Train2Game Game Designer Craig Moore is on a Train2Game work placement at DR Studios. In his latest industry experience diaries, he details what he’s been up at the Milton Keynes based game developer, including feeling the pressure of deadlines.
Read what Craig has to say about his Train2Game work placement here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game Scribd page.
Craig’s previous Train2Game industry experience diaries are here on The Train2Game Blog.
Train2Game students have the opportunity to sign up for beta testing Line of Defense, an upcoming MMO shooter for PC from 3000AD.
Line of Defense is described as “A sci-fi MMOG in which thousands players fight for the control of various bases located on planets in the far reaches of space.”
To register your interest in becoming part of the Line of Defense beta test, register your details on the official website.
You can also watch a newly released official trailer below, right here on The Train2Game Blog.
Beta testing is an excellent way for Train2Game students, especially those on the Games QA Tester course to practice their bug hunting skills. In a recent interview with The Train2Game Blog, Brawl Busters developers Rock Hippo told us that beta testing is “crucial” to the game development process.
For more on beta testing, how it’s useful for Train2Game students, and opportunities to get involved with it, keep reading the Train2Game blog.
What are your initial impressions of Line of Defense? Will you be registering to take part in the beta test?
Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.
Train2Game students have the chance to become a part of Uncharted 3 and experience Naughty Dog’s impressive in-game motion capture techniques first-hand thanks to a competition from Sony.
The Uncharted Audition gives you the chance to become a new multiplayer character for Uncharted 3, meet the Naughty Dog team and experience the motion capture techniques used to build the Sony game series.
To enter, you’ll need to submit a video audition that shows of your heroic abilities, with ten finalists competing at an event in L.A, the winner of which will become an Uncharted 3 character.
The competition launches on the Sony Facebook Page on Friday 9th March with entries open through to Sunday 18th March.
More for information check out the video presented by Nathan Drake himself below.
You can find out more about the motion-capture techniques used to create Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception here on The Train2Game Blog.
So Train2Game, are you as good as Nathan Drake? Will you enter this unique competition?
Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on The Train2Game forum.
Train2Game students see SSX reach the summit of the UK Charts in its first week on sale. The snowboarding title from EA Sports is the first in the SSX series to reach No.1, with a previous best of No.3 with SSX 3 all the way back in 2003.
EA Sports also take No.2, FIFA 12 climbing up the table once again. Mario Party 9 for the Nintendo Wii debuts at No.3, and sits one spot ahead of last week’s No.1, Uncharted: Golden Abyss for PlayStation Vita which drops to No.4. Mario appears for a second time in the top five, after Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games moves up one.
Former No.1 UFC 3 drops to No.6, while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 continues to bounce around the top ten, this week moving up one spot to No.7. EA Sports’ PlayStation Vita title FIFA Football drops to No.8, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations re-enters the top ten at No.9, while Battlefield 3 slips to No.10.
Syndicate, Rayman: Origins and recent chart topper Final Fantasy XIII-2 are among those games to drop out of the top ten.
The UKIE Gfk Chart-Track All Formats Top 10 for the week ending 3rd March 2012 is therefore as follows:
1. SSX (EA)
2. FIFA 12 (EA)
3. Mario Party 9 (Nintendo)
4. Uncharted: Golden Abyss (Sony)
5. Mario & Sonic and the London 2012 Olympic Games (Sega)
6. UFC Undisputed 3 (THQ)
7. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Activision)
8. FIFA Football (EA)
9. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (Ubisoft)
10. Battlefield 3 (EA)
New releases this week include Street Fighter X Tekken and something called Mass Effect 3.
So Train2Game, what are your thoughts on SSX taking top spot? Played any of this week’s new releases? And will Mass Effect 3 be No.1 next week?
Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.
[Source: UKIE Games Charts©, compiled by GfK Chart-Track]
Train2Game students are launching four new development studios in 2012 as part of ‘Make Something Unreal Live,’ a competitive process designed to accelerate their careers by giving them the tools and resources needed to release games for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch this spring.
