Monthly Archives: May 2012

Train2Game News: Develop Awards 2012 finalists announced

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Train2Game students see one of the most diverse arrays of finalists ever for this year’s Develop Industry Excellence Awards, with Develop Online unveiling 96 different games industry based organisations have received nominations.

The Develop Awards are there to reward game development studios both big and small for the work they’ve done in the last 12 months. Nominees range from larger studios like Rocksteady, Ubisoft and EA, to microstudios including Thechineseroom and ShortRound Games.

Of course, this is all on top of David Perry set to receive the Games Industry Legend accolade when the awards take place in Brighton on Wednesday 11th July during Develop Conference week.

The full list of Develop Awards 2012 nominations are below.

Who do you think deserves awards? Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

DEVELOP INDUSTRY EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2012: THE FINALISTS

CATEGORY: CREATIVITY

NEW IP
Brink (Splash Damage)
Dear Esther (Thechineseroom)
Frozen Synapse (Mode 7 Games)
Monstermind (Bossa Studios)
My Horse (NaturalMotion Games)
Zombies, Run! (Six to Start)

USE OF A LICENCE
Batman: Arkham City (Rocksteady Studios)
Battlestar Galactica Online (Bigpoint/Artplant)
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 (TT Games)
LEGO Life of George (LEGO Group Denmark)
Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers (Stainless Games)
Peppa Pig (Strawdog Studios)
Team Hot Wheels Apptivity (Big Bit)
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (Doublesix Games)

USE OF NARRATIVE
Batman: Arkham City (Rocksteady Studios)
Dear Esther (Thechineseroom)
Driver: San Francisco (Ubisoft Reflections)
Misfits: Community Service (Mobile Pie)
Where is My Heart? (Die Gute Fabrik)
Zombies, Run! (Six to Start)

VISUAL ARTS
Batman: Arkham City (Rocksteady Studios)
Battlefield 3 (EA Dice)
Dear Esther (Thechineseroom)
Rayman Origins (Ubsioft Montpellier)
Trine 2 (Frozenbyte)
Wonderputt (Damp Gnat)

AUDIO ACCOMPLISHMENT
Battlefield 3 (EA Dice)
Batman: Arkham City (Rocksteady Studios)
Beat Sneak Beat (Simogo)
Driver: San Francisco (Ubisoft Reflections)
Okabu (Hand Circus)
Total War: Fall of the Samurai (The Creative Assembly)
Zombies, Run! (Six to Start)

PUBLISHING HERO
Connect2Media
IndieCity
Indie Fund
SCEE Xdev
Steam
Thumbstar

CATEGORY: TECHNOLOGY & SERVICES

TECHNICAL INNOVATION
Enlighten (Geomerics)
Kinect Sports: Season Two (Rare)
Monstermind (Bossa Studios)
MotorStorm RC (Evolution Studios)
My Horse (NaturalMotion Games)
Circus Challenge (Pitbull Studio)
Team Hot Wheels Apptivity (Big Bit)

USE OF ONLINE
Aurora (nDreams)
Eve Online (CCP)
Monstermind (Bossa Studios)
Minecraft 360 (4J Studios/Mojang Specifications)
PlayStation Home (SCE)
Trials Evolution (Red Lynx)
World of Tanks (Wargaming.net)

VISUAL OUTSOURCER
Atomhawk Design
Axis Animation
Cubic Motion
Dimensional Imaging
Imagination Studios
RealtimeUK
TrioViz

AUDIO OUTSOURCER
Nimrod Productions
Outsource Media UK
Richard Jacques Studios
Side
The Audio Guys
Wave Studios

SERVICES
Audiomotion
LocalizeDirect
Pinewood Studios
Testronic Labs
Universally Speaking
VMC Game Labs

TOOLS PROVIDER
Autodesk
Epic Games
Firelight Technologies
Hansoft
Havok
NaturalMotion
RAD Game Tools
Unity Technologies
Xaitment

ENGINE
BigWorld Client (BigWorld Technology)
CryEngine 3 (Crytek)
Havok Vision Engine (Havok)
HeroEngine (Simultroncs)
Marmalade (Ideaworks 3D)
Unity 3.5 (Unity Technologies)
Unreal Engine 3 (Epic Games)

RECRUITER
Aardvark Swift
Amiqus
Avatar Games
Datascope Recruitment
OPM Jobs
MPG Universal

CATEGORY: STUDIOS

NEW STUDIO
Thechineseroom
Big Bit
Bossa Studios
ShortRound Games
Six to Start
Toxic Games
We R Interactive

MICRO STUDIO
Thechineseroom
Dakko Dakko
Mobile Pie
ShortRound Games
Six to Start
Rodeo Games
Tanukii Studios/Room 4 Games

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Mind Candy
Zattika
Playground Games
NaturalMotion Games
Stainless Games
Rovio Entertainment
nDreams
Wargaming.net

INDEPENDENT STUDIO
Blitz Games Studios
Bossa Studios
CCP
Crytek
Frontier Developments
Mediatonic
Preloaded
Rovio Entertainment

IN-HOUSE STUDIO
The Creative Assembly
EA Dice
Rare
Red Lynx
Rocksteady Studios
TT Games
Ubisoft Montpelier
Bigpoint Hamburg

SPECIAL AWARDS

DEVELOPMENT LEGEND
As previously announced, the winner of this award in 2012 is David Perry, who will attend the gala ceremony to collect the honour.

