Category Archives: Student

Train2Game news: Community created Left4Dead 2 DLC Cold Stream almost ready

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Train2Game students might be interested to hear that Cold Stream the latest instalment of Left4Dead 2 DLC is almost ready for a full release.

The significant thing about Cold Stream is that it’s a community created campaign, the brainchild of a Left4Dead 2 player that started out as a personal project but is now almost ready to become part of the full game.

“Now that we have a solid version of the maps (some minor changes still coming), we are focused on the DLC and getting some pesky bugs out of the shipping version. As soon as we have a release date we will let you know.” read the Cold Stream update on the Left4Dead blog.

You can find out more about the community created map for Left4Dead 2 here on The Train2Game Blog.

Using community creation tools and modding aren’t only great ways for Train2Game students to practice their skills, but it can potentially provide a way into the industry. That’s what Valve’s Chet Faliszek, writer of Left4Dead, told The Train2Game Blog in an interview towards the end of last year.

“It’s a really good way for someone to get noticed because it shows that you’re able” he said.

“Normally modders have to work as a team and that’s important, and they also have to be able to finish something and that’s really important. So those two things together are a really good way to demonstrate that you’re ready to work in the industry.” Faliszek added.

For all the latest news about modding, and how it can be a great benefit to you, keep reading The Train2Game Blog.

What are your thoughts on a community created campaign becoming an official part of Left4Dead 2?

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

Train2Game student industry experience diary: Georgij Cernysiov at Playteau – Diary 1

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Train2Game student Georgij Cernysiov  is on a Train2Game work placement at Playteau.  In his first experience diary from the studio, Georgij details how he’s settled in.

Read what Georgij has to say about his Train2Game work placement  here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game Scribd page.

More Train2Game industry experience diaries are right here on The Train2Game Blog. 

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

Train2Game news: Trion Worlds’ senior producer Chris Lena on getting into the industry

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Train2Game News recently had a chat with Trion Worlds’ senior producer Chris Lena, who is currently working on upcoming MMORTS End of Nations. In a quick interview, Chris discusses what his role involves, how he got started in the industry and offers advice to those looking to follow in his footsteps.

Hi Chris, what does your role as senior producer of End of Nations involve?

It’s interesting, the partnership between Trion Worlds and Petroglyph. Petroglyph have a history of RTS games so they know that very, very well, but making an online persistent game is a lot more than that. So we have people watching the servers, we have the server technology, we have customer support, we have a lot of other departments that are required to support that, and that’s really want Trion’s strength is.

So, on one side I’m keeping an eye on those things, as well as working directly with Petroglyph on making sure that they have what they need to develop the best game possible.

How did you get started in the industry and how did you get to where you are today?

I started in tech support and just kept on working and working. It’s the story of a lot of people in the industry; we love games, we’ll work anywhere in games then see where that takes us and it’s been a lot of fun and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

What advice would you give to someone looking to start in the games industry?

The number one advice is to keep on trying. Sometimes it’s difficult to break in, but don’t be afraid to start anywhere in the company if you can get it. Whether it’s in the mail room or driving someone’s car or making coffee, that’s where it all starts.

There’s much more about End of Nations in The Train2Game Blog’s previous huge  interview with Senior QA Tester Karl Tars

And there’s plenty of advice from industry professionals on getting into the industry here on The Train2Game Blog.

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

Train2Game news: Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances enters open beta

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Train2Game students have the opportunity to take part in the Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances open beta.

The free-to-play MMO strategy title from EA sees you gathering resources, forming alliances and fighting battles in this browser based iteration of the Command & Conquer series.

Train2Game students interested in taking part in the open beta can sign up at www.tiberiumalliances.com. You’ll need an EA account to get involved.

Find out more about Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances in the trailer below.

Beta testing is an excellent way for Train2Game students, especially those on the Games QA Tester course to practice their bug hunting skills. In a recent interview with The Train2Game Blog, Brawl Busters developers Rock Hippo told us that beta testing is “crucial” to the game development process.

