With the absence of DWV 2010 I have tentacled several ideas/projects since my last blog entry.
One production kitten (aka 'Darling') that has survived the crucial test of patience and persistence is MechCraft. The coder and project initiator was Erik R. Pedersen, whom I have worked with on other Unity based projects (Hatch Out, Grapple Grapple and Interstellar Marines: Running Man)
Starting out as a turret-controlled-multiplayer-platform game it quickly iterated into a fast paced, hardcore mechanoid shooter. Running working titles include BaseDefender, Suncraft and Mechasochist.
One ingredient in our microscopic production, that turned out to be alpha-omega, was a design philosophy: KISS.
A early prototype of MechCraft (v0.9) has been available on fragilebrain.com, but has since it’s release had an overhaul in design, based on feedback from players ... and naturally from a huge crate of resurrected kittens.
MechCraft (v1.0) is almost there. We are currently iterating on GUI (and feedback to the player) and a badass kitten Sound system. Kenneth Andersen (our Audio Designer) has taken upon himself the task of lifting our current voiced-acted explosion and pew pew sounds to the next level!
I’ll tweet when we are closing in on releasing MechCraft v1.0:)
PS: No (real) kittens were injured in the making of MechCraft.
ProjectsPosted by Windfeld Sun, March 07, 2010 00:43:10 I was sincerely hoping to compete in Dominance War V this year, only to learn that it has been postponed until ... get this ... next year!
It kind of suits me with the moving and all, but I can't help feeling a little empty inside. I really did enjoy the challenge. Or was it the competitive nature? Or the double crunch?
I really shouldn't think too much about it. I could hurt myself. I better start practicing ...
UPDATE: As you might or might not know, we, the team, worked on the Unity based Bullseye parallel with the Unearthly Challange. Thus we decided (read: were whipped and poked) to prioritize our work and throw in the towel on this one. Sorry! Hope you enjoyed Bullseye, though:)
Here we go again!
This time it's all about environments. The competition is known as the Unearthly Challenge.
One big difference between the two competitions (DWIV & UC2009) is that it's allowed to make teams. Even multiple entries if you are single and unemployed. So, I've hooked up (in a non-sexual way) with an artist and architect named Anders Antoft.
We have predicted that the competition development duration will overlap some work related deadlines, so we decided to keep it clean and do a space theme we call the "Final Offence".
ProjectsPosted by Windfeld Mon, August 31, 2009 22:43:20 small learning project that took about ... a days and a halfs work - a simple combat knife aimed to be used as a FPV weapon with about 400 tris.
ProjectsPosted by Windfeld Thu, July 16, 2009 13:57:07 As I got a hold of a book from the Star Wars cross-illustrated series, I was hugely inspired to do mechanical design! So, here is a small component of something much bigger in the workings ...
I think it's a good variation from all the organic stuff lately - eventually I will have to do a organic/mechanic combo .... a CYBORG. But first I will concentrate on training my skills individually :)
ProjectsPosted by Windfeld Fri, May 29, 2009 23:11:17 Kjems, our "1337" coder has made an attempt to port our Nordic Game Jam entry to iPhone. Some of the bugs from our prototype have been fixed and the little critter now feels a lot more alive!
When projects and deadlines start to give room for a bit more creativity then it I hope to give this little guy a facelift! Mmmm ... 2d animations ...
Finally the competition is over and I succesfully made an entry worthy of my nightly cursing.
It was freaking hard. It was my first entry ever. It was my first game character ever. I am already looking forward to next year! Yeah!
I have started writting a postmortem of all the things learned from this period. I must say it has been a very, very tense experience with tool skills increased tenfold. I am honored to have been part of this event besides über talents found on the forums. There was a noticeable gap between pro character artists and the semi amateurs like myself - but after all, wouldn't they be out of a job if everyone had their mad skills?
I especially want to thank Bokaja (aka Jakob Falkenberg) for his patience and über skills that helped me through when I was struggling to get my pipeline up!
Darn the competition is hard and the deadline tight! No wonder it can take a full time job getting top quality models done. I am having fun and feeling very motivated to finishing my model. I love the atmosphere and creativity - though it is kinda depressing surfing through the work of all the pros! They are truly awesome - you guys rock. Am I more or less finished with my high res model and have started optimising my lowpoly for projection. Thank you Stine for your support :)
One of the coders from work somehow convinced me to buy this book. Reluctantly, or inspired, I ordered the book for a measly 71 crowns ($12). A few days later I had the book in my hand. Three evenings of reading and I had finished the 300 paged book.
I would lie if I say I didn't spawn a tear or two while reading it - bringing back memories of the countless days when wolfenstein, doom and quake stole many hours of sleep playing and making levels. I still remember the wolfenstein editor where I made armies of german soldiers and hidden areas. Even the graphics editor where maximum blood could be added to the sprites.
But what really grabbed my interest was the motivation and fighting spirit of the Id team - their traumatised childhood experience, their "fuck-you" mentality towards the business, the ruthless firing and social isolation of team members that where no longer of any value to the two Johns and eventually how their friendship crumbled.
I was reminded on some very important core lessons of making games and reminded me of why I got into the business in the first place - I just want to make games! I can't understand how this book has evaded my attention until now - history wise it is a must know for game developers.
Well written and high on facts it deserves 5+ out of 6 stars, nothing less. Forget about borrowing my book - my girlfriend has already stolen it ...
I must admit my expectations were a bit off as I thought the book would be more focused on design rather than actual writing stories for games - concluding that a more appropriate title for this book would be "A writers guide to story driven games".
It feels extremely superficial and the use of forms/tables are written over so many pages that they basically become useless. The chapters try to cover every aspect of writing for games and instead of intelligent tools they become rambling of lists and feel more like a dictionary for writers.
It might sound like I am disappointed, but I am actually happy I bought the book. It was on sale, around ten bucks, and with that in mind it isn't really all that bad. It's more of a "remember this and that" flip through than anything, which doesn't hurt to have laying around if you run into a creative wall.
I think 2 stars is adequate. I might add an additional star if I ever use the book to add value to any of my work/projects.
A very inspiring book with surprisingly many eye openers on how to approach the creative development of games and entertainment in general. It does try to cover quite a broad area, sometimes a little too broad - but in the end the suggested techniques actually work extremely well in day to day work - at least the ones I have tried. Gamasutra does a much more thorough review so I won't try to out do them. I would say a MUST READ for anyone interested in game design. 5 out of 6 stars.
Here we go! I admit I don't have the big ambitions as I know there is a very high standard and i feel soooo n0000bish! But still, it's fun! Follow my thread here. For those of you who are unfamiliar with DWIV, DWIV is a gfx-character-olympics tournament between differen't forums. See dominance war web :)
