Category Archives: education

Train2Game News: Ezekiel Morris student diary: Week 16

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This week has been excellent, so far, as I have finished all my sprints. I am now double checking that the animations are working in the game engine.

Last Friday I went back to my home town to see my family and friends, to catch up on stuff and it was great to see everyone. After meeting everyone I had a fat meal then I’m chilling down with the family watching The Big Bang Theory.

I went to Eurogamer Expo last Saturday and met up with some students and the tutors from Train2game. I took some good photo’s. I didn’t get to play all of the games on show as the queues were ridiculously long but the ones that I did play were Devil May Cry, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil 6 and Doom 3 in 3D.

Monday Oct 1st I had a team meeting with Commando Kiwi, we were discussing schedules for the new project that we are working on. My sprint is to create three concepts, so I will be working my ass off 6 hours a week. I’m happy to be working on the project as I like to doing realistic characters so yep it’s time to get to work!

Train2Game News: Craig Moore student diary: Week 45

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It’s a long way to the top, if you wanna rock ‘n’ roll!

Another heavy week, things are starting to ramp up and the pressure is really piling on. It’s strange, it doesn’t feel that too long ago we were pushing to get My Sea Park finished and now we are doing it for this new title which just seems mad! But then maybe that is the thing about making smaller bite sized apps and games.

We have spent a lot of time polishing and putting assets into the game, it’s really starting to come together with its full feature set and way more than half the assets. It’s going to be a big push, however, to get it all tied together in time.

I have confidence though that we are going to get there, we can’t really afford for it to slip unless we want to miss out on the Christmas window which could, potentially, be bad. We shall see but I would really like it to be done for then!

In other news, apparently I didn’t make a big enough thing out of Amanda’s car experience the other week, suffice to say, despite what she says, there were flames and exploding babies.. It was pretty horrific!

In further auto-mobile related news, my car went in for a mega-service today, £600! Honestly, I’m glad that only comes around once a year because that’s left me on noodles for the rest of the month, and not even good ones.

It’s lucky I love the job so much

Laters!

Craig

Train2Game News: Amanda Blatch student diary: Week 2

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So this week I was required to finish six vectored characters, one of which was a cross-dressing creature which made the end of my week… interesting. It’s a colourful character that you will all love once the game has been released, I certainly do.

Apart from that I don’t think there is too much to say on the placement front, just designing a set of characters and learning my way around Unity to make sure that the creations I make, cut and rig are fully working in-game ready for the designers.

Unlike last week there is little else happening but work and pushing to complete my set tasks for the week… and the frantic playing of the first Borderlands whose ending I failed to complete due to lack of time, just so that I can justify buying myself the second one (which looks AWESOME.). Oh and also… week-long of 25p apps in the Google play store… Buying Mass Effect Infiltrator for 25p instead of the £4.33 it normally is? HELLS YES.

Another golden gem that has me and one of my housemates playing a lot; Monsters Ate My Condo. It’s a colourful armageddon of noise, bright lights and unique, hilarious characters. It’s basically a unicorn’s dream of wonderful things.

p.s. There is also a unicorn in it… True story.

Train2Game News: Ben Stoneman’s final student diary

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JOB OFFER

I woke up today feeling great, yes it was a work day, however work was now entwined in my life and I liked what I was doing with my life.

I arrived at Unity, sat down and began to go through the support cases. it got to about 13:00 and I was feeling hungry and ready for lunch when suddenly a small stapled stack of paper was placed next to me. for some reason I knew what it was. “Read it carefully and sign if you agree” I heard.

I slowly drew the document in front of me and began to read…

“TERMS OF CONTRACT”

This was it! My hard work and perseverance has paid off. I had been offered the full time position!

Of course I was not a game designer, time to make games! No, I was a support specialist, dealing with tedious support issues and licence migration. I thought of it like this; I worked in a kitchen once and washed over 100 dishes a shift for 1 year, I got angry in my job because I wanted to be a chef.

The chef said to me “To be a chef like me you must first wash the dishes, we have all done it!”

I knew from this life lesson I was now washing the dishes of the games industry! A great place to start my journey to becoming a successful game designer!

Train2Game News: Students in their local papers

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Train2Game Students Aaron Reeve, Michael Wittington and Scott Williams have been featured in their local newspapers for being a part of the world record breaking game jam held at University of Bedfordshire in Luton.

You can see the articles in the links below.

Sevenoaks_Chronicle_September_2012

Southall Gazette September 2012

Woking Informer September 2012

Well done guys. Good luck with everything you do.

