Category Archives: Parent

Train2Game News: Word slinging game Spellirium

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SpelliriumUntold Entertainment introduces Spellirium, a trashpunk comedy adventure with monsters, mystics, and linguistic spellslingers.

In a future when reading and writing have been outlawed, Brother Todd of the Runekeepers and a motley crew of characters must journey across the devastated landscape, bringing peace and order to a ruined civilization. But outlandish legends thrive on oral tradition, and Todd uncovers a painful truth written in the margins of his life’s story.

Untold is setting its sights on older players with Spellirium’s darkly comic approach to themes of betrayal, individualism, and privilege. The company hopes Spellirium will please venerable adventure fans who remember a time before pointing and clicking, when entire worlds were explored through text parser commands. Puzzlers who delight in crosswords, Scrabble, Boggle, and logic challenges will find something to love in Spellirium.

Using word-based spellcasting to battle monsters and shadowy overlords, Spellirium is an adventure for clever players. More than just manipulating letters to form words, players must utilize palindromes, synonyms, color combos, rhymes, and more. One monster, for example, can only be defeated through onomatopoeia (CRASH, BANG, BOOM). A certain achievement sees players building semordnilaps – words that spell valid, entirely different words when read backwards (ROOM <-> MOOR). A mindless word-search this most definitely is not.

Pre-order customers immediately receive an alpha download of the game, which includes the prologue and two of three acts. The “kickENDER campaign,” as called by Untold Entertainment founder, Ryan Henson Crieghton, will be used to fund further development, including the implementation of the final act, voice-overs, and sound effects.

Rewards for financial backers at various tiers include voicing a character in the game, designing a creature, and branding a word in the Spellirium Dictionary; a collectible list of 50,000 words that can be used to buy items and craft power-ups. The Reserve-A-Word tier is already proving popular with players, who have reserved a bizarre list of words including SLUG, LIZARD, MOIST, BARF, MOMMY, SAMURAI and SAUSAGE.

In one of the support tiers you also get access to the UGAGS game logic and a “God Panel” so you can tweak and play around with the game as much as you want or just see the coding that went in to how the game works. This should be very helpful to any Train2Game developers.

This sounds like an interesting new take on an old system that was used in the likes of the text based adventure, ZORK.

You can watch the trailer below

You can pre-order Spellirium, support them and find out more at www.spellirium.com

Train2Game News: A visit to Special Effect

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Kirsty Payne from SpecialEffectI had the great pleasure of going to visit SpecialEffect at its headquarters in Oxford on Wednesday. The charity held a get together to thank supporters for their work during the Art Charity Auction back in December.

As I arrived at the building I was struck by how incredible it looked. I drove up a long road, flanked by trees all the way up to a Manor building where SpecialEffect is housed. I parked around the back and entered the easily accessible building where I was met by Hannah Whittaker, who works at SpeciaEffect.

As I entered the office I was greeted by Gavin Tan, who is a developer for the charity. I chatted with Gavin for a bit about games, that is the reason we are in this industry, and he then showed me some of the controllers they use to help disabled people to be able to play games.

The first controller I tried was the “EyeGaze”. This is a device which tracks your eye movements and lets you do all the things you want on a computer using nothing but your eye movement. Following a quick calibration I got to play racing game, Dirt. To control the vehicle you moved your eyes to the top of the screen to go faster, to the bottom of the screen to brake and reverse and direct your eyes left or right to turn. I am normally terrible at racing games but using the EyeGaze I managed an average time which pleased me!

Following on from the EyeGaze I got to experience voice activated controls in Street Fighter. A control was set up which is used for movement and can be controlled by your chin with a sensitive microphone for the voice commands. The commands were simple like “Punch” for an uppercut, “Kick” for a spinning kick and “Move” to do a Hadouken.

Seeing and experiencing these controllers for myself really showed me how helpful these can be for people trying to get back in to gaming and back playing games on a level playing field. It truly is an amazing thing that the people at SpecialEffect do.

Over the next half an hour several games industry people turned up to the office for the event. There were people there from Sega, Warner Bros, and Take-two. Once everyone had arrived it was time for the main event.

Everyone was welcomed to the event by Kirsty Payne, a Vice President of SpecialEffect, who can be seen in the picture above. She gave a quick run down of the event in December. The art auction featured games art from across the industry and was held at the London City Hall and was visited by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. The auction managed to raise over £30,000!

The floor was then given over to Dr Mick Donegan, founder of SpecialEffect, who showed where the money will be going and who is being helped.

