At the end of September Train2Game were at Eurogamer held in London’s Earls Court.
Below is the video from the event which has interviews with several students talking about their experiences with Train2Game and the Microsoft world record winning Game Jam.
Sam Hawkins, level designer for Derp Studios spoke to me about his life and where he wants to go with his career.
You can listen to the interview here: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1073130-train2game-student-sam-hawkins-talks-to-mark-on-t2g-radio
Or read the transcript below:
Hi, I’m Sam Hawkins. I’m from Chelmsford, Essex and I am on the Designer Course.
What’s your story Sam, what are the past experiences that have shaped your life?
Well starting from the beginning, I used to do a lot of Bmxing back in my original home town of Dagenham. It was a big group of us that used to do it, we used to go around streets of Dagenham and Romford, originally just around Essex at first, just doing street Bmxing. Eventually we just started getting around the UK, it was really good fun. After that, I moved to Chelmsford, where I am now where I did a bit of college for a year, doing Engineering. After that I took a real passion for music, it was relit from school. Music has always been a passion of mine and I played drums for a rock band for about 2 or 3 years. Then I found this course and I’ve been doing this ever since.
You’re also the main level designer for Derp Studios, had you done much level design before that?
Prior to the Game Jam that we had last year, no. None at all I have kind of just taken to it really well, it’s like finding my calling.
Do you think that’s what you are going to go on to in the industry its self. You want to aim for more level design stuff?
Yeah 100%.
Do you think that stems from your Engineering in college?
Possibly, yeah. When I was doing Engineering at college it was drummed into me that everything I made was 100% perfect. I loved the feeling of actually building something and getting my hands in to it. I’ve always admired the way levels have been played out in front of me, how they’ve been designed or engineered. I think it’s fascinating.
So out of all the things you’ve done with the Bmxing and everything like that, what do you thinks the most dramatic or exciting thing you have done through your life?
Being in the band, prior to The Gadget Show that was in the beginning of this year that was the pinnacle of what I have been doing so far. Before that it was being in the band. At one point we actually got signed for a little bit.
How’s Dire Consequences doing on the iOS store now?
I think it’s doing OK, It’s been received quite well. We actually do have a patch coming out for it very soon, to add new levels. There’s also been a lot of people giving us some really good feedback, some really good creative criticism, that we can take from and build on it.
Yeah, so are you happy with the game then and how it’s all turned out?
Yeah I am. It’s been really good fun working for it, also stressful at the same time, as most projects probably will be.
So how does it feel to be published?
It’s fantastic, it’s absolutely fantastic! I couldn’t believe it when I heard it
Do you think it will open up your gaming prospects and your prospects for your career and everything?
Oh definitely. When you look at applying for a job in the industry, a lot of people want Designers or Programmers or whatever to have experience. With this behind my belt it is going to be a lot easier if I do venture out to look at other studios.
What’s your big game plan for the future Sam?
For the time being I am just concentrating on getting the course done and a lot of portfolio work that needs doing. Other than that I am going to be working for Derp Studios for a lot longer, get as many games under my belt as I can and really try and establish ourselves as a company as well. If we can do that and be really successful then I’ll just take it from there really! I may venture off into a much bigger studio but at the moment I’ll stay with Derp.
Well I think that’s all we’ve got time for today Sam, so thank you very much!
Thank you very much for your time Mark. Thank you
Cheers Buddy
Bye
Amanda Blatch
So this week (I am going to repeat myself from the last time I’m sure) I am still plugging away at the in-game UI. It’s been taking a long time to get it right but it’s starting to get there as everyday we’re finding things that need improving upon or can be done differently. Again, some things that may seem simple… never are. Or they are, but you do them in a million different ways (ok, maybe a dozen then.) to try and find that ‘perfect’ one. Most of the work has now been done for the game art-wise as far as I am aware, it’s just a matter of putting it all together and getting it out there for testing so we can try and ‘break’ the game to find all its weak spots and improve upon those issues.
