Category Archives: Student

Train2Game News: Day Z creator added to Rezzed developer session line-up

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Day Z creator Dean “Rocket” Hall is to present a developer session about his popular Arma II mod at PC and indie games show Rezzed.

The latest in a packed scheduled of developer sessions at the Brighton show will see Dean Hall and Matt Lightfoot discussing development of the zombie mod and what its future holds.

The talk will take place on Saturday 7th July at 2pm, and could provide Train2Game students with some excellent insights into game design and modding. Indeed, Hall has previously described modding as great way as a fantastic way of “exploration”

Day Z will also be available to play on the show floor for the whole two days.

Tickets for Rezzed are available on the official website, and it’s looking to be an interesting event for Train2Game students to attend due to the number of developer sessions taking place.

The Indie Stone,  Introversion Software, The Creative Assembly, Splash Damage CEO Paul Wedgwood and Gearbox Software’s Randy Pitchford are among those giving talks during the two day show. Not only that, but everyone who buys a ticket for Rezzed gets a free DOTA 2 beta key.

We’ll be sure to keep you up to date with the latest news as the show approaches.

What are your thoughts on the latest addition to Rezzed? Do you play Day Z?

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

Train2Game News: Blitz artists hosting ‘meet the experts’ web chat tonight

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Leamington Spa studio Blitz will allow you to get an insight into the life of a games industry artist & animator when two of their team host a live webchat at 6:30pm this evening.

It’s the latest Blitz Games Studios’ ‘meet the experts’ sessions, which last month saw two programmers offering advice to aspiring game developers.  It provides a great opportunity for Train2Game students to get advice from industry professionals.

“Two of Blitz’s experienced artists from the company’s R&D and game development teams will be sharing their knowledge on a variety of topics aimed at aspiring newcomers to the industry as well as experienced artists looking to further their career in a new field or specialism.” reads the announcement from Blitz.

If you want to submit a question to the Blitz artists before the session begins at 6:30pm today, get in touch with them via email, Twitter or Facebook.

To take part in the web chat, visit the Blitz meet the experts website from 6pm this evening.

There’s more advice from industry professionals about getting into the games industry here on The Train2Game Blog.

Will you get involved in the web chat? What will you ask the Blitz artists?

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

Train2Game News: Deadlight team talk game design in developer diary

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Get behind the scenes of Deadlight, the upcoming zombie survival puzzler for XBLA in a new developer diary from Spanish studio Tequila Works.

Creative Director Raul Rubio, Narritive Director Antonio Rojano and others discuss creating a story and the game design process for Deadlight while ensuring it wouldn’t be hindered by it as the main character goes through an emotional and physical journey.

Watch ‘The Deadlight Diaries: Creating A Story’ video below, here on The Train2Game Blog.

Deadlight will be released via XBLA during August as part of Xbox Live’s Summer of Arcade at a cost of 1200 Microsoft Points.

There are more developer diaries, giving an insight into the work going into development of a variety of games, here on The Train2Game Blog.

What are your thoughts on the storytelling and game design of Deadlight?

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

Train2Game News: How to create and share a weapon for Team Fortress 2

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Ever wanted to create weapons for Team Fortress 2, but you’re unsure how to do it? Well, Valve has posted a piece on the TF2 blog titled ‘How a gun gets made’ and it does exactly what’s said on the tin.

The blog is by Team Fortress 2 workshop contributor Jalcober, who takes us through the development of the Scorch Shot, a weapon for the Pyro. It goes all the way from original concept art, through designing it in 3D to painting, texturing and publishing.  Read the blog here, or watch How a Gun Gets Made in the video below.

Jalcober’s community created weapon is going to feature in a future update for Team Fortress 2. As of August last year, Team Fortress 2 players had earned $2 million through their custom weapons being sold in the game’s virtual store.

Valve’s Steam Workshop now features in a variety of games including The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Portal 2 and DOTA 2, allowing players to create and share their own in-game creations .

There’s more about community created items and modding – both excellent ways for Train2Game students to practice and showcases their skills – here on The Train2Game Blog.

Meanwhile, be sure to keep reading for the latest news from Valve and Team Fortress 2.