GRAND PRIX
Our final prize is the ultimate accolade, decided solely by the Develop team and awarded to the European games studio that has made the biggest impact on the business in the last 12 months.

Train2Game industry experience diaries: Ben Stoneman at Unity – weeks 5-10

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Train2Game student Ben Stoneman  is on a Train2Game work placement at Unity. In his latest industry experience diaries, he updates on everything that’s been going on since his previous diary.

Read what he has to say about his Train2Game work placement  here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game Scribd page.

More Train2Game industry experience diaries are right here on The Train2Game Blog. 

Train2Game News: How The Elder Scrolls Online story is being written by Zenimax

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Train2Game students can find out how the story is being written for The Elder Scrolls Online, the upcoming MMO from Zenimax Studios based on Bethesda’s popular RPG series.

Speaking in an exclusive video interview with Game Informer, lead content designer Rich Lambert and creative director Paul Sage discuss the story for The Elder Scrolls Online and how it fits in with Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, and Tamriel as a whole.

They also reveal some of the techniques used at Zenimax to decide on their story, including research, brainstorming and communication with Bethesda Game Studios.

Watch the video over at Game Informer. You can also watch the Elder Scrolls Online announcement trailer below, right here on The Train2Game Blog.

There’s much more about The Elder Scrolls here on The Train2Game Blog, including this post about nearly 14 million mods being downloaded for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

What are your initial thoughts about The Elder Scrolls Online? Do you think an MMO in an established single player universe will work well?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: Call of Duty: Black Ops II will ‘rewrite the rulebook’ say Treyarch

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Train2Game students who play Call of Duty: Black Ops II when it’s released later this year will be playing a game that’s rewritten the rulebook for the popular shooter series.

That’s according to game director David Antony while discussing Call of Duty: Black Ops II and its game design with CVG.

“One of the ways we have been most ambitious is in terms of story. I worked with Hollywood screenwriter David Goyer for about the last three months editing the story on the first Black Ops, and we had a really great time. He genuinely enjoyed it, describing the experience as the most fun he’d had since film school 20 years ago.” he said.

“So we got to the end of the first Black Ops and he’s like ‘Dave, I want to work on the next one from the start. We’ve taken some risks on the first Black Ops; now let’s rewrite the rules about storytelling in games.’ So right from the start it wasn’t a case of thinking how far do we needed to go to satisfy peoples’ expectations… we’re not even thinking about that. We just want to rewrite the rulebook.”

Antony explained how Call of Duty: Black Ops 2’s branching story will work, revealing that there are different outcomes depending on your decisions.”

“So the sandbox levels, these are called Strike Force. Let me explain the overall branching story; you have characters – main characters – in the story who will live or die depending on what you do, and it’s not just what you do – it’s the choices you make and your skill in Strike Force. So depending on how skilful you are on those levels, it’ll actually have an influence on the overall Cold War that’s going on. So that’s one example.” he said.

“You play the game when it comes out in November, and you’re all likely to get different outcomes. So when you get to the end of the game we’re going to make it very clear to you the different things that could have happened.” he added.

Something that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 won’t be getting, as previously reported by The Train2Game Blog, is a new engine. A team of 300 people are working on the game.

Keep reading The Train2Game Blog for all the latest news on Call of Duty: Black Ops II?

What are your thoughts on what Antony says about Call of Duty: Black Ops II?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: Firefall developer diary reveals importance of community feedback to Red 5 Studios

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Train2Game students can get behind the scenes of free-to-play multiplayer third person shooter Firefall in a brand new developer diary from Red 5 Studios.

The developer diary sees VP of development James Macauley and lead designer Scott Youngblood discussing changes that’ve been made to Firefall after feedback from the community. These include getting rid of levelling, changes to gameplay and more.

Watch the Firefall developer diary below, right here on the Train2Game Blog.

Interested in Firefall? You can apply for access to the beta on the official website.

What are your thoughts on the Firefall development diary? How important do you think it is that Red 5 are listening to community feedback?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game student industry experience diaries: Chris Robinson at AppCrowd – week 12

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Train2Game Game Designer Chris Robinson returns with the latest news about his  Train2Game work placement at AppCrowd.