The new project has been confirmed, however it’s still in the early stages of concept so it’ll probably be another couple weeks or so before any work can be done for it. So far the concepts are looking good and it’s on a subject matter I love! I’m hoping I can stick around here long enough to see that game all the way through and done in a way that has been talked about briefly. Exciting stuff..
Anyways, that’s it from me now.. this diary has taken me nearly four hours to write as I am working at the same time as doing this because… distraction!
Same time next week munchkins.
Craig Moore
We took some major strides this week in the look and feel of the game and it, thankfully, really is coming together. As much as we all learnt from the creation of My Sea Park, I feel that we have learnt even more from this one and it just means the next one is going to be, yet again, even better!
With the game coming together and Art having more free time, work has been going into promotional activities, icons, and the like as we gear up towards early artwork for the next title. The desire is to almost be working on two titles at the same time, as one comes to a close another one starts up so that we are constantly working on something with no downtime; it really is the best use of our time and makes the office like a little beehive.
I have a fun weekend of Train2Game work prepared this weekend, I am pretty much on my final portfolio piece, a behemoth of a document that will take me a few weeks but I am aiming to get it done before Christmas; and then that is me done. It will be weird feeling that I have actually come to the end of the course and hopefully I will pass, maybe more. Fingers crossed my experience here at DR along with my new qualifications should set me up for something bigger!
In yet other news, for those not aware, the Wii-U launches in the states on Sunday. I am incredibly interested in it having not had chance to give it a bash at Eurogamer and am particularly interested in consumer reception of it, particularly certain games like ZombiU.
Till next week!
Craig
Matty Wyett Simmonds
This week has been busy as usual, I’ve been mostly changing and editing the games ‘world’ this week which has been a very heavy job (I made the world myself, just didn’t make it easy to edit). I’ve been remaking and adding a lot of things to improve on the users experience with the game, making some things more obvious for the users where needed. Other than that I can’t really say much, as this is the only thing that’s taken up my entire week. I stayed late on Thursday on my own this time, ordered me some takeaway and blasted music on the sound system. I had to get things done for Friday morning!
I think my week has been pretty quiet to be honest. I’ve had goals to work towards and have been trying my best to get things done as fast as I can. Planetside 2 Beta is now closed and the game is being launched on the 20th! It’s free to play so no one has an excuse not to get it and play the game with me ^^. I’ve enjoyed the game so far and plan to continue playing it. Comparing it to another FPS such as Blacklight for example, I found that Blacklight was easier, people have less health/the guns have more damage than planetside2 and it makes for some pretty epic fights where you won’t die instantly and you won’t be able to kill anyone easily. If you do play the game before to drop me a message first to see what server I’m on ^^
Anyway, that’s all for this week as I need to get back to work now. Plus I’m running out of virtual ink.
MattyWS
ART
Job Title Artist
Job Category Art / Animation
Skills Required Animator, Character Artist, Environment Artist, 2D / Concept / Texture Artist, UI Artist
Location Dundee
Job Description
We are looking for great artists to join our established art team. Artists with the passion and drive to create amazing, fun, characterful, mass-market games. Games the world wants to play. With the exceptional creative and technical art skills to create fun, addictive games, you will be contributing to the delivery of Outplay’s innovative, engaging and massively enjoyable games across the mobile and social gaming landscape.
What are you waiting for? Is this you?
The Person
• Ability to establish and maintain the creative vision for the next generation of social mobile games, producing concept sketches, illustrations and production artwork/animation in a variety of styles.
• Collaborates well with Art team and other disciplines
• Develops and manages asset pipelines
• Ability to take concept art to finished production level art
• 3D art and animation skills
• Graphic design/UI skills
• Several years of digital illustration, graphic design and/or 2D animation experience
• Demonstrable flexibility in style ranging from cheerful, cartoon illustration to more detailed, grittier artwork
• Solid working knowledge of 2D art production and tools including Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator
• Knowledge of current mobile, Facebook and casual games and passion and vision to help craft the next generation of social mobile games
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Ready to adapt in a rapidly changing, fast-paced creative environment
• Able to take direction well and, as required, constructively provide direction and guidance to others
• Able to handle multiple responsibilities, collaborate and excel in small team environments
The Extras
• Experience developing art for online, mobile, casual and/or social games
• Game design and/or creative writing ability
To apply go to: http://www.outplayentertainment.com/jobs/
DEVELOPER
Job Title Tools Programmer – Sumo Digital
Job Category Programming
Skills Required Tools
Location Sheffield, UK & Europe
Job Description Sumo Digital is one of the UK’s most prolific and secure independent game developers.