Does ‘how a gun gets made’ provide you with useful information? Have you submitted items to the Team Fortress 2 Steam Workshop?

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

Train2Game News: My Sea Park, a new mobile game with heavy Train2Game student input released worldwide

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My Sea Park is a brand new mobile game that’s received heavy input from Train2Game students on work placement at DR Studios and its available worldwide for iPhone and Ipad now.

Seven students worked on the iOS game, with Train2Game game designer Craig Moore serving as design lead.

My Sea Park lets players explore their creativity by building the biggest and best marine-themed amusement park in the world. The following Train2Game students also aided in development of My Sea Park, using skills learned on the developer, designer and art and animation courses.

Ben Collings – Art
Ezekiel Morris – Art
Jonny Robinson – Design
Matty Wyett-Simmonds – Art
Rudi Will – Design
Tim Woods – Programming

With more than 50 different attractions available, My Sea Park allows players to maintain and fill their parks with wonderful sea animals, rides, restaurants and other special items to entertain their guests.

In addition, My Sea Park allows players to completely customize their sea attractions with an abundance of decorations, cute animals and shows.

Watch the trailer below, here on The Train2Game Blog.

Like it? Then support fellow Train2Game students by downloading My Sea Park from the App Store now!

There’s more on My Sea Park here on The Train2Game Blog, while keep reading for the latest industry experience diaries from Train2Game students on placement at DR Studios.

As usual, leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: Valve teaching with portals in education initiative for schools

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Valve will be giving away Portal 2 for free in its Teach with Portals initiative to help the teaching of physics and critical thinking in schools.

“The buzz surrounding the new role video games are playing in education, we had to throw our hat in the ring. Today, innovative educators are finding ways to incorporate Portal™ and Portal 2 into their classrooms—helping teach physics and critical-thinking skills. It’s eye-opening to see how video games can be used in amazing and unexpected ways to help educate our next generation.” reads a statement from Valve on www.learnwithportals.com/

“Using interactive tools like the Puzzle Maker to draw students in makes physics, math, logic, spatial reasoning, probability, and problem-solving interesting, cool and fun, which gets us one step closer to our goal – engaged, thoughtful kids!” add Valve

Students will also be able to design their own levels using the Portal 2 perpetual testing initiative level creator.

Watch the learn with portals education initiative in action in the video below, with Valve demonstrating Portal 2 to high school students.

There’s more Portal 2 news here on The Train2Game Blog, while you can keep reading for the latest from Valve.

What are your thoughts on the learn with portals iniative? How else can games be an educational tool?

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

Train2Game News: Project Zomboid team to host “How (Not) To Make A Game” developer session at Rezzed

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Project Zomboid developer The Indie Stone are the latest addition to the developer sessions at PC and indie gaming show Rezzed, and they’re talk is likely to be very interesting for anyone on a Train2Game course.

The session, titled “How (Not) To Make A Game” will see The Indie Stone team discuss the first year of development of their zombie survivalist title, paying attention to what could be seen as common sense.

The team learned valuable lessons about backing up information when the laptops they were using to develop Project Zomboid were stolen.

Chris Simpson, Marina Siu-Chong, Andy Hodgetts and Will Porter will present the developer session on Friday 6th July at the Brighton expo.

“We’re in the final build-up to our 0.2.0 release, so it seemed a perfect opportunity to chart the ridiculous journey we’ve been on for the past year or so,” said Will Porter. “Our public test builds have gone down a storm, so the time seemed right.”

Tickets for Rezzed are available on the official website, and it’s looking to be an interesting event for Train2Game students to attend, with a variety of developer sessions including those from Introversion Software, The Creative Assembly, Splash Damage CEO Paul Wedgwood  and Gearbox Software’s Randy Pitchford.

Not only that, but everyone who buys a ticket for Rezzed gets a free DOTA 2 beta key.

We’ll be sure to keep you up to date with the latest news as the show approaches.

What are your thoughts on the latest addition to Rezzed?

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

Train2Game News: The Secret World holding open beta this weekend

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The Secret World, the upcoming MMO based in a modern day setting is holding an open beta this weekend, which means you can get involved!