After the presentation SpecialEffect offered us drink and food. It was lovely just being able to talk with some of the games industry people who do so much for our industry and hearing their opinions on the games industry at the moment.

It was an incredible day and I will continue to do what I can for this amazing Charity! I will leave you with this amazing video of a young man called Alex who has been able to play games again and has used Special Effects help to be able to become a Train2Game student!

Enjoy!

Train2Game News: Rapid2D £10,000 competition winner announced!

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Rapid2DValca Entertainment announced as the winners of the Rapid 2D app design competition

Today lives changed for the team at development company Valca Entertainment as they were granted £10,000 as the winners of the Rapid 2D app development competition 2013. In this exciting competition entrants were tasked to develop Windows 8 apps but it was all about quality and quantity with developers entered into a draw with each game they produced. The winner was announced on www.rti.fm at 3.00pm adding kudos to this already life changing prize.

Myra Smallman, Director of Rapid 2D, said about the games engine “What we have tried to do with Rapid2D is to make it available to everyone and anyone who wants to make games. So, we have a free basic version on the Rapid2D website and very little coding knowledge is needed to be able to operate that. The novice that wants to be games designer can produce a game from the free version.”

On working in the mobile industry, Rik Alexander managing Director at AppCrowd, said “With a smaller company you can turn around apps a lot faster in the mobile market and it is a lot more enjoyable. You don’t need as many overheads and you don’t need as many people, you can be much more nimble as a team. A smaller team can communicate easier which means you make less mistakes.”

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Myra Smallman and Rik Alexander

For more information visit http://www.rapid2d.com

Train2Game News: Games Industry Jobs – 27.03.13

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The Train2Game jobs this week is another Aardvark Swift special!

C++ Developer

Manchester

£Competitive

Our client is looking for a C++ Developer. This is an exciting opportunity that has arisen for a market-focused game software developer. This role is key to the production of a continuous pipeline of quality games to our networked digital estates. The successful developers will need to quickly understand the markets and territories in which we operate and adapt their methods accordingly.

The candidate will develop games content for video slot machines in a variety of markets including the UK, Italy and Latin America. Content is written using C++ so creating new content using simple, modular coding style and good C++ practices is essential.

Responsibilities:

• Writing high quality, maintainable, game content software.
• Diagnosing and problem solving discovered issues
• Communicating and working with the design, art and test departments.
• Producing and analysing game data to prove stability and fairness.
• Inputting into game design where appropriate
• Adhering to agreed designs
• Follow source control processes to ensure stability and security of work
• Rigorously adhere to deadlines agreed with line manager
• Following processes and procedures as defined to successful task conclusion
• Deciding what and when to escalate to the manager
• Adhering to the procedures and work instructions of Inspired where they relate to the job.
• Working effectively as a member of an individual team as well as Inspired as a whole.
• Ensuring you report for work on time and are prepared to work.
• Assisting with mentoring of new and/or less experienced staff as required.

Requirements:

• Highly proficient knowledge of C++
• Experienced in Visual Studio 2010
• Be able to apply themselves to a wide and unpredictable range of software tasks.
• Be able to manage and switch between several concurrently active jobs.
• A good understanding of Subversion.
• Relevant degree e.g. Computer software, programming.
• An understanding of DirectX
• Must be a highly motivated individual.
• Must be able to perform well under strict deadlines
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Be able to pioneer new techniques

Further details are available by contacting Mark Hope at: Mark@aswift.com

Apply now

 

C++ Programmer All Levels

Bristol and Dublin

£Excellent + Benefits

C++ programmers – Bristol and Dublin

Our Client is part of a Global companies R&D team creating the technology game developers use to make great video games. They have created the programming tools used to develop on some of the world’s most popular gaming platforms. The company has built a reputation for understanding and meeting the needs of game developers, by creating innovative software and providing first-class support.

If you join as a new graduate you will initially spend time developing tests to ensure you get to know our products and code base. This is a great entry point for starting your career as a developer, working alongside talented, experienced engineers.
If you join us with some experience you will primarily spend your time developing new features and maintaining the current product range.

In addition you will be required to:
• Provide estimates for tasks
• Develop and deliver work to schedule
• Provide input to technical writers working for product documentation
• Work with support engineers on customer issues
• Participate in code and documentation reviews

Occasionally there are opportunities to attend conferences in the US/Europe and to visit customers to demonstrate products. Some travel between SN Systems’ offices is also likely.