Since our inception in 2003, we’ve had a string of successful titles across all gaming platforms for partners that include SEGA, Codemasters, Sony, EA, BBC, Konami and many more.
Though most renowned for our action/arcade sensibilities through the success of franchises such as Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing, Virtua Tennis and OutRun, Sumo has also garnered much commercial and critical praise for the consistent quality, ambition and playability of its involvement in many other series of games including the F1, Doctor Who, Broken Sword, New International Track and Field, and TOCA titles (as well as numerous PSN/XBLA games).
We are currently working on a number of unannounced but extraordinarily exciting AAA games across all formats and we’re looking for team members with the drive, passion and ambition that will help us make those games the best they can be.
The Role:
The Tools Programmer will be responsible for designing, implementing and maintaining software tools and processes in all disciplines. This may include but is not limited to interactive editor-style visual tools as well as automated pipeline or build system tools.
Essential Job Functions
– Design, implement and maintain software tools for art, design, production and programming.
– Continuously improve the user experience and performance of our tools.
– Create and maintain technical software documentation.
– Work closely with the other disciplines to identify and resolve workflow & pipeline problems.
– Work closely with the tool users to assess and debug problems with our tools.
Knowledge Requirements:
– Minimum 2 years experience in a relevant role
– Experience from outside the games industry or outstanding demos will be considered.
– C++
– MFC or other GUI toolkit experience (wxWndows, Qt, etc..)
– Experience using source control systems (e.g. Perforce, CVS, SVN)
Preferred Knowledge
– C#
– Maya API, MEL, 3dsMax SDK, MaxScript
– Scripting (python/perl/etc…)
– Knowledge of game content creation pipelines and tools
– Strong maths skills, especially in trigonometry and linear algebra
– Knowledge of games systems (3D graphics, animation, camera control, lighting)
– UI design experience
– Any SQL and/or .Net
Demonstrated Ability To:
– Work well/respond to pressure
– Communicate effectively within a large group/multiple project environment
– Think critically and apply analytical skills in resolving complex issues
– Quickly master proprietary tools and development processes
– Debug complex systems.
Email: careers@sumo-digital.com
Website: www.sumo-digital.com/career
DESIGN
Job Type: Permanent
Job Category: Games and Level Design
Region: UK
Area: East Anglia
County: Cambridgeshire
Location: Cambridge
Salary Description: Competitive
Recruiter: Frontier Developments Ltd
Innovative gameplay has been one of Frontier’s core strengths over the years, and is something we continue to focus on in all our developments. Designers have a central role in developing our games, and will work closely with art and programming colleagues on a game project.
We are looking for designers who are full of creative flare and enthusiasm and have a passion for, and extensive knowledge of, games and gameplay. The roles are varied – both original IP and AAA licenses feature in our strong project line-up, spanning a number of game genres, and our reputation for compelling gameplay is achieved by our designers contributing fully at all stages of our game developments, from concept through to final gameplay balance.
After initially influencing the basic design of a game level, designers will use Frontier’s game editor and scripting system to implement their own design concept through to the final gameplay detail, and can expect to be involved in extensive play-testing.
Successful applicants must have a broad experience of playing games, and be able to demonstrate a good understanding of player mentality / psychology and gameplay mechanisms. Successful candidates will also have excellent verbal and written skills, possess the ability to work closely with a team, have excellent communication skills and ideally be educated to degree level. Experienced candidates should have at least one AAA game design to their name.
