Category Archives: Developer

Train2Game News GameCarver dev tool

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GameCarverIrish software startup Zoodazzle unveiled GameCarver, a new 2D and 3D cross-platform, visually driven game development software.

Created for individual game developers, as well as collaborative game making teams, GameCarver is touted to help make game creation easier, faster and more fun. This is made possible by drawing a clear line between the roles of visual creatives and game programmers, empowering each to focus on their specialist areas, and collaborate without having to learn the others skills.

“Games creators, particularly artists, know that ‘easy to use’ games engines are seldom that easy to use (unless you’re an experienced programmer), “said Ciaran Davies, CEO, Zoodazzle, and experienced game developer. “ If you’re a games artist and you find yourself studying ‘C++ for Dummies’, you know what I’m talking about.

The fact is that many talented games artists simply don’t have time to become good programmers, and the creative side of their work suffers as they struggle with code, and have to constantly switch between creative and technical roles. Even those working with engineers, often need to explore complex code in order to get game play mechanics ‘just right’. It’s not fun, and at Zoodazzle, we believe making games should be as much fun as playing them.

This set-up is not ideal for engineers either, who know how frustrating it is to spend countless hours writing tools to support artists. Or worse, having to wear the ‘artist hat’, and try to create the visual impact artist want. The blending of both roles drains energy from the development process, and often the game suffers for it.

When I started to play around with the idea of GameCarver, almost 5 years ago, it was because I wanted to build a game tool that let both artist and engineers do what they do best, without having to learn the others discipline; allowing game developers to get to the fun fast.”

GameCarver ships with a toolset called Gadgets. Gadgets are like game building blocks, each with its own properties, and set of parameters that are available through a graphical user interface. Artists can ‘tweak’ the object’s properties in the interface by simply changing values. C++ knowledge not required.

Gadgets can be combined to create more complex functionality in the form of Inventions. Coders can create generic Inventions, and the artist can ‘skin’ them by importing resources such as sprites sheets, meshes and materials, audio and sequences of animation.

So that’s good news for engineers too. They won’t have to write tools to support artists, instead they can dedicate their time to creating Inventions with exposed parameters and leave the fine-tuning of game mechanics to the artist/designer.
GameCarver installs with several 2D and 3D game templates, so both artists and coders can quickly familiarise themselves with the software, and start making games immediately. A number of game demos and tutorials are also available from their website, as well as forums to further support game developers.

“We’d encourage people to get in touch via the forums on Zoodazzle.com. We’ve received really useful feedback via email during the beta-release in 2013, and that feedback helped shape this release and previous versions of GameCarver. We’d like to make that an open conversation in the forums now. We want suggestions, feedback, questions, anything that will help us provide support and a platform for developers to share advice and encourage each other.”

With the growing trend in mobile gaming, the timing couldn’t be better for GameCarver. It’s cross-platform publishing capabilities makes it easy for developers to build for popular smartphone and tablet devices; and it’s growing library of Inventions and pre-coded game templates promise to make that process increasingly simple.

Train2Game News Arena of Fate announced

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Arena of FateStep into the shoes of legendary heroes from history and fantasy and lock horns in “Arena of Fate”; an action-packed online multiplayer game coming to PC and consoles soon from Crytek.

Featuring fast-paced 5 vs. 5 battles, Arena of Fate expands Crytek’s range of Games-as-a-Service, and will be playable for the first time at this year’s E3 expo in Los Angeles. Players will be free to choose from a huge roster of famous characters before engaging in star-studded skirmishes with fresh gameplay twists.

Among the iconic figures in Arena of Fate are the likes of Frankenstein, Jack the Ripper and Baron Münchhausen. Tap into their famed traits in battle as you bring Frankenstein back from the dead, use Jack’s cleavers to gruesome effect, and launch across the map on Baron Münchhausen’s cannonball!