Qualifications and experience:
• Computer Science related degree or similar.
• Graduates will need to demonstrate strong C++ ability gained through their studies or similar.
• Experienced candidates will be required to demonstrate 2-5 years C++ experience in a commercial environment.

Skills required:
All candidates will be required to demonstrate an understanding of SN Systems products, and a genuine desire to work on them.

Experienced candidates will be required to demonstrate the following skills:
Essential
• Strong C++ and STL development skills.
• Demonstrable OO (Object Orientated) design skills.
• MFC 9.0 (VS C++ 2008) and practical experience of developing Microsoft Windows applications with graphical user interfaces (for example GDI).

Desirable
Knowledge and experience of:
• Visual C++ frameworks including ATL/WTL.
• Debugger internals.
• Debugging file formats.
• Developing debuggers.
• MIPS, PowerPC or ARM architectures.
• Multi-threaded experience.
• Presentation skills.
• Team leadership/mentoring experience.
• Knowledge of MSBuild.

If you are interested in this position and would like to apply, please contact Mark Hope: mark@aswift.com or 01709 834 777

Apply now

 

Tools Programmer and Graduate Tools Programmer

North West, UK

£Neg + Bonus

Our client has been making games for more than 15 years. They now employ more than 150 people and have released games on major platforms like PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and Nintendo DS. They also work with some Great IP’s and a variety of game types.

They are seeking a Tools Programmer or Graduate Tools Programmer to join their team developing technology at the core of all their productions, from AAA games on every major console and handheld device (over 100 million units sold to date), to their award-winning TV shows, broadcast around the world.

If successful, you will play a significant part in shaping the way art, animation and designs are produced across new projects, as well as keeping our technology up to date with the state of the art in the industry.

They are looking for candidates with:

• A good degree in Computer Science, Maths or Physics or related subject (2.i or above)
• Fluent in C++ and object oriented programming
• Experience of Direct X, OpenGL or similar graphics APIs Experience of writing user interfaces using one or more common UI libraries (Win32 GDI/wxWindows/Qt/…)
• Ability to interact with non-technical disciplines (such as artists and designers), understand their needs, deliver solutions they find intuitive and helpful
• A real desire to make users’ day-to-day work easier, simpler and more productive

A strong candidate will also have one or more of the following:

• Experience of writing plugins for common 3D and 2D packages (Autodesk Maya and Adobe Photoshop preferably)
• A confident grasp of the mathematics involved in CG rendering and animation
• The ability to analyse and optimise algorithms for efficiency
• Experience developing products for one or more non-PC gaming devices

For more information or to apply for the role, please contact Mark Hope at Aardvark Swift on +44 (0) 1709 834777 or e-mail mark@aswift.com

Apply now

 

Game Programmer

South East

£Excellent + Benefits

My client is an energetic and enthusiastic company of experienced video game developers with offices based in Brighton, UK.
They are a growing company working on projects with small team sizes. They are looking for a Game programmer that is happy to work in whatever area is required of them – this could change on a daily basis!

*Junior/Graduate Programmers with relevant demos and a positive attitude are encouraged to apply!*

Required
• 2.1 degree in Maths, Physics, Computer Science or related, or equivalent industry experience
• Excellent knowledge of C# or C++
• Excellent knowledge of algorithms and data structures
• Experience of creating games on desktop or mobile platforms
• Desire to make great games
• Great communication skills (verbal and written)
• Happy to work as part of a team
• Demonstrable love for some area of game technology
• A passion for playing games and solving problems
• Flexible and keen to learn new skills

Desired
• Knowledge of two or more other programming languages (for example Java, Python, PHP, Clojure)
• 1 or more years of games industry experience
• 1 or more shipped titles on console, desktop or mobile platforms
• Strong knowledge of console, desktop and mobile architectures
• Knowledge of asynchronous engineering techniques
• Experience of Unity, Unreal or XNA
• SQL
• Experience using digital content creation tools (for example Max, Maya, Photoshop)

In return the company offer an excellent Salary and Benefits.

More details are available by contacting Mark Hope at Aardvark Swift via email: mark@aswift.com

Apply now

Train2Game News: BOOMBA! launches like a three pronged bazooka with the help of Train2Game

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Boomba LogoTrain2Game helps to achieve national and international coverage for student’s studio’s title with the support of Train2Game’s PR team.

Student Fee Stewart has been working with Train2Game internal PR team to deliver worldwide coverage for Radiation Burn’s latest title Boomba! Fee, who is an Artist and Project manager at the studio, took advantage of the additional support Train2Game offer and coordinated withTrain2Game’s PR team to draft and distribute a press release on behalf of the studio.

