Category Archives: train 2 game

Train2Game News: Bring Back Suikoden!!

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SuikodenIf you are a fan of the game saga, Suikoden, created by Konami, then this could potentially be fantastic news!

Fans of the RPG series Suikoden are desperate to see their beloved games revived, taking to Konami’s various social network outlets to politely ask for its return.

A group, founded on fan-site Suikosource and named Suikoden Revival Movement (SRM), draws inspiration from the Operation Rainfall movement, formed in 2011, which saw fans successfully campaign for three Wii titles (Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, and Pandora’s Tower) to be localised and brought to the US. Citing poor marketing as one of the main reasons behind Suikoden’s recent hiatus, SRM’s ultimate goal is to pressure Konami into “bringing the Suikoden series back to its former glory – or even better – to new glory.”

Suikoden is a role-playing video game series originally created by Yoshitaka Murayama. The game series is loosely based on the classical Chinese novel, Shui Hu Zhuan by Shi Naian and Luo Guanzhong.

Each individual game in the series centers around relative themes of politics, corruption, revolution, mystical crystals known as True Runes and the “108 Stars of Destiny”—the 108 protagonists who are loosely interpreted from the source material.

Though the Suikoden games follow an irregular chronological sequence of events, the entire series takes place within the same world among continuing and overlapping histories. In some cases, several characters appear in multiple installations.

The most recent Western numbered instalment of the series, Suikoden V, was released in 2006 for PS2; the series failing to make an appearance at at all in this generation.

Since its inception in July last year the Suikoden Revival Movement has garnered a large following, accumulating well over 10’000 followers on Facebook. Thus far, Konami have only offered two “small responses”, but the enthusiasm of SRM doesn’t appear to have waned, as they continue to press Konami on a weekly basis for a revival of the series, or at the very least to make all titles available on PSN and XBLA.

It’s a great example of gamers pulling together and working as a community. It is a cause that I am strongly behind and if you want to join in with the revival you can by visiting the Suikoden Revival Movement Facebook page or following them on Twitter.

If you have played the game before, view the video below for some nostalgia. If you haven’t played it before you can get a feel for the game in the video for Suikoden 2

Train2Game News: Train2Game radio talks to Laurence Gee

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Laurence Gee (Artist)Train2Game radio this week spoke to Train2Game Art & Animation student Laurence Gee. Laurence tells us how he got his job at Brain In A Jar and the exciting new project he is working on which is moments away from going on to Kickstarter!

http://www.braininajar.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/BraininaJarGames

https://twitter.com/openwheelgame

https://twitter.com/Braininatweet

You can listen to the interview here: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1267348-train2game-student-laurence-gee-talks-to-t2g-radio

or read the transcript below:

Hi my name’s Laurence Gee, I’m from Birkenhead and I’m on the art course.

Hiya Laurence, how you doing mate?

I’m not to bad, how about you Mark?

I’m excellent cheers mate. So then let’s start this off. So what’s your story? What are the past experiences that have shaped your life?

Basically, starting from School to College I basically focused my skills on Art and endeavor to get better and better at my art and try to focus on moving from the traditional art to the computer based art that I do now.

Excellent, so what do you currently do for a living?

I work as a 3D artist here at Brain In A Jar games development.

Excellent, how did you end up working there?

It was through placement. Train2Game got me a placement here, which I’m very grateful for, and I worked here for the placement and when the placement was over I was kindly offered the job.

Very nice and how long have you worked there?

2 years actually, just recently became 2 years.

Still enjoying it I assume?

I love it here, yeah!

So, what are you currently working on with the company if I can ask?

You can! We are literally about to release a Kickstarter any time soon, a game called Open Wheel. Kickstarter is a crowd-funding system. There’s a website you can go to and there are loads of different projects you can support. The actual users and the people that actually give them money are actually people of the world and basically Kickstarters a crowd-funding system where people actually get to judge the game themselves or the item it’s self that go on there.

So what we’ve done is we are putting a project on there called Open Wheel. An online racing game that we’ve designed and developed our selves. It’s pretty special because it features unique game connection system. There are no log in screens what so ever, when you want to race you can just drop straight into a game, in to any running server. No lobby’s means more time spent racing. You can customize the cars and drivers, loads of stats to track, on track celebrations, race teams, leagues. There’s lots to go in there.

So what drew you and the company to Kickstarter?

Kickstarter is a great way, for small independent developers like ourselves, to fund projects, especially ones we really care about. If people like what we are trying to do then they can back us and help us out with the funding and stuff. The finances we need will make the game happen with a huge boost and we can make the game really really great!

What is your personal reason for getting into the gaming industry in the first place?

Do you remember Lemmings?

I do indeed, yeah!

I’m thinking back when I was at a really young age and I played my first game. Back from old PC games or modern consoles, I played computer games for a really long time. I was really intrigued by what went into a game, I wasn’t always intrigued about playing the game its self, but I spent a lot of time playing a game to figure who it was made and what made it work. That’s really what pulled me in.

