Gandohar to become a god himself. From there you leave out on an epic quest that will take you all across Antaloor to find out about Gandohars’ past and destroy him thus saving everyone.

            With no real tutorial on how the interface works beyond one click, it can become frustrating. This though is part of the process that we should go through and not give up on. Once sussed the game reveals its true form but still getting to this point can be solely based on trial and error, a simple tutorial would have saved so much time. An example is trying to change the active quest, which when I look back on it wasn’t difficult but sill, you have to right click but nowhere does it tell you this.

            Whilst on the subject of quests you have the main story and side quests, but the game encourages you to do side quest subtlety by steadily increasing the complexity of the tasks. Side quests generally follow that one would think should follow the pattern of go to B kill everything, return to A will be in for a treat. Many quests have multiple methods of approach and success, in one case a neighbouring village won’t send emergency aid to starving people, you can either choose to convince the village elder or simply kill him and his followers for a quick resolution. This however has unpredictable consequences of the bad variety; killing and entire village may render future quests impossible to complete, and yet despite slaughtering hundreds of innocents no one looks at you any differently, which is odd even for this world.

            Rewards for these quests are usually money (auras) but sometime equipment. Another one of the game strong points is weapons and combat; you can choose to pursue any of 3 class specifics or learn some from all. Melee, Range and magic all have their perks and drawbacks, without going into masses of detail each weapon can be imbued with magical properties and given an edge. The weapon variety is something to behold along with the armour list. Oh yes and armour can be dyed different colours to match your attitude. All objects can be dismantled into raw materials which can then be used to upgrade weapons and armour for even more power.

            Each class has specials moves which used correctly are satisfyingly potent. Combat is a lot more refined this time around with melee taking the foreground, but all one on one fights really descend into block counter or mash attacks and some of these can go on for upwards of 10 minutes, however this makes the fighting suitably more fun as you both are struggling to stay a step ahead and it does test you will power after 15 minutes. Against multiple enemies things get a bit trickier; although the game features a look on mechanic this auto lock whatever enemy is in the centre of the screen and can be irritating when you are looking around and your character starts attacking a box rather than the 20ft ogre in front.

            Before we move on boxes are single-handedly the most annoyed objects in the world, the game seems to have issues when it comes to physics. Although it’s funny to uppercut a guard and watch him fly off thanks to selective gravity, walking over some objects and jumping are illogical in their complexity. Let’s start on jumping; small gaps no problem, long gaps simple sprint jump there, so what bout medium jumps. Well this requires so much more luck that trial and error that I’m left wondering why. The same goes for jumping or walking over objects, your character can get stuck in invisible walls, fly into space and pretty much everything short of self-combustion can happen when walking of boxes (one case of spontaneous death due to exploding). Although this doesn’t break the game experience it is noticeable.

            Lastly but not least is the extracurricular activities such as potion making and lock picking. As most skills are the same as in other games its lock picking that stands out from the crowd. It actually requires skill!!! Not as in skill points but as in player skill to begin with, this means that from the get go you can pick any lock if you as a person are skilled enough. Although you can level this ability up it only increases the time you get.

            Despite the many and sometimes game breaking bugs/moments the game is still enormously addictive and entertaining to boot. The amount of things to do can grow weary after a while but with an average run time of 30+ hours taken to try and complete not including side quests the game has a lot more to offer those who dig a little deeper into the game and explore the world. Also the game includes a multiplayer option, sadly as this was written before the release of the actual game there is no one online to play with. So this is really just a single player review, but expect it to be the same basic mechanics just with a buddy to help out on the harder quests. Overall I would recommend this to those who enjoy RPG’s, but this may not appeal to all fans. But if you enjoyed the first or are looking for an addictive game then this should defiantly be bought, or at least rented.    

    

27 Jan 2010 - week 17

Entry17/27.1.2011
Been a week now since i did any actual work; start fully again next week. Efforts to get CS5 Master Edition have failed some what spectacularily, will need to find a solution to allow more productive work on the home computer. Have been down in Bognor Regis for the last week visiting girlfriend leave for home on Saturday.


Side note: Must look into NGP.

19 Jan 2011 - week 16

Entry16/19.1.2011
Vertical slice is complete with only minor issues, which is good. Going back home for a week before uni starts again and I go job hunting (probably should of a while ago). Room inspection is due but they never showed for their appointment, figures. Either way I don't care there's nothing to see here. 
I'm going to try and improve my diet as I've been getting ill to damn often, got a diet plan written out and plan to go running 4 times a week (1.5miles in 12:30mins). Shouldn't be to hard I've done it before.
On a side note I'm getting my PS3 up here in waiting for killzone 3; which is on the list a games I want this year. They are:

• Dragon Age II
• Killzone 3
• Crysis 2
• Portal 2

Funny, their all sequels, will pre-order them this week most likely.


Review for Two Worlds II will be posted next week.

12 Jan 2011 - week 15

Entry15.3/12.1.2011
Our vertical slice is just past it's halfway mark; amazing job by everyone to get this much done but more still needs doing. Coder Joe is doing most of the heavy lifting thanks to his skills at programming, digital artist Matt is pulling out all the stops getting the art assets in place. Most of the sound effects have been done, so now I will help out where I can.

10 Jan 2011 - week 15

Entry15/10.1.2011


Back in Ipswich now; colder than Horsham. Managed to get some cool magazines with a lot of information about 3D modelling as well video guides, which should be handy seeing as we're doing that this semesta. Tomorrow going into uni to speak with the group and find out where we all stand.   

1 Jan 2011 - week 14

Entry14/1.1.2011


Happy new year, been a hell of a year for better and for worse. But ah well shit happens and we learn and move on. Now it's back to work; vertical slice is due in around 14th of January. I was placed in charge of audio which was completed on christmas eve; worryingly no additional work was issued for me, just hope that my work was enough and on suitable quality.