Experience of game editors (e.g. Unreal Editor, Worldcraft or Quake editors), basic 3D modelling skills and / or experience of scripting systems (e.g Unrealscript etc.) will be an advantage.
Industry experience is important but not essential, as long as you have examples of high quality work that you have done. These do not need to relate to a game, but should show off your talent.
Please apply either by email (including a CV and any showreel/demos) to designerjobs@frontier.co.uk, or by surface mail to the address on the ‘contact us’ page of this website.
QA
Job Type: Permanent
Job Category: QA and Localisation
Region: UK
Area: South East
County: Oxfordshire
Location: Oxford
Salary Description: Competitive
Recruiter: NaturalMotion Games
Role Summary:
NaturalMotion is looking for a tester to work on its upcoming mobile platform titles. This is a full time, contract position with an expected minimum duration of 3 months.
Daily duties will include testing and reporting issues discovered, working to use and improve test cases and working with small, project-based teams to ensure efficient testing throughout a project’s life.
While extensive testing experience is ideal, it is not strictly necessary and a little testing experience combined with enthusiasm and additional transferable skills is welcome and there will be a chance to learn and train with the testing team.
Testing will cover such areas as the user interface, menu items, inspecting the 3D assets for errors, gameplay, progression, and all other non-gameplay areas in addition to the game itself. Diligence and the ability to commit to repetitive tasks will be required in these roles.
Requirements:
– Excellent verbal and written English skills as you will be required to communicate with staff from all disciplines (both technical and non-technical) and to write clear bug reports.
– Self-motivation and enthusiasm.
– Diligence in conducting sometimes-repetitive tests and bug isolation.
– Ability to quickly learn new software tools.
– Knowledge of current generation games and hardware.
– Knowledge and use of mobile platforms (such as iOS and Android)
– Previous experience of software testing (including mobile and/or social games)
Desirable additional Skills/Experience:
– Experience of software testing on several different titles.
– Familiarity with testing on the iOS and Android platforms.
– Experience in using bug-tracking and test management tools.
– Experience testing in an Agile environment.
– Understanding of and design of Test Cases.
-Working knowledge of a programming or scripting language.
You can apply HERE.
Chris Ledger spoke to me about the rise of Derp Studios and having their game released on the app store.
You can hear the interview here: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1062901-train2game-chris-ledger-talks-to-mark-on-t2g-radio
Or read the transcript below
Hey I’m Chris Ledger, I’m on the Train2Game Designer course and I live in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
What’s your story? What are the past experiences that have shaped your life to who you are today?
The Train2Game design course even in its early stages did. I managed to do a few Portfolio Pieces, A High Concept Document and other working style documents. I managed to show that to a small iPhone developer and my first project that I worked on was licensed. The second one was the Game Jam in 2011, which was hosted by Train2Game and Epic Games. I was chosen as an individual to make the fourth team to go on to Make Something Unreal Live where we worked on a project which used the Fighting Fantasy license. The company, Derp Studios, which was The Gadget Show Live Team, just released their first title, Dire Consequences on the iOS store.
Tell us a bit about the game
The game, it’s a first person action game. It’s a wave game for iOS and you can buy optional spells, the more enemies you defeat you get souls. You can use the souls to get spells to help you through the waves. That’s the gist of it really. At one point, I nicknamed it horde with swords because it’s a wave mode like Gears so I thought horde with swords was the best way to describe it.
That’s a good way to describe it I think. So is this work for you now? Is this what you do for a job?
I did make Derp Studios a limited company in, I guess around April time, just after Gadget Show Live I think. We are planning to go ahead and make it a business and earn a bit of money from it, which will be nice. Even though it’s still like a hobby it feels but we do want to make money out of it as well.
How did you get that to happen?
There’s websites you can actually go through to register as a company. It doesn’t actually cost a lot. Well it can build up over time because you’ve got to get all the documents. I used a website called TheCompanyWarehouse.co.uk which is quite good. I actually signed the company up for a pound but you’ve got to pay for other things like helping you with documents and things because there is loads to do to set up a company, more than you’d ever imagine.