Coverage was achieved on sites in the US, Spain, France and of course the UK. Highlights include Nintendo Everything and Develop Online

Nintendo EverythingDevelopThis support is available to all students commercially releasing games, whether they be independent student studios or working at organisations outside of Train2Game. Train2Game love to support the successes of its students and the student body love to hear about them, so make sure to keep us informed of everything you are working on.

You can see some of the international articles in the links below, including sites from Spain, France and Brazil.

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Well done Fee!

Train2Game News: Train2Game student releasing Boomba!

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Boomba LogoTrain2Game Student, Fee Stewart, has been working with Radiation Burn LTD to create a new exciting game called, Boomba!

In the game you get to play as punks, rockers, emos, soldiers, cops and many more characters in an exciting and enjoyable turn based strategy game that is based described as Angry Birds meets Worms.

This turn based physics shooter is completely unique and plays like no other. There are over 50 different teams to choose from, with more to follow. Aimed at aged 7+ casual to medium game players, this title really is open to everyone. The accuracy of your shooting is combined with a range of exciting weaponry to be victorious; use chainsaw missiles, boxing glove bazookas and metal anvils to defeat your opponents.

Boomba

Boomba will be available on: Nintendo 3DS, iOS, Windows 8 and Windows Phone, Kindle, Blackberry, Andoid, PC and Mac next month.

RadiationBurn Ltd. strives to provide fun and original IP for your enjoyment. The studio, founded in Middlesbrough 2010, creates fun and original titles of all sizes. The company was founded through winning the Microsoft Dream.Build.Play Challenge, Old Spice competition. A worldwide competition in which RadiationBurn Ltd. were voted winners, by a panel of judges and the gaming public.

Fee joined the company in October 2011 after finishing a Train2Game student placement at the company.

When asked her opinion of the game she said “Boomba! is something I thought I would be doing only once. It soon became a daily habit to both create the game and play it!”

You can find out more about the game by going to www.boombagame.com

Train2Game News: SpecialEffect Charity Football Match

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SE Football gameOn the 14th of April SpecialEffect has organised a celebrity charity football game in Oxford to raise funds for SpecialEffect and specifically for one of their amazing members, Charlotte.

A supporter of the activity has said he will donate £100 if we can get a 1000 views of the video at the bottom of this page, so please do spare one minute to watch.

Oxford United club legends, along with a few surprise guests, will be donning their boots to take on an all-star SpecialEffect team, to raise vital funds for SpecialEffect and the Charlotte Nott Trust Fund.

But that’s not all, both the captains places are up for grabs in an Ebay auction!

  • Bid for the Oxford United Legends captaincy or
  • Bid for the glory of leading the SpecialEffect Allstars

Bidding ends at around 3pm on 22 March.

Please bid generously as all funds raised will help Charlotte and SpecialEffect.

Tickets are available on the gate, but you can order them at the link below. Only £5 for adults and £2.50 for concessions, U5’s are free. If you can’t make the game but you’d still like to donate to this fantastic cause, to Special Effect’s Just Giving page or you can download the A4 poster and display it to swell the crowds!

You can see how SpecialEffect have helped young Charlotte in the video below, make sure to watch and help them get to that £100!

Train2Game News: Train2Game Radio talks to Shaun Steer

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me n zakI spoke to Train2Game student Shaun Steer last week. Shaun discussed with me how his career has progressed from being a Chef to the games industry and how he finds time to study whilst looking after five children.

You can listen to the interview here: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1274977-train2game-student-shaun-steer-talks-to-t2g-radio

Or read the transcript below:

My name is Shaun Steer, I’m doing the Game Designer course and the nearest town to me Ashford

Hi Shaun, how you doing mate?

Yeah not to bad, you?

I’m very well cheers mate. So what’s your story? What are the past experiences that have shaped your life?

Work wise, I’ve always been a chef. So it’s a bit of a drastic change to what I am doing now. I’ve been doing that since I was about 15 years old.

So why did you decide to change from being a chef?

Well a few years ago I had a few health issues which made me go out of main stream cooking and just take little jobs, in smaller kitchens. That was my chosen career path, pretty much, finished there. Last year I was getting fed up with where I was working and I just happened to come across a Train2Game advert. So I clicked on it, forgot about it, requested more information, a few more months down the line they contacted me and the rest is history. It’s all going really well at the moment, it’s all going very well.

Excellent, I understand that you’ve got quite a hectic family life as well?

Yeah, that’s one way to put it! Yeah I’ve got a house with five children to look after as well so that can take up a lot of your time.