For more on beta testing, how it’s useful for Train2Game students, and opportunities to get involved with it, keep reading the Train2Game blog.

What are your initial thoughts on Command & Conquer Tiberium Alliances? Will you be getting involved?

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

Train2Game news: All the Make Something Unreal Live interviews in one place

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Train2Game News has recently posted a number of interviews with students taking part in Make Something Unreal Live. The event, which takes place at The Gadget Show Live, sees  four Train2Game student teams making games based on the prestigious Fighting Fantasy IP in an effort to win a fully licensed Unreal Development Kit for iOS.

In order to make them easier to find, we’ve put links to each Make Something Unreal Live interview below, in which the Train2Game student contestants reveal a bit about their games and tell us how they feel about taking part in the event. You can also listen to each interview here. Enjoy!

Team Digital Mage

Interview with Craig Moore.

Interview with Laurence Kinane.

Team Commando Kiwi

Interview with Jonny Robinson.

Interview with Adam Sherratt.

Team Derp Studios

Interview with Chris Ledger.

Interview with Stuart Moore.

Team IndigoJam

Interview with Ben Stoneman.

Interview with Daniel Rutter.

Keep up to date with the latest Make Something Unreal Live news, right here on The Train2Game Blog.

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

Train2Game news: “It’s a really interesting time” to be a game designer says Molyneux

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peter-molyneux-train2game-blog-imageTrain2Game students are looking to enter the industry at what’s an especially interesting time. At least that’s the case if you believe Peter Molyneux’s comments in an interview with Game Informer.

“I think it’s a really interesting time. We as game designers now have to really put our thinking caps on, because there’s a lot of stuff that we need to get our teeth into.” said Molyneux, who recently left his positions with Lionhead and Microsoft to concentrate on new projects.

He singled out cloud gaming and free-to-play as some of the most interesting issues for game designers.

“We have to get into all the cloud stuff, we’ve gotta get our teeth into monetizing and the digital relationship with customers.” he said.

“The difference between retail and free-to-play and how that’s gonna evolve, we’ve got multi-device play, we’ve got totally new ways of interacting with the experience.” said the respected game designer, adding that it’ll take some time for game designers to work through all the different developments.

“All of that has to be solved, designed, and delightful experiences have to be made. It’s going to take us quite a long time to get through that lot.” he added.

“On the horizon, I predict that we’ve just started looking at different devices. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot more input devices coming along, and I just think it’s a really interesting, fascinating time in the industry.” Molyneux concluded.

Train2Game students can read the full, fascinating, interview with Peter Molyneux over at Game Informer.

There’s more Peter Molyneux news right here on The Train2Game Blog, including his advice on how to get into the games industry.

Of course, Train2Game offers a course in game design, which you can find out more about here. 

What are your thoughts on Molyneux’s views? Do you agree that it’s an especially interesting time to be a game designer?

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

Train2Game interview: Daniel Rutter of Make Something Unreal Live team IndigoJam

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Train2Game students are launching four new development studios in 2012 as part of ‘Make Something Unreal Live,’ a competitive process designed to accelerate their careers by giving them the tools and resources needed to release games for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch this spring.

The studios are Commando Kiwi, Derp Studios, Digital Mage and Indigo Jam.

The first titles released by the studios will be based on the Fighting Fantasy series of books created by Ian Livingston and Steve Jackson.

We caught up with IndigoJam’s Daniel Rutter to find out how the road to Make Something Unreal Live at The Gadget Show has gone so far. Listen via Train2Game Radio or read it here on The Train2Game Blog.

Hi Daniel, what’s the name of your team for Make Something Unreal Live, and why has it got that name?

We’re called IndigoJam Games, and there are a few different reasons. The main one is that Indigo is a colour that scientists can’t decide whether it does or doesn’t exist and it has a bit of mystery around it. And the word jam comes from, well, we all met at the Train2Game & Epic game jam. That’s how we got to know each other, that’s what we’ve got in common and those things came together and sounded quite tasty and so we ran with it.