Managing Director of Crytek Black Sea and Game Director of Arena of Fate, Vesselin Handjiev, said: “Imagine Joan of Arc and Robin Hood cooperating to hunt down Little Red Riding Hood – Wouldn’t that be terrific? But besides the game’s iconic heroes, which everyone in the team really loves, we are also challenging ourselves to carefully craft a streamlined player experience that allows for both greater accessibility, and rich, deep, action-packed gameplay. We are very excited to meet the first wave of players in the arena this summer, and will be listening carefully to the feedback we receive and making the community’s contribution a key part of our efforts to perfect the fun.”

The game is being developed by Crytek’s Sofia studio, which was established in 2008 following Crytek’s acquisition of Black Sea Studios. Originally founded in 2001, Black Sea Studios made their name with critically acclaimed real-time strategy game “Knights of Honor” and sci-fi online RTS/RPG hybrid, “WorldShift”.

Arena of Fate is scheduled to enter Early Access Beta testing on PC this Summer and players can sign up for a chance to get in on the action at http://www.arenaoffate.com.

You can enjoy the teaser trailer for the game below

Train2Game News Evolve gets a release date

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Evolve2K and Turtle Rock Studios, creators of the cooperative shooter classic Left 4 Dead, today announced that their upcoming multiplayer shooter experience Evolve will be released globally on October 21, 2014.

Evolve expertly blends cooperative and competitive multiplayer experiences as a team of four hunters face off against a single, player-controlled monster. Set on an alien planet in the distant future, players hunt their prey in adrenaline-pumping 4v1 matches. Evolve includes multiple monsters, hunters, game modes, and more than a dozen maps, providing gamers with incredible gameplay variety and nearly limitless replayability.

Playing as the monster you can use savage abilities and an animalistic sense to kill your human enemies, or choose one of four hunter classes (Trapper, Support, Assault and Medic) and team up to take down the beast on the planet Shear, where flora and fauna act as an adversary to man and monster alike.

Earn your infamy on the leaderboards and become the apex predator.

The game will be available for Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation 4 computer entertainment system and PC. Everyone who pre-orders Evolve from participating retailers will receive the Monster Expansion Pack, which includes the Savage Goliath skin at launch, and a new monster character when available after Evolve is released.

You can enjoy the trailer for the game below

Train2Game News GTA V devs on rich brits list

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GTA VDan and Sam Houser have been named among the 1,000 wealthiest Britons, along with a number of other notable games industry names.

The list was compiled and published in The Sunday Times, as spotted by Polygon. The Houser brothers, best known for co-founding Grand Theft Auto firm Rockstar Games, were ranked at No.947, with a combined fortune of £90m ($151m).

However, the richest games industry entry to the list is Mel Morris from Candy Crush Saga creator King. Morris reached No.238 on the list with wealth of £407m ($684m).

This is the first time in six years that The Sunday Times has run its wealthiest Brit list, raising the minimum value of entrants from £80m to £85m.

The Housers’ latest title Grand Theft Auto V made $1bn after just three days on sale when it was released in September.

The games industry is ever growing and I imagine we will see more and more UK games industry personal appearing on the list in the future.

Source: Develop

Train2Game News Batman Arkham Knight Trailer

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Arkham KnightWarner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment have debuted the first gameplay video from Batman: Arkham Knight.

The Official Batman: Arkham Knight Gameplay Trailer – “Evening the Odds” showcases Scarecrow’s return to Gotham City as he schemes to unite the Rogues Gallery and destroy Batman once and for all.  As the citizens flee and criminal gangs take control, the Dark Knight evens the odds by taking to the streets in the legendary Batmobile to ignite the fight that will decide the future of the city that he is sworn to protect.

In the explosive finale to the Arkham series, Batman faces the ultimate threat against the city he is sworn to protect. The Scarecrow returns to unite an impressive roster of super villains, including Penguin, Two-Face and Harley Quinn, to destroy The Dark Knight forever. Batman: Arkham Knight introduces Rocksteady’s uniquely designed version of the Batmobile, which is drivable for the first time in the franchise. The addition of this legendary vehicle, combined with the acclaimed gameplay of the Batman Arkham series, offers gamers the ultimate and complete Batman experience as they tear through the streets and soar across the skyline of the entirety of Gotham City.