Train2Game News: A day at Eurogamer Expo: Part 2

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This is the continuation of my day at the Eurogamer Expo held in London at Earl’s Court.

The first game I tried in the afternoon was the new Devil May Cry from Capcom. With the main character, Dante, being younger, he is cockier and cooler than ever. I have not played previous Devil May Cry games. It’s a grand display of action in a beautiful demonic world with a good mix of Angel and Demon powers it looks to be attractive with a good pace of action.

I finally got my first play on a PSVita at the show, playing Little Big Planet. The game was enjoyable, it made good use of the touch screen. However I did find the way that I was holding the device meant I was touching the track pad on the back. It didn’t affect the game I was playing but I fear it might when a game uses the mechanic.

I didn’t get to play a WiiU unfortunately. I did however have a look at it. The person I watched was playing ZombiU. The game definitely blows away any worries that it is going to be all family games again like with the Wii. ZombiU looks like a good horror with impressive graphics. It uses the tablet controller in interesting ways, having to hold up the tablet to the screen so that it can disable a jammer in one of the in game areas. My only worry is whether the tablet will be too big in your hands to use comfortably.

After a little shopping trip, buying a Joker shirt and an Assassins Creed wall scroll, I came back to the Capcom stand to play Resident Evil 6. Now you may know I am a big fan of the series, so much so that I have the Umbrella logo tattooed just above my elbow. I was disappointed with Resi 5, I felt that it had lost all of its horror elements. Resident Evil 6 however seems to have something for most people. Playing as Chris Redfield you get a good action paced story, like what it seemed they wanted Resident Evil 5 to be. Playing as Leon Kennedy however you get a good sense of the survival horror similar to the first games of the series. There is a third character called Jake who I didn’t get to try out, my guess would be he is a mixture of the two styles.

As I was playing Resident Evil 6, I turned around to see a zombie who was eyeing up my arm. The guy had amazing make up which was so good in fact he wouldn’t look out of place in The Walking Dead. He then proceeded to give a friend of mine his phone to get his picture taken with a character from Mortal Kombat, that isn’t something you see every day.

I attended the Train2Game stand once more and saw the results of the Royal Rush competition I mentioned in the first part of this blog. The winner got a limited edition silver Xbox360 Controller and it was handed to the winner by The Joker.

The final game I played at the event was the Tomb Raider reboot. The game was absolutely gorgeous and Lara Croft no longer feel likes an immortal woman. She now feels flawed and real as you run around which adds to the immersion of the game. I was doing a hunting mission and my objective was to kill a deer using the Bow and Arrow I had just obtained. My only complaint was the arrows seem far too weak. I shot the deer straight through the neck, thinking that would kill it no problem. It then took an extra six arrows to take it down. The game is still in pre-beta though so I am sure such problems will be fixed by release in March.

Before I set off to drive home I headed in to the Cybercandy store and I bought my self a Zombie survival energy drink to keep me going through the drive home. I had an incredible day and it is very exciting seeing all the games that are soon to be released.

Train2Game News: Game Jam creativity blossoms in to something more

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The Game Jam is not only a time of creativity but it can also be a time of love. This was the case for two people last year.

Lloyd Knott, 28, from KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, met Joyce Webb, 25, from Hampshire, at the 2011 Game Jam. Joyce is a student with Train2Game and Lloyd was an advisor for the event. The two just celebrated their six month anniversary at last weekends world record beating Game Jam.

Being an advisor Lloyd could wander around, giving him an excuse to spend time with Joyce, talking to her and getting to know her. Following on from that Game Jam, Joyce and her winning team, Indigo Jam, went on to be part of Make Something Unreal Live.

After 6 months of developing and creating, Joyce got to go to The Gadget Show Live as part of the competition. Lloyd was assigned to Indigo Jam to help them get bits done and got to spend more time with Joyce.

Leading up to the Gadget Show the teams had monthly meetings at the University of Bedfordshire in Luton. It was at the last of these the two got together.

Joyce said “Well, it all started when one of the guys on the team, yes I’m putting this firmly on Dan Rutter’s shoulder, started saying he thought Lloyd liked me. Being a generally oblivious person, I thought he was just winding me up. When Lloyd was eventually assigned to our team to help get things ready for the Gadget Show, I noticed he was behaving a little oddly from the last few times I’d spoken to him. However it wasn’t until he asked if I’d like to go and see a film after the final meet up in Luton that I realised than Dan was right all along”

Lloyd said “Well I first met her at the last game jam where I was told to look after their team before helping out the other teams, but nothing really happened till after I was put on their team to help them get stuff ready for the gadget show. We got talking on their team speak server and kinda hit it off.”