You’re now moving forward to Make Something Unreal Live where you’re using the Fighting Fantasy IP to make a game, which is of the Fighting Fantasy books is your game going to be based on?

The book we’re doing is one of my personal favourites, and it’s Deathtrap Dungeon.

What genre of game are you making?

We were given the genre of the action adventure game, probably one of the broadest ones out there.

But it goes well with Deathtrap Dungeon.

Definitely. We had the choice of House of Hell or Deathtrap Dungeon. We thought House of Hell was more of a survival horror – still a good IP that we’d love to do at some point – but Deathtrap Dungeon fitted really well with our action adventure brief.

Tell us a bit about your game then, the mechanics, how it works.

We’ve opted for doing a first person action adventure game, keeping with the idea of the book that you are the player, it’s all about you, you don’t have another character there that’s getting in the way of the story, it’s just you and the action. We’ve also stuck to keeping dice for combat, which is very much rooted into that mythos, that’s what all of the books have, that’s what I fondly remember.

We also have a little things like environment kills and being able to sneak around; you can play through the levels in a couple of different ways depending on whether you like doing the combat with dice, or whether you’d rather avoid the enemies of dispatch of them in other ways.

And how have you found developing for the IOS platform?

Developing the game has been fantastic. We’re fairly early adopters for UDK on IOS, there have been a few games and they’re gradually coming out now, so it’s really been a finding our own way of doing things. But once you sort it out, it’s amazing, especially the way we can plug in our iPhone or iPad, plug in the game and actually have it there, play test it, it’s really, really good.

How have you found the transition from being a team at the Train2Game & Epic Game Jam, to being a fully functioning game developer working towards Make Something Unreal Live at The Gadget Show?

It started off absolutely terrifying! Suddenly, you’ve gone from 48 hours where I’d turned up for the experience and to have fun, and we came out really well from it, which is really good. And then suddenly The Gadget Show is up for grabs, a licence is up for grabs, we really had to knuckle down and come up with something. But we’ve had to work around some clever ways of working because we’re not in the same room, you can’t just lean over and look at what another person is working on.

So, our lead programmer set us up with a forum where we originally started coming up with ideas. Then we were given our IP, we have a Teamspeak account so we can all chat online, so we verbally communicate. We use various web based software for sharing screens, so we are kind of working in the same room, but over the internet.

Are you looking forward to making a game at The Gadget Show live, potentially in front of thousands of people?

I’m really looking forward to it actually, I really am. I’ve always been interested in games, and if something like this had been going on I would’ve been there to see what’s going on and I’m sure lots of people will have lots of questions and I now feel like I’m in a position where I can answer some of those questions because we’re doing it. That’s really cool.

What are the contact details for IndigoJam on Facebook and Twitter?

Our Twitter handle is @IndigoJamGames and our Facebook page is also IndigoJamGames. So come along, like us, follow us, we’ll share information with you.

Thanks for your time and good luck for The Gadget Show.

Keep up to date with the latest news from Make Something Unreal Live here on The Train2Game Blog.

 

Train2Game interview: Neocore Games on the making of King Arthur II: The Role-playing Wargame – Part 2

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Train2Game News recently caught up with Neocore Games, developer of King Arthur II: The Role-playing Wargame, an RTS and RPG hybrid that was published through Paradox Interactive earlier this year.

In an extensive interview, Neocore PR and Community Manager Orsolya Tóth discusses the story behind King Arthur series, the development of King Arthur II, the importance of digital distribution and much more.

Read Part 2 of our interview with Neocore Games, which includes advice on getting into the industry, right here on the Train2Game Blog. The first part of our two part interview is here.

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

The battles of King Arthur II look epic, how difficult is programming the game when there’s potentially so much happening on the battlefield?