Funcom’s MMORPG sees players join one of three secret societies – the Illuminati, the Dragon or the Templars – as each faction battles for world domination, and you’ll be able to test it out for yourself from Friday 22nd June through to Monday 25th June.  You can sign up take part in The Secret World open beta here.

“This marks the first public opening of the massive, persistent player vs. player war zone where over two hundred players clash in adrenaline-fuelled battles for power and world domination! Stonehenge and Eldorado are also opening up, allowing smaller groups of players to fight for control over the power held within these legendary locations.” reads the announcement from Funcom.

“This is the final Beta Weekend before launch on July 3rd and we are ending with a bang. Everyone who has ever registered for The Secret World beta will get access to this final Beta Weekend. This is also true for anyone who has not registered yet but still registers by Friday, June 22nd.” they add.

There’s more beta testing news, and information on how it’s useful for developers and Train2Game students, here on The Train2Game Blog. There’s more about The Secret World here.

Will you be taking part in The Secret World open beta? Have you been part of one of the closed tests?

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

Train2Game News: ArenaNet on the importance of testing in making Guild Wars 2 fun

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QA testing and beta tests are hugely important when it comes to designing Guild Wars 2 to be as fun as possible.  That’s according to a huge blog post by ArenaNet, which discusses how they’re determining what will make their upcoming MMO – which isn’t based on a subscription model – successful and fun.

“When looking at content design for Guild Wars 2, we’ve tried to ask the question: What if the development of the game was based on…wait for it…fun?” writes Guild Wars 2 lead content designer Colin Johanson, in a highly informative piece.

He says QA Testers play a large role in development at ArenaNet.

“We ask our QA team to ask this question when they test everything that goes into the game. When they play an event, they don’t just file bugs, they write suggestions and ideas for how to make it better.

“I’ve never heard of a game company where the QA team is so integrated into the development process, where they can enact and impact change on a daily basis in the game. They aren’t just testers, they are developers who help make every part of the game better” said Johanson, adding that many Guild Wars 2 designers started in QA.

“As a result of allowing our QA team to be so involved in the development process, it helps us find people with amazing minds for design based on their feedback and suggestions. Many of our current content designers on GW2 originally started their careers in our QA department” he said.

The Guild Wars 2 lead content designer also discusses how important beta tests and player feedback are to development.

“We added surveys to the game that occur after you finish story steps, renown regions, events, and dungeons. Each of these asks players a few simple questions, but the most important question we always ask? “On a scale of 1 to 5, how much fun was what you just did?”

“From this, we print out giant reports of survey information, then meet as subteams and target the content that isn’t scoring well on “the fun factor” before brainstorming, together, on how to make that content more fun and exciting.”

There’s much, much more on how ArenaNet judge fun when designing Guild Wars 2 in the blog post, which should make interesting reading for anyone on a Train2Game course.

There’s more on Guild Wars 2 here on The Train2Game Blog.

What are your thoughts on how ArenaNet determine what’s fun? Is the fact that a number of their QA Testers have moved into design roles encouraging for you?

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

Train2Game News: Unknown Worlds to host Natural Selection 2 developer session at Rezzed

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Unknown Worlds, the creators of popular Half-Life mod Natural Selection are the latest studio to be added to the developer session line up at Rezzed, the PC and indie gaming show which takes place in Brighton next month.

Natural Selection is a multiplayer mode which combined real time strategy with first person shooting, giving one player the role of Commander as they directed the team and constructed buildings from a top-down 2D viewpoint.  Natural Selection 2 is a standalone sequel scheduled for release later this year.

Unknown Worlds’ Hugh Jeremy will host the Natural Selection 2 developer session on Friday 6th July at 5pm, in which he’ll take audience questions and discuss the game. It could be a great opportunity for Train2Game students to find out more about the benefits of modding.

“Natural Selection 2 is now only months from release. Rezzed is about to get up close and personal to some xenomorph evolution,” said Jeremy

Tickets for Rezzed are available on the official website, and it’s looking to be an interesting event for Train2Game students to attend, with a variety of developer sessions including those from Introversion Software, The Creative Assembly, Splash Damage CEO Paul Wedgwood  and Gearbox Software’s Randy Pitchford.

We’ll be sure to keep you up to date with the latest news as the show approaches.

What would you ask Unknown Worlds about Natural Selection and modding?

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