After going to see The Raven, the biopic of Edgar Allen Poe, the two realised they had a lot in common and decided to become a couple.

Lloyd has just left Lionhead to begin working at Microsoft and Joyce is a Train2Game student who works at Odeon Cinemas in Andover.

Not only are Game Jams great for being creative and a good thing to put on your CV, you might even find someone to fall in love with. I wish the very best of luck to both Lloyd and Joyce in everything they do.

Train2Game News: Matty Wyett-Simmonds student diary: Week 42

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Week after the big game jam and have been hard at work!

We’ve had to make up for the time off and we’ve all been pretty busy here. We did a few late nights (up to 10pm) as well.

I’ve been churning out art assets at the same time as fixing assets that don’t work correctly in game. I also did my first purely 2D art work in a very long time which was pretty cool I think.

Other than that I’ve not had much of a week. Me, Craig and Amanda went to the pet store at lunch time one day to get some dead mice for her snake, Craig desperately wanted to get hamsters for the office which I don’t think Clive would have appreciated as much as we would.

I was in my first car crash this week too! I wasn’t driving though so I don’t know if it counts, but still it happened.

I also got a new phone which is awesome (Samsung Galaxy sIII), My sII died the night before so I went out and got it on contract. Very worth it if you haven’t tried a Galaxy phone, much better than the iPhone5 I think.

Train2Game News: Ezekiel Morris student diary: Week 15

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This week has been very stressful and not the best of weeks. Trying to fix animation errors and getting things to work in Unity, so it’s been annoying.

I don’t like Unity I know some people might find it OK but my experience using it is I hate it. It was simple enough using UDK.

I enjoy animating characters but I never realized how much hard work was involved especially when you’re given a deadline. Learning how to use Maya and Unity at the same time has been tough. So when I import the animation sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, it’s annoying to have to keep on asking for someone to sort the problem. I try doing it myself but still struggling a bit with some issues, the animation works in motion builder.

Finally I’ve found out what’s stopping the animation and it’s working perfectly. I haven’t felt comfortable using Unity I ‘am afraid I will break the game. I know this isn’t my strong point but the good thing about this experience is I now know how to use Maya so great experience. I can’t wait to do my thing soon.

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up

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Blizzard Entertainment released Mists Of Pandaria yesterday. The latest expansion for World Of Warcraft. Blizzard have also said that they have no fear of Windows 8 and will release games for any platform their players are on.

Avenged Sevenfold have released a new track that will feature on Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2. The song, Carry On, is the second song the band have released for a Call Of Duty game. They previously released Not Ready To Die with one of the Call Of Duty: Black Ops DLC packs.

Telltale’s five Walking Dead episodic games will be put on disc in December for Xbox360 and PS3. The game is based on the graphic novel turned TV show and through playing them myself I can say, if you are a fan of the series, play this game. You won’t be disappointed.

Nvidia’s head of cloud gaming, Phil Eisler, believes that cloud gaming could take over from consoles. He believes that consoles have one final generation in them before they die out, leaving the world of gaming in the hands of the cloud.

Ubisoft have announced that Assassins Creed 3 will not play on Windows XP. The company has released the specifications needed to play the game. There is a version for Windows 8 in the pipeline though.

Bethesda have released an animated prequel to its upcoming Dishonored. The webseries is called Tales of Dunwall and the gorgeous animated shorts are being released in three parts. The videos can be found on YouTube and they show the downfall of the in game city.

Sony Xdev are giving a small studio the opportunity to win £25,000. This new initiative, called Playstation Pioneers, will reward developers for a PlayStation Mobile game concept and will also offer successful candidates the opportunity to work alongside XDev. Further details can be found here.

An extra four titles have been added to the Humble Bundle 6. The titles are: Bit.Trip Runner, Gratuitous Space Battles, Jamestown, and Wizorb. If you have already purchased the bundle, you will get the new games added at no extra cost.

If you are attending Eurogamer this weekend you can get a special surprise when you play Company Of Heroes 2. Everyone that plays the game or attends the developer session at the event will get a code to access a future beta for the game.

Finally Train2Game will be at Eurogamer this weekend. If you are attending go and say hello, it is always nice to meet these people. I will be attending on the Saturday so if you see me feel free to talk to me. I hope everyone that attends has a brilliant time.