Do you think Derp Studios will enter the Power Up competition by Microsoft and if you do, do you have any early game ideas yet?
We would like to try that. We have been discussing it I can’t really say for certain if we’ll go ahead and do that. I know we do want to make a second project so that will start quite soon.
One thing that I have always wondered is why did you end up calling the studio Derp Studios?
Oh no, explaining this again! People usually ask that. Well in the early stages we didn’t know what to call ourselves and we were unknown for a while. Because we are all quite new to making games, we kept making mistakes and would say “Oh that’s a Derp mistake”. The most common phrase was “Oh Derp”. So it just kind of went from there.
What is your reason for getting into the gaming industry and how do you think getting into the games industry will change your life?
Well it’s changed my life already but I have always wanted to be in the gaming industry, ever since I was about 8 or something. I just wanted to give something back really to the gaming community and actually live out the dream of becoming a designer that I’ve had since a very early age.
How is Dire Consequences doing on the iOS App Store?
Better than I thought it would to be honest. I forget how big the iOS market is. We shoved it out there and we were over the moon when it was actually on sale. We had some quite good reviews but our average rating is 2 stars but I thought we are quite novice still and it is still quite buggy. People have been pointing it out, issues that they would like to see resolved and how we can improve it, which is absolutely great hearing feedback from a customer audience that have actually played it and experienced it, so that’s proven quite valuable. I think in the first week we have had three thousand downloads.
That’s Excellent. Thank you very much for your time Chris!
No Problem.
Train2Game student Gareth Brook talks to T2G radio about his time in the army and how it has affected him today.
You can listen to part one here: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1056755-train2game-student-gareth-talks-to-mark-part-1
Part two here: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1056750-train2game-student-gareth-talks-to-mark-part-2
or read the transcript below.
Hi I’m Gareth Brook and I’m on the games designer course and I live in Leeds, England.
What’s your story? What are the past experiences that have shaped your life and made you who you are now?
You could go back to my Army days, I joined the Army at the age of 16 after leaving school and that had a big role to play in who I am today. It turned me into the man I am, made me grow up very quickly. I spent five years working mostly over in Northern Ireland, that’s where my one and only posting was, for about three years. I worked as a telecommunications technician and working a lot in IT systems as well as that. After leaving it, it got me in to IT, not something I particularly wanted to spend the rest of my life in but it was paying the bills, it was OK money and I was good at it so for the time being I was still wondering what to do with my life and it’s only recently that I’ve actually come to a decision. It’s a decision that was easy to make and it’s one that I should of made years ago really.
You mentioned that you were in the Army, has that influenced your game designs at all?
I’m not to sure. The ones I am working on at the moment, I would probably say not too much. I’m not quite at the level where I’m putting out first person shooters and that kind of thing on a military scale. I think it will have some influence in the future because all though I have been a civilian for seven or eight years now I think, I don’t believe anyone that’s spent a fair amount of time in the forces will ever become 100% civilian. I am still a squaddy at heart and I think it is going to influence me in the future. Things like the discipline from the Army and things like that, it’s stuff that’s going to stick with me forever.
What made you decide to leave the Army in the end?
It was a family decision in the end, I decided to choose my family over my career in the Armed forces. It’s a single mans game is the army.
I know you’ve got a fiancé now and a couple of kids as well.
That’s right, yeah. I’ve got a step son and we have a daughter together that’s just turned one.
So how do you find your time to study and do all your games design and being a Father at the same time?
It was fine, it was OK, but in the last few months my daughter’s started crawling and she is getting in to everything and with my fiancé working, times have gone where I could crack on during the day whilst my daughter was just in a bouncer. Now she’s everywhere it’s pretty hard during the day to try and get anything done. I’m a bit of a night crawler though so I do quite a lot in the early hours of the morning.
After you left the Army then, what did you do after that did you say?
I worked as an IT contractor, short term contracts. I started off in a place in Cumbria, where I was working for a company called B.A.E which were developing the latest and last Hunter Killer class submarine at the time. Then it was back down to Leeds, where I was brought up, I worked all over Leeds, different contracts in Wakefield, York and then a lot of it was on the road visiting different clients, down the M64 corridor, that sort of thing. As far north as Middlesbrough, as far south as Leicester and Coventry.