Yeah it sounds like it! So how do you find the time to study with your five kids?

It’s a mystery to me as well! Sometimes I’ve actually got the little one you see there in my picture, little Zak, sometimes he’s just sitting on my lap while I’m studying away through the books and making the games. He was a tester for me actually on the Game Maker games I made.

That’s got to be quite good! Your own in house testers?

Oh yeah! He loved it, he loved the shooter and he is obsessed with Mario so when I did the platformer he was in his element.

I have seen you on the Train2Game forum and you get quite passionate about the course. Where did that passion come from?

I think it’s about gaming in general really. Well the first console I had was a SEGA Master System, way back when, what was it ’91 or something?

Yeah it was about that

I’ve had every console under the sun since then. So gaming has always been quite a passion. Well being able to learn how to put my input in on it, well it’s something I feel quite strongly about!

So it’s 2013 now Shaun so what objectives have you got in your course?

Well it’s funny you should mention that really. I’ve obviously been talking to quite a lot of people with in the course and we’ve just recently set up a student studio.

Oh really?

Yeah, we’ve started doing some concept work on a couple of game ideas already.

What’s the studio called?

The studio? We’ve named it Devils Ink Studios.

Very nice!

We’ve got a Facebook page up if anyone wants to click on it and like it for us! It will help get the word out.

What’s the address?

I think if you just search Devils Ink Studios and it will take you straight to the page.

Very nice so have you got a game in development at the minute or is it just ideas throwing around at the minute?

We are in concept stages at the minute. So we are just drawing up the concept documents and we’ve got some environments being drawn up and characters. We are just going to be writing the back story and everything like that well, today. We have been for the past few hours actually. There’s five of us at the moment but we will probably need more people to join the team so if anyone’s interested, just drop me a line! Just get in touch via our Facebook page, that’s Devils Ink Studios, thank you!

Well that’s perfect Shaun! I think that’s probably all we’ve got time for today so thank you very much for your time!

Excellent, thank you!

Train2Game News: Train2Game Student running for SpecialEffect

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Wahib Yousaf meets Miles Jacobson

Wahib on the right and Miles Jacobson in the middle

Train2Game student, Wahib Yousaf, is going to run for SpecialEffect in the British 10k in London this year. There is still time for you to sign up and join Wahib!

Wahib has been a Train2Game QA student since February 2012. Since joining the course Wahib has made sure to put himself out there and network as much as possible. He has a desire to make a real impact on the games industry and has decided the best way to start is to network with some of the games industry big hitters.

He also contributed to the ‘From Bedrooms To Billions’ IndieGogo campaign last year and one of the perks was an invitation by Creative Director of the ‘Football Manager’ series, Miles Jacobson, to come down to the S.I Games developers’ studio, meet their team and take part in a Q&A session. It was during this conversation that Miles Jacobson informed Wahib that he was a SpecialEffect ambassador.

On hearing about SpecialEffect, Wahib researched the charity and was moved by what he saw. Last December he made a sizeable donation and after reading about the SpecialEffect run on the Train2Game blog he saw another way in which he could help.

When asked why Wahib decided to run for the charity he said “It’s a Gaming Charity and I get to wear a costume! So, I have started doing 10K Training at my local Virgin-Active gym and endurance training every week for 30 minutes”

The costume that Wahib is so excited to be wearing during the run is his Assassin’s Creed 3 Connor Kenway CosPlay he wore previously to Excels’ Comic Con Expo last year. During the run Wahib will be running with the Flintock Musket and Tomahawk replicas that the character uses through the game.

If you want to run with Wahib and the SpecialEffect team you can still sign up by going to https://www.eventelephant.com/ee/events/pages/summary.htm?siteurl=specialeffect2013

You can watch a quick promotional video on the event below:

If you would like to sponsor Wahib and help him get to his goal of £200 you can do so by going to http://www.justgiving.com/wahib-yousaf

Train2Game wishes Wahib all the luck in running for SpecialEffect and hope he has a great time in doing it!

Train2Game News: Phil Cross of Microsoft talks to Train2Game Student Studios

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Phil CrossEarlier this month ,Phil Cross, audience marketing manager of Microsoft, held the first of a series of mentoring sessions with Train2Game student studios.

The session was recorded by Train2Game radio and you can listen to the podcast here: http://www.spreaker.com/user/train2game/train2game_radio_phil_cross_of_microsoft

You can read the transcript for the mentoring session below:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/130135616/Phil-Cross-Mentors-Train2Game-Students