The studios are Commando Kiwi, Derp Studios, Digital Mage and Indigo Jam.
The first titles released by the studios will be based on the Fighting Fantasy series of books created by Ian Livingston and Steve Jackson.
We caught up with Digital Mage’s Craig Moore to find out how the road to Make Something Unreal Live at The Gadget Show has gone so far. Listen via Train2Game Radio or read it here on The Train2Game Blog.
Hi Craig. Why did you decide to call your Make Something Unreal Live game development team Digital Mage?
Well, originally we were called Team Gandalf, and because we’re using the visage of a mage and everything like that, it just seemed a bit close to the bone in regards to licensing. So, we decided to change to something that was equally wizardy and call ourselves Digital Mage, which actually came about because we found a random name generator online and it happened that upon us. It kind of felt like fate.
And I guess it works well with the Fighting Fantasy IP you’re working on, can you tell us which book in particular your game is based on?
We’re working on Armies of Death.
And what genre is your game going to be?
Luckily for us, we’re making a strategy game, and we’re hoping to do something quite fun and interesting with it within what we can do with the engine itself.
How have you found using UDK on IOS and how are you finding making a strategy game out of it.
In all honesty we’re working against the grain, it feels at the moment. It’s a lot of hard work but hopefully it should be good when we get it all up and running, we’ve managed to make some quite nice headway with it and we’ve got some really good stuff and it’s looking promising. We should be able to deliver the game we want to deliver at the end of it, the game we set out to deliver when we first started planning it all out.
What’s going to make your game different?
There are a lot of strategy games in general out there – tower defence is a huge genre on IOS devices – but one on the Unreal Engine is a completely different story, that’s a bit of a rare beast.
What particular element of strategy are you going for in particular?
We’re doing what we like to call ‘Tower Offence’ where we’re changing the game upsidedown on its head and you’re no longer places all the towers, you’re doing the attacking.
How have you found the transition from being Team Gandalf at the Train2Game & Epic Game Jam, to being Digital Mage, a fully operative game development studio?
It’s a lot of hard work, we have to spend a lot of hours in the evening just communicating things that could be done very easily in face to face situations. But it’s slowly coming together as a lot of people in the team who’d never worked in teams before are getting the hang of it now and it’s all kind of slowly falling into place which is really good. It’s a credit to the team themselves who are coming together nicely and it’s working well.
What targets have you met recently that you’re particularly proud of?
As sad as it sounds, about 1 a.m. last night he had a massive breakthrough. We managed to get all of our units appearing in the game and with little animations. It was kind of a real nice penny drop moment where we thought we could actually do this, and come up with something that potentially could be really cool.
And you’re looking forward to many more of those moments on the road to Make Something Unreal Live at The Gadget Show?
Yeah, hopefully! Fingers crossed we should have lots of more of those and they should just get better and better with each turn.
And how much are you looking forward to the event itself, working on the game in front of potentially a large audience in Birmingham?
It should be fantastic. The size of the crew and the crowd don’t really phase me in any way, it’ll be really nice just to have the team together in one place after all this learning experience building up to it, but having all that power and working knowledge in just one place again will be a really, really nice feeling and it should help us mould even better as a team.
For those who want to find out more about Digital Mage, what are your online contact details for Facebook and Twitter?
They can look for us on Facebook, just search for Digital Mage, we should show up with a little black icon. And on Twitter we’re @DigitalMage.
Great, thanks for time Craig and good luck.
Keep up to date with the latest news from Make Something Unreal Live here on The Train2Game Blog.
Train2Game Blog readers may have seen last month’s post about FPS mech combat title Hawken accepting signups for a closed beta.
The Hawken trailer however, was a little dated, but now Adhesive Games have released a new video featuring more gameplay footage. Watch it below right here on The Train2Game Blog.
Hawken is scheduled for release on 12th December 2012, and will be free-to-play. There aren’t details about when the closed beta will take place yet, but those interested in taking part can register to do so on the Hawken website.