So you’ve had quite the versatile life then?
I’d say so yeah! I’m turning thirty in April but most of the people that I know don’t seem to have had as many life experiences as I do. I feel a bit old before my time if you ask me!
Out of all the things you have done what do you consider the most dramatic or exciting thing you have done?
That’s a bit of a difficult question to answer considering everything I’ve done. I suppose the most exciting thing is beginning the path in the games industry. After twenty nine years on this planet it feels like a decision I should of come to a decade ago and it’s just such a perfect fit. Dramatic? Any number of things for the last year, my life is filled with drama. If you ask my best friend he’ll say “It’s just like watching a soap opera.”
What brought you to the idea of finally getting in to the gaming industry?
I think it was just on a whim really. I was bored in the current job that I was previously in. I wasn’t bored as such but I didn’t want to do it for the rest of my life, that much I know and I thought OK, what am I going to do? I would mill around with different ideas in my head thinking I could do this or I could do that but nothing really seemed to jump out at me and say right this is what I’m meant to be doing with the rest of my life. I looked around trying to find courses in Video Games industry and I came across Train2Game’s website and I thought, Oh this looks pretty good, so it went from there.
What is your big game plan for the future, what are you aspiring to be?
Well right now as I am still in the designer course, anything in a design capacity would be great to get me in the industry. Long term future I would say I’d be interest in the production sides of the games industry. That’s something I’m not involving myself in heavily at the moment but it’s something I’ve always got the corner of my eye on. Picking up knowledge where I can about the role.
After being in the Army, what do you think of games like Call Of Duty and Modern Warfare, games like that. How do you compare them?
It’s probably best comparing a game like Battlefield rather than Call Of Duty. Call Of Duty, I can’t really compare that, everyone really plays that for the multiplayer and it’s just not realistic at all. Battlefield, more so but I don’t think it’s ever going to be, or should be, as realistic as possible because it is quite different. A game still has to be a game and has to be fun. All though I was in an operational place, it wasn’t Afghanistan or Iraq and I’m sure people that I know will tell you that it’s not something they would like to sit down and live out for two hours a night in front of a computer.
Right, so thank you very much Gareth!
No problem!
Fiona Stewart spoke to BBC Radio Leeds recently. You can listen to the interview in the link below or read the following transcript.
http://audioboo.fm/boos/1049459-train2game-student-fee-stewart-on-bbc-radio-leeds-8-november
So what to do then if you are a talented budding artist but you hate the smell of paint? Well our next guest has just the answer you decide to start drawing art work for computer games and use a PC as your easel and brush. Fiona Stewart from Holmfirth has become so successful at this that the biggest company in the world has given her financial backing. Hi Fiona
Hello
What happened was it a sudden hatred of paint or had you always had it?
No, after I had the children it became more difficult obviously, with three kids running around the house and the paint drying and things like that, the smell and everything became more and more difficult as the kids were starting to grow up.
And it’s not a natural move then for someone who creates with a canvas say, to someone who designs games. How did that transition happen?
Well a friend of mine made 3D models and she asked if I could texture for her because that’s more sort of drawing and I started doing that then decided I actually wanted to make the 3D models as well and do the whole process.
How fascinating. What sort of things do you actually design now then, what do you work on?
Well I work on video games now, so we make apps, console games, games for 3DS and Android phones things like that.
So does it feel like art in the way it did perhaps pre-kids, when you were doing what most people listening to us would consider conventional art?
I actually think its more artistic. If you look at video games and things, the amount of art work thats in it is a good proportion of the actual game its self. I feel more that I’m contributing in an artistic way perhaps more than I did when I was doing it on canvas.
Of course, probably our best known Bradford artist, David Hockney he does so much of his work on the iPad now, doesn’t he?
Yes he does, yeah.
What about this backing from Microsoft then, how did that come about?