It’s definitely not easy. But I guess our programmers have done a good job! There’s an entire blog post on our DevBlog about just one segment of the battle, the pathfinding system for individual soldiers and how it was developed. And it is only a small part of the entire battle mechanism, so you can guess how complex it is with all the spells, magic shield, unit traits and skills, terrain and weather modifiers, strategic locations, dual-level fighting since we introduced the flying beasts, AI behaviour – actions and reactions and many more factors.

How much research into the lore of King Arthur gone into King Arthur II? What’s the story of the game, and how much does it deviate from the ‘traditional’ tales of King Arthur? The art style certainly looks darker than what people tend to think about…

The core idea of King Arthur II is as Arthurian as it could be, based on the legend of the Grail and the myth of the Fisher King. According to legends if the high king of the land is in pain, the land suffers with him, and in Arthurian mythology we have the tale of the legendary guardian of the Grail, the Fisher King, who lies wounded in his castle and his kingdom has turned into a barren Wasteland.

In this case, we have already had Arthur as the protector of the Grail, so it was logical that he himself could become the Wounded King. In addition to that, the Arthurian mythology has some really bleak stories after Arthur builds Camelot and rules the land, leading up to a cataclysmic ending. In other words, the tone was meant to be darker from the start.

What are the plans for additional content for King Arthur II? Does it provide Neocore with a good opportunity to experiment with new ideas?

To be honest, we don’t have anything specific on our minds yet regarding the DLCs. Of course the story of the game and the fantasy setting provide us countless possibilities that can evolve to become a DLC or expansion for King Arthur II.

How much influence do reviews have on future updates for King Arthur II? What impacts will it have on future DLC?

As the DLCs are only vague ideas at this point yet, I guess we’ll consider the impact of the reviews on them when we cross that bridge! Regarding the updates, we’ll improve the game as far as we can and in that we appreciate the feedback we get both from the media and the gaming community.

How important is digital distribution going to be in the success of King Arthur II?

I think it will be crucial. While retail distribution is still important, digital distribution takes over more and more sales on the PC gaming market.

Some developers have claimed the strategy genre is dying. What’s your response to this, and what are your thoughts on the current state of the strategy genre?

We don’t feel that the strategy genre is dying. There are plenty of devoted strategy fans who always get excited when they see a new strategy title released. So I think the strategy genre is doing great as long as developers can create appealing strategy games that fit well to their needs.

Finally, what advice can you give to those looking to get into the games industry?

In the case of developing your computer game, we can say a couple of things: be persistent in all circumstances, do many tests and keep your ears and eyes open for feedback. Start with a smaller project, where you’ll get fast and effective feedback directly from the gaming market. As the digital distribution becomes more and more popular, it’s much easier to reach the gamers with smaller games as well, so it’s a huge opportunity for new game developer companies.

In case you want to join an already existing company, then show them what you’re capable of – a well-functioning mod, a demo version of an idea, concentrating mainly on one thoroughly developed feature, will help you a lot, if you don’t have the necessary working experience yet.

King Arthur II: The Role-playing Wargame, from Neocore and Paradox Interactive is available now. 

Train2Game news: Question Notch in BAFTA Games live Q&A on Thursday

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Train2Game students have the chance to question Minecraft creator Markus ‘Notch’ Persson thanks to a live Twitter Q&A from BAFTA Games.

The Q&A with Notch takes place tomorrow, Thursday 15th March at 12:30. Train2Game students who wish to ask Minecraft creator a question can do so by Tweeting @BAFTAGames using the #NotchQA hashtag.

If you’re not on Twitter, tells us what you’d like to know, and we’ll submit the question on your behalf.

The Twitter Q&A comes ahead of Notch receiving the BAFTA Special Person Award at the GAME British Academy Video Games Awards on Friday night.

The Notch Q&A isn’t the only BAFTA event that happens tomorrow, with Dare to be Digital: Pitching a Prototype taking place in the evening.

Yesterday, The Train2Game Blog reported that Notch worries that his next game won’t be able to achieve the same impact as Minecraft.