Beta testing is an excellent way for Train2Game students, especially those on the Games QA Tester course to practice their bug hunting skills. Not only that, but in an interview with the Train2Game blog, Trion Worlds Senior QA Tester Karl Tars said that beta testing is potentially a way to get into the industry.
And in a recent interview with The Train2Game Blog, Brawl Busters developers Rock Hippo told us that beta testing is “crucial” to the game development process.
For more on beta testing, how it’s useful for Train2Game students, and opportunities to get involved with it, see the Train2Game blog.
So Train2Game, what are your thoughts on the new video? Will you be applying for a place in the closed beta?
Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.
Train2Game Radio recently interviewed a number of Train2Game students who are set to take part in Train2Game and Epic Games Make Something Unreal Live at The Gadget Show Live between 11th-15th April.
Links to all of the interviews are below, and are divided into the different studios.
Digital Mage (Facebook/Twitter)
Craig Moore of Digital Mage speaking to Train2Game Radio
Laurence Kinane of Digital Mage speaking to Train2Game Radio.
Commando Kiwi (Facebook/Twitter)
Jonny Robinson of Commando Kiwi speaking to Train2Game Radio
Adam Sherratt of Commando Kiwi speaking to Train2Game Radio.
Derp Studios (Facebook/Twitter)
Chris Ledger of Derp Studios speaking to Train2Game Radio.
Stuart Moore of Derp Studios speaking to Train2Game Radio
Ben Stoneman of IndigoJam speaking to Train2Game Radio.
Daniel Rutter of IndigoJam speaking to Train2Game Radio.
Keep reading The Train2Game Blog for the latest news in the run up to Make Something Unreal Live.
Train2Game Art & Animation students have a chance to use their skills to create a weapon for Darksiders II, one that’ll be included within the game at launch. The competition is from THQ and runs on the Polycount forum.
“We are extremely happy to announce our latest contest – The Darksiders II ‘Create a Weapon’ Contest!”reads the announcement.
“For this contest you will be creating a Mace, Axe, or Hammer that would fit in the world of Darksiders. One entry from each category will be chosen to be included in the release of Darksiders II! — That’s right! Not in a future DLC release or a digital download of any sorts – the winning entries will be shipped with the game when it launches!”
Full details about the Darksiders II Create a Weapon Contest, which closes on Monday 26th March, can be found over at Polycount.
It surely provides a great opportunity not only for Train2Game Art & Animation students to show off their skills, but also see their work appear in a major title.
It wouldn’t be the first time Polycount users have seen their content used in a game, with a previous contest providing weapons and accessories for Team Fortress 2.
Will you enter the Darksiders II Create a Weapon Contest? What are your thoughts on THQ and Vigil Games allowing users to submit content?
Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.
Train2Game students might be very interested to hear that Minecraft developer Mojang has hired some new employees, and all of them are from the in-game community.
The four new Mojang employees all come from Bukkit, a community modding group focused on improving Minecraft servers.
The team “will work on improving both the server and the client to offer better official support for larger servers and server modifications.” posted Minecraft lead developer Jens Bergensten on the Mojang blog.
“The plan is to build a fresh server API, and then extend it to support client-side modding. We will try to make it easy for bukkit users to convert if they wish to do so, but backwards compatibility is not guaranteed.
“We will, however, help bukkit to be compatible with 1.2, to avoid having a long gap while you wait for the official Minecraft server to catch up.” he said, before adding that the main reason for the hires is to make Minecraft better.
“We hope that this will help the quality of Minecraft multi-player to improve, both for large and private family servers, while still being able to add fun stuff for the bigger audience.”
It serves as a reminder to Train2Game students about the benefits of modding. You can remind you about that throughout the Train2Game Blog.
Keep keeping The Train2Game Blog, for the latest news from Mojang.
So Train2Game, what are your thoughts on Mojang hiring from the Minecraft community?
Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.
[Source: Mojang]
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