Well I met with Microsoft and showed them the game we have been making from the beginning of January. We did a Game Jam up in Scotland and won various awards and got BAFTA nominated for the New Challenge Award. So I showed him the game and he was very interested in it and it would make a very nice game on the Windows 8 mobile platform. He thought we would do very well, so he has been helping us
That’s rather nice and probably rather different from what most struggling artists experience in terms of funding supplies.
Yes, we have been very lucky really in so much that Microsoft have given us BitSpark programme, which is £30,000 worth of software that we can use and integrate throughout the whole of the team so that we are all using the same platform and various talks with other start ups which is very helpful as a start up.
Well good luck, it’s not the easiest of climates to be heading into any sort of start up business. Can I just ask you finally, do you miss the traditional art stuff or do you ever dabble occasionally?
It’s becoming more and more rare that I do because doing it digitally it’s there instantly, I don’t have to wait for any paints to dry. I am still being incredibly artistic but not having to wait around for things to dry.
Fascinating Fiona, really good to speak to you thanks for your time this afternoon. Fiona Stewart from Holmfirth on BBC Radio Leeds.
Fiona was also featured in develop magazine and you can read that in the link below.
Very well done Fiona! Good luck with everything.
Amanda Blatch diary – week 8
Another week, another diary.. I think I may actually be running out of things to talk about. Doesn’t mean the work has stopped, it just means I am still working on the UI and it would seem a little tiresome to just repeat myself about the same thing as last week so I will keep this brief for you guys reading this.
The game itself is getting cleaned up pretty well now and we’re so close to completion, trying to beat the clock and get the game submitted in time for the end of this month for release. Alongside that one of the in-studio artists is starting to work on the concepts for the new project so it’s something we can see it breathed into life in the next week or so, all quite exciting here at DR! We have also seen the departure of one of the T2G students who will be missed in the studio, we wish him the best of luck in the future with his career as an animator!
So apart from that, there isn’t much else to talk about soooo… till next week again.
Craig Moore Student Diary – Week 51
This week has been another incredibly busy one, adding polish and “fun” to the game is much more difficult than you would expect when it relies heavily on the balance of numbers as well as a lot of subjective reasoning. It does however feel like it is making some headway and the game inside what we have made is slowly rearing its pretty little head and hopefully it will blossom soon.
Tutorials are probably the bane of my life right now; they are so incredibly hard to get right. This really fine balance between hand holding and making the player feel like they aren’t on a linear path, you just kind of need to say “this is what you need to know to play the game, therefore I need to tell you X,Y,Z”. Balancing that and pacing it seems to be a fine art though…
It is Eze’s last week this week, he has done some awesome work for us while he has been here and it will be a shame to see him go. He has a lot of opportunities ahead of him though and I look forward to seeing what he gets up to in the future.
Time to get back to the grind!
Craig
Matty Wyett Simmonds – week 49
This week has been a bit of a bug fixing week for me, no real sprint, more just doing what I can to fix any issues, there is still lots to do though of course! There is always lots to do but never enough time, but now I’ve been given some freedom to work on the things that have been bugging me for a long time ^^.
During the weekend we had a small gathering at hour house to say good bye to Ezekiel who has just left. He’s been here for 6 months which is a long time and a lot of experience, so hopefully he jumps right into another decent job somewhere quickly.
Over the weekend I finally got some free time to do whatever! I played some planetSide 2, some halo 4 and even worked on my own project for a bit which is slowly coming along nicely. I was using GameMaker 8 to make an RTS game called Data Wars, however due to some annoying issues and limitations I jumped ship and have moved to Unity where I need to start from scratch. Nothing is salvageable because they are both very different programs (one being 2D and the other 3D for starters). I moved to unity because although it will be harder to work with, it will give me more freedom and potential features that could not be done in Gamemaker, which seems to be a terrible program for RTS games. 😛
Anyway, more to do at the studio now, till next week!
MattyWS
Train2Game Student Fiona Stewart, or Fee The Giraffe on the Train2Game forums, was interviewd by BBC Radio Leeds yesterday.