For more Notch news, keep reading the Train2Game Blog.

So Train2Game, what would you ask Notch?

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

BAFTA’s public events and online resources bring you closer to the creative talent behind your favourite games, films, and TV shows. Find out more at www.bafta.org/newsletter,www.facebook.com/bafta or twitter.com/baftagames

Train2Game interview: Stuart Moore of Make Something Unreal Live team Derp Studios

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Train2Game students are launching four new development studios in 2012 as part of ‘Make Something Unreal Live,’ a competitive process designed to accelerate their careers by giving them the tools and resources needed to release games for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch this spring.

The studios are Commando Kiwi, Derp Studios, Digital Mage and Indigo Jam.

The first titles released by the studios will be based on the Fighting Fantasy series of books created by Ian Livingston and Steve Jackson.

We caught up with Stuart Moore of Derp Studios to find out how the road to Make Something Unreal Live at The Gadget Show has gone so far. Listen via Train2Game Radio or read it here on The Train2Game Blog.

Hi Stuart, how have you found being part of Derp Studios on the road to Make Something Unreal Live?

Very chaotic, but also very enjoyable. I’ve got a great team working with me, there’s a whole range of personalities and they’re really lovely people, I’ve made some good friends and I’m really enjoying working with the Unreal Engine and making massive progress, some great leaps recently in installing the software onto the device and just seeing it in action blows your mind.

So, you’re enjoying using UDK?

Yeah, the software is really good, really intuitive. As a developer, using the tool that they’ve called Kismet, it really lets you visualise all the development that you’re doing.  Instead of seeing lines and lines of code, you get to actually see images on the screen of the actions you want the engine to take.

You’re working with the Fighting Fantasy IP, which book is your game going to be based on?

We’re making a sequel to the book The Citadel of Chaos. That’s basically a story which revolves around a mage who was sent to assassinate the evil Balthus Dire, who is attempting to get another Army of Chaos from another realm.

So there’s a lot of Might & Magic style things in the game.

Yeah, there will be a lot of spells and we want the player to rely more on the spells and strategy and only use their melee as a last resort.

How are you finding developing a first person game for IOS?

As far as I’m aware, there aren’t many first person games for IOS, so I think we’re really hoping to revolutionise the platform and get more hardcore gamers on iPad and on iPhone. But also we want to incorporate a mini-game so you can play on a casual commute if you’ve just got half an hour on the train so you will be able to hack and slash. But if you want to sit at home for a few hours you can play through the story and that mode will be quite immersive, we hope.

So, you’re essentially doing two games in one.

Yeah, we’re hoping to have two completely separate modes, one rough and ready that gets you into the game to kill as many enemies as possible to get the highest score that you can. And also, we’re hoping to have an engaging, in-depth story mode to keeping the player interested, wanting to know what happens next, where is the next twist coming from.

The team formed at the Train2Game and Epic Games Game Jam, how have you found the transition from that to working as a fully operating game development studio.

I’d say one of the major difficulties that we have is the distance between some of our team members. We have to rely mostly on communicating over the internet using Skype and Facebook, and we’ve got a pretty good program called SVN which we can use to share files. But apart from that, you wouldn’t really be able to tell that we’re not having that many face-to-face meetings. We’re gelling really well and the progress is coming along leaps and bounds.

And there’s still plenty of time to go before you take part in Make Something Unreal Live at The Gadget Show, how do you think you’re going to find building the final stages at the big event where potentially thousands of people could be watching?

The pressure is going to be on, to have five days to build the game. Hopefully we’ll know exactly what we’re doing, the whole process has been a massive learning curve.

And finally, tell us the contact details for Derp Studios,  of your Facebook page and Twitter page.

We’re available on Facebook at www.facebook.com/derpstudios and on Twitter it’s www.twitter.com/derpstudios

Great Stuart, thanks for your time.

Thank you.

Keep up to date with the latest news from Make Something Unreal Live here on The Train2Game Blog.