You can enjoy the incredible trailer for the game below.

Train2Game News SpecialEffect TwinTown Challenge

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On May 23rd 2014 over 50 cars costing less than £500 will leave games charity SpecialEffect’s Oxfordshire HQ to tackle historic racing circuits including Brands Hatch and Le Mans in the SpecialEffect Twin Town challenge. 

Leamington Spa based developer Playground Games is supporting the charity by becoming track sponsor, bringing the charity closer to their target of raising £100K from the event.

In addition to the support of Playground teams from Exient, SEGA, GamaJun, Atomhawk, Four Door Lemo and Audiomotion are also joining the weekend’s motoring mayhem to support Special Effect’s innovative work for disabled gamers – check out some of the inspiring videos here.

Across the Twin Town Challenge weekend teams will take part in fun challenges including car boxing; laps of Brands Hatch and Le Mans; a James Bond themed evening and an auction for incredible, once-in-a-lifetime prizes covering golf, motorsport, music, beer and cricket as well as unique celebrity-signed signed bottles of Hobgoblin ale brewed exclusively for the event.

Trevor Williams,  COO for Playground Games said, “Associating Playground Games and Forza Horizon with this challenge was a no brainer – although I suspect the cars in Forza are somewhat more presitigious than half the bangers being driven between the Twin Towns! Special Effect is a fantastic charity run by fantastic people that changes people’s lives for the better. Playground is honoured to support such a great organisation.”

Dr Mick Donegan, Founder and CEO added, “The sponsorship and support from Playground Games is a huge boost to the event as we edge ever closer to setting off for the these historic tracks. I would like to thank Trevor and the team for their amazing support”

To bid on some ‘Once in a Lifetime’ experiences including British Grand Prix VIP with Eddie Jordan, Paul McGinley Algarve Golf & Luxury Villa, Oxford United FC Chairman for the Day and much more,  in the Twin Town Auction contact Nick@specialeffect.org.uk  by May 22nd

Train2Game News YouTube to buy Twitch

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TwitchThe Twitch broadcasting service is reportedly being bought by YouTube for for than $1 Billion according to a report.

Twitch is a popular video streaming platform that allows players to broadcast themselves and their gameplay over the internet. The company has seen massive success over the past few years, with Sony and Microsoft opting to integrate Twitch streaming and viewing functionality natively into the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

In its first week of streaming the Xbox One Twitch app hosted over 108,000 unique broadcasters, accounted for 22 per cent of the game streaming service’s total broadcaster base. In December 2013, following the PlayStation 4’s launch, 20 per cent of all Twitch streamers were broadcasting from PS4 systems.

In May 2013, Twitch reported its unique monthly viewership was over 34 million users. In addition to platform holders, the company has entered into partnerships with a number of the industry’s biggest publishers including Ubisoft, EA, Activision and Sony Online Entertainment.

Speaking to Variety, sources familiar with the deal have suggested the Google subsidiary will purchase Twitch “all-cash” and that the announcement is expected to be made imminently.

Source: CVG

Train2Game News Unreal 4.2 rolls out vehicle support

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Unreal VehicleWork continues on Epic Games’ latest iteration of the powerful Unreal Engine with the 4.2 update adding vehicles, camera animations and more.

The new features included in the update were revealed via the Unreal Engine Twitch feed and posted on the tech’s official site.

One of the major addition is full support of vehicles, encompassing four-wheel drive, front-wheel drive and rear-wheel drive vehicles. While the default drive train simulations assumes a vehicle has 4 wheels, any number of wheels will work.

There is even an automobile template to get developers starting on making their own cars or other forms of transportation. To demonstrate how vehicles work in Unreal Engine 4, a sample vehicle game based around off-road racing will be made available for free on the UE Marketplace when 4.2 goes live.