She discusses her move from traditional art to 3D Modelling and how her dislike of the smell of paint came about. She also explains how she got funding from Microsoft for FormerDroid LTD where she is the Managing Director.
You can listen to the interview by clicking on the picture below
Matty Wyett Simmonds 5.11.12
Week 48! Not much change going on at the moment, we are edging ever so closer to the release of the current game and things are tightening up here, people are staying later and the game itself is starting to look pretty good. I’ve not been so much making art over the last week, I’ve been doing more putting stuff together which makes a change, and playing more with particle effects which is so much fun! I went crazy and started adding lots of cool stuff like ripples in water and sparks flying about. Not too detailed though but still fun.
My phone recently updated to jellybean (have an SIII) and it’s been awesome! It’s already guessed where my house and work place is and gives me travel times without prompt as well as recommending places to go eat or visit around where I am. It also showed me cute pictures of puppies as I went past a dog kennel, I think it knows me too well.
MattyWS
Craig Moore Student Diary Week 50
So after my “emo” week last week I feel a bit better about everything, having had a chance to talk through things with a couple of the other guys and step back a bit and refocus things feel much clearer and we have been able to iron out some major bumps which is a fantastic feeling.
I suppose it is something that comes only with experience, that ability to pull yourself back from an intense project and try to notice the problems, reassess them and then dive back in correct them and continue on with the same vigour and determination.
Suffice to say it ended up being a good week, we made some major changes and the project is better for it. I still can’t believe how close we are to getting this released but still haven’t announced anything, it feels incredibly covert, but maybe it’s for the better until we have something we are incredibly proud of.
In other news, I managed to get another Portfolio Project done at the weekend, really putting me in good stead for getting the course finished by the end of the year. It leaves me with one more to do before I am done, if it wasn’t absolutely humungous it wouldn’t be too bad.
Anyhow, I have stuff to do and not a lot of time to do it!
Till next week
Craig
Ezekiel Morris – Final Developers Diary
This is my last developer diary, so, what have I learned since starting work experience, well I have learned about production workflow, collaborating with other members of the project team, animation layers in 3d max and maya and also shotcut keys in photoshop.
I feel that all of these new skills will help me in the furutre, my next step is to develop the skills and keep getting better, so my main priority is this, stay focussed and progress, never lose site of what you really want, concentrate and study. I say knowledge is power and with great power requires the right knowledge to keep it, so when I say focus I break up the words.
F -stands for Follow
O – stand for On
C- stands for Course
U – stands for Until
S – stands for Successful
Doing this has been a good experience and I would like to say thank you to everyone for guiding me and also giving me good advice, this experience has opened my eyes.
The experience was stressful but I went thought it and the end result is I finished all of my sprints, so once again thank you Train2Game for arranging this and DR Studios for having me, much appreciated.
Amanda Blatch week 7
Soooooo…. this week’s diary. Not too sure what to say to be honest, I have finally gotten through all the characters that are needed in time for the deadline so far and have been focusing almost entirely on UI this week. My job has been to clean up and ‘prettify’ it where needed, adding additional bits and bobs that could help improve the gameplay and user navigation. It’s strange how UI isn’t as easy as it would seem, I have a folder load of disused ideas and sketches of UI which wouldn’t make it to game and, still, two days later I can’t come up with the perfect button that can be universally used across the game. Hell, I even have a few versions of a ‘X’ all of which are un useable in-game as it doesn’t really fit in. UI is not really my strong suit but still good practice and helps work my brain around a different way of thinking. With any luck I could turn that around today and come up with something that makes everyone happy!
Oh and the splash image has been completed and the font bought for the game so now we have something that really fits in and looks good. Hopefully that will be unveiled to you guys very soon. We are so close to the end (and yet feels so far away), some of the DR team are slowly being funnelled across to the next project which is being unveiled to us today so the transition between projects is easy and swift for everyone once this one ends. It’s all quite exciting!
Again, till next week where I will probably have more exciting things to write about for you internet munchkins.
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