Appcrowd CEO Rick Alexander  is one of the industry professionals that appears in our mentors panel discussion video from Gadget Show Live. 

In his latest industry experience diaries, Chris discusses being able to work as a game designer, and the both the difficulty and importance of making sure a game is balanced.

Read what he has to say about his Train2Game work placement  here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game Scribd page.

There are more diaries from Chris here.  As usual, leave your comments here on this post, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: Play Sleeping Dogs and meet its producer at Square Enix on Thursday

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Train2Game students can get hands on with Sleeping Dogs and take part in a roundtable discussion with United Front Games producer Dan Sochan at a special event on Thursday 24th May.

Sleeping Dogs is an open world crime title in which you play an undercover Hong Kong cop. It was formerly known as True Crime: Hong Kong.

The free Sleeping Dogs community day takes place at the Square Enix headquarters in Wimbledon, South West London, with the opportunity to book a place in one of three timeslots that range from late afternoon to early evening.

Not only will it be great to see an upcoming game before everyone else, but the expertise of Sleeping Dogs producer Dan Sochan could be useful to any Train2Game students that manage to speak with him.

There are full details on how to book your place at the Sleeping Dogs community day on the Square Enix Blog.

Will you be attempting to go to this event? What are your thoughts on the upcoming Sleeping Dogs?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Trainn2Game forum.

Train2Game at Gadget Show Live 2012 – All 4 documentary films (Updated)

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Train2Game student teams took last month’s Make Something Unreal Contest at Gadget Show Live, with the task of building an iOS game based on the prestigious Fighting Fantasy series.

Now, you can see the progress each of the four made through Make Something Unreal Live in a new video from Train2Game! It features industry figures including Cliff Bleszinski, Jon Hare, Peter Molyneux and Ian Livingstone providing advice to Train2Game students as they developed their game.

We have upgraded all the team videos on YouTube, so if you are linking to them you will need the new URLs which you can find below. 

Train2Game at Gadget Show Live 2012 – The Commando Kiwi Story 

Train2Game at Gadget Show Live 2012 – The Derp Studios Story

Train2Game at Gadget Show Live 2012 – The IndigoJam Story 

Train2Game at Gadget Show Live 2012 – The Digital Mage Story

They’re also all available, with much more, on the Train2Game YouTube channel.

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: LittleBigPlanet and Driver: San Francisco writer to talk games writing at GameCityNights

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Train2Game students can get an expert insight into games writing from LittleBigPlanet and Driver: San Francisco writer Dean Wilkinson when he appears at GameCityNights later this month.

GameCityNights are monthly events which take place in Nottingham that explore video games and the culture around them.

Not only does Wilkinson have plenty of experience in video games writing, he’s also written comedy for TV, radio and books.

“This is the first writing-focused gig we’ve staged at GameCityNights, so it’s a privilege and an honour o be welcoming one of the best in the business along” said GameCity Director Iain Simons.

Bennett Foddy, creator of QWOP, GIRP and Pole Riders and Ed Key, creator of Proteus, will also appear at the event sharing their inspirations and aspirations over Skype.

GameCityNights Episode 5 takes place in Nottingham on Thursday 31st May from 6pm. Tickets cost £5 in advance, and can be booked at http://nights.gamecity.org

Previous speakers at GameCityNights include Dear Esther creator Dan Pinchbeck. There’s more information here on The Train2Game Blog.

Will you be going to GameCityNights later this month? What would you be most interested in finding out?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: Mass Effect 3 producer praises benefits of modding for aspiring developers

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Train2Game students looking to show that they have that little bit of extra dedication in attempting to break into the games industry should be building and finishing mods.

That’s according to BioWare producer Michael Gamble, who is currently focusing on Mass Effect 3 DLC.

Speaking to the BioWare Blog, he said building a fully working mod shows potential employers that you can finish something that you’ve started.

“Work on a lot of mods and finish them. This shows that you have the rigor to complete something you have started, and gets you working in a team environment.” said Gamble.

“Developing mods will also show you what it’s like to pour your heart into a creative work, and to expect nothing in return!” he added.

The BioWare producer’s advice is almost identical to what id Software creative director Tim Willits has previously told The Train2Game Blog.

“What I suggest to people who want to get in the industry is find their favourite engine – Unreal, Source, it doesn’t matter, id tech – find whatever engine they like, what games they like to play, get the mod tools and make a mod.” he said.

“And make sure they complete it! Lots of times we have people who send resumes’ in with 20 half completed mods; we don’t want that, we want a handful of one’s that are actually done, and that’s really important.” Willits added.

There’s more advice from industry professionals right here on The Train2Game Blog, while be sure to keep reading for the latest news from BioWare.

What are your thoughts on the advice from BioWare producer Michael Gamble? Are you already following it?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.