Also on the Marketplace will be a sample of stylised rendering, showcasing the flexibility of Epic’s new engine. This will also be free.

Meanwhile support for camera animations has also been added to the development platform. Building on the CameraAnims established in UE3, UE4 expands on the system with Blueprint support and the ability to use up to eight animations at once.

You can find a full list of the new additions, which also include user-defined Blueprint structures and animation debug features at www.unrealengine.com.

Unreal Engine was launched back in March, with Epic Games announcing the development platform would be available for just $19 per month.

Source: Develop

Train2Game News Halo 5 announced

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The next Halo game has officially been announced as Halo 5: Guardians.

“Any time you transition to a new platform, there is the opportunity to look at things with a new perspective,” wrote 343’s GM Bonnie Ross in a post over on Xbox Wire. “For us at 343 Industries, the launch of the Xbox One was an opportunity to think about what stories we wanted to tell, how to tell them, and how best to push the Halo franchise to showcase the platform. And maybe, most importantly, combining our passion for Halo with the vocal and informative input from our fans.

“Halo isn’t simply a perennial game franchise, it’s a part of the Xbox platform itself,” she continued. “In terms of innovation and ideation, it’s sometimes important to people who might not even play Halo. In the past, Halo games have pushed the Xbox forward, showcasing the console and its ecosystem in entertaining and innovative ways. Making a Halo game that runs at 60 frames per second, on dedicated servers, with the scope, features and scale we’ve been dreaming of for more than a decade, is non-trivial. It’s a task that we, at 343 Industries, are taking very seriously to ensure we deliver the Halo game that fans deserve, and a game that is built from the ground up for Xbox One.

“I’m happy to reveal that Halo 5: Guardians, the next installment in the legendary saga of the Master Chief, will launch on Xbox One in fall of 2015. In the tradition of every Halo game since its debut in 2001, it is a massive and exciting project.”

Ross promised to give further details on the game, and the Halo TV series tie-in, at the Xbox E3 Media Briefing next month in LA, but she did say that Halo 5: Guardians was “a bigger effort than Halo 4. That applies to the content and scope of the game, as well as the technology in what’s now a brand new and more powerful engine. Certainly there are some core elements carried over from prior games, but we’ve invested a huge effort in retooling our tech to take full advantage of the Xbox One’s hardware and ecosystem to create worlds and experiences worthy of next-gen.”

2015 is a bit of a way off though, so to keep us on our toes, 343 also hinted at more, “extra special” Halo news coming at E3 this year. It said that the new Halo franchise endeavors are a “journey,” and that that journey begins in 2014.

Train2Game News Rockstar planning next gen game

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Rockstar_GamesRockstar Games is working on an unannounced new-gen game planned for release sometime this fiscal year, parent company Take-Two revealed in a conference call with investors.

Its 2015 fiscal year began in April 2014 and will end in March 2015. Take-Two confirmed in the call Tuesday that Rockstar has not announced any presence at E3 2014 next month.

It did not provide any indication of what the game will be, whether it will represent an existing franchise or a new IP from the studio. Rockstar has not announced any new projects since shipping Grand Theft Auto V in September 2013.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said Rockstar is expected to account for 45 per cent of the firm’s fiscal year 2015 revenue.

It has long been rumoured that Rockstar plans to release a PS4 and Xbox One version of GTA 5, which has shipped 33 million units on PS3 and Xbox 360. However, the company has largely refused to comment on the possibility of a new-gen release for the blockbuster open-world game.

Rockstar said last year: “We don’t have anything to share about the possibility of a next-gen or a PC platform release at this time and we are completely focused on delivering the best possible experience for the consoles people have right now.”

In July 2013, Zelnick referred to Red Dead Redemption as one of the publisher’s “permanent” franchises, perhaps suggesting that a sequel to 2010’s game is being worked on behind closed doors.

In the same month, Take-Two filed two trademark registrations for Agent, indicating that the publisher hadn’t given up on the idea of releasing the Rockstar North game.