Right is that what drew you to it was it, was that what drew you to the Art in particular or did that come from things in school?

What drew me to Art was that I’ve always done it. I’ve always been drawing and painted. I love to paint, I’m a very traditional artist and I decided I wanted to move in to the art in games because I wanted to see how they did it. When I discovered how they did it I thought it was quite interesting and I decided to take my traditional skills in to computer based skills.

So, how’s Train2Game helped you get to where you are now?

Well I started the course nearly three years ago now, very near the end of it, and I basically started the art course. I was frozen at the point where I had a basic job working in a shop and Train2Game contacted me to let me know they’d accepted me on the Art course and so I accepted, got on with the course, started doing the coursework and basically it was the placement that really helped me get to where I was.

Very nice. So finally then, where can people find out more about the project you’re working on?

Of course, that’s the main part! You can check out our Facebook page, Brain In A Jar, a twitter – we’ve got @Openwheel game and also @Braininatweets check out there – and also go to our website which is, www.braininajar.co.uk

Well thank you very much Laurence!

No worries! Thank you very much

I’ll talk to you again, bye!

Take it easy, bye!

Train2Game News: New Dishonored DLC

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Dishonored DLCTrain2Game brings you the great news that Bethesda and Arkane Studios are releasing the first bit of downloadable content that will add to the story of the epic Dishonored.

Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall will be available in Europe on April 16th for Xbox 360 and PC, and on April 17th for PS3. The add-on is priced at £7.99 / €9.99 /  AU$14.45 (or 800 Microsoft Points).

In The Knife of Dunwall you take on the role of Daud, the legendary assassin who killed the Empress, and access his weapons, gadgets, allies and supernatural abilities. After assassinating the Empress, and forever changing the fate of Dunwall, you embark on a search for redemption. The Outsider reveals the key to your atonement, but who—or what—is Delilah? Accompanied by the Whalers, your loyal band of mercenary assassins, your search will take you through never-before-seen districts of Dunwall as you face off against new and terrible foes. Employ a unique arsenal of new weapons and powers that enhance Dishonored’s dynamic combat, mobility and stealth systems. In the struggle to hang onto the last shred of your humanity, the choices you make will ultimately determine your fate.

Dishonored has received over 100 ‘Game of the Year’ awards from outlets including Game Informer, PC Gamer, Yahoo!, GameSpot.com, MSNBC.com, and CNN. In addition to garnering numerous nominations from the D.I.C.E. Interactive Achievement Awards and the Game Developers Choice Awards, Dishonored received ‘Best Action/Adventure Game of the Year’ at the SPIKE TV Video Game Awards and was recently named ‘Best Game of 2012’ by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) video games awards. For more information on Dishonored or The Knife of Dunwall please visit www.Dishonored.com.

Train2Game News: Live pitch at Develop for a chance to get funded

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Develop in BrightonDevelop in Brighton in partnership with the Wellcome Trust brings a Live Pitch event to this year’s conference. This could be the big chance a Train2Game student has been looking for!

Developers are invited to apply for the chance to receive up to £10,000 each to develop a high-impact pitch for their game to help secure a distribution platform and funding. The ideas for your game need to draw on or be inspired by contemporary or historical biological or medical science in an innovative and accessible way. The games can be developed for any mass-appeal genre, platform or business model.

Those who are successful will go on to pitch their developed game ideas to a panel of publishers and funders at a live event at Develop in Brighton on Wednesday 10 July 2013.

Panellists joining the Wellcome Trust, who are a global charity dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health, include Sony XDev and crowd-funding platform Indiegogo.

Participating developers will be invited to receive additional pitch training ahead of the live event.

Previous game developers who have been funded through this is Fayju, an independent games company, who linked with University of Essex biochemistry researcher Dr Jody Mason to create an interactive game – ‘Cascade’ – to convey Alzheimer’s disease pathology at the cellular level, as well as potential therapeutic intervention approaches. With an ageing population and the number of people with dementia set to double every 25 years, it is clear that without better therapies, young people of today will become the carers of those with Alzheimer’s disease tomorrow.

How To Apply

Submissions are open until Friday 26 April.

Development funds can be used to develop a game prototype, demo or mood reel.

To enter your idea, apply through this link, where you can also find more details on what the Wellcome Trust are looking for.

If you have any queries about this opportunity, please email Iain Dodgeon i.dodgeon@wellcome.ac.uk

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

 

Train2Game News: Games Industry Jobs – 13.3.13

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Train2Game brings you more jobs this week from around the games industry. Good luck with any you apply for!

 

ART

Job Title Artist
Job Category Art / Animation
Skills Required Art / Animation
Location Midlands
Job Description Studio Overview

Hardlight is SEGA’s third UK based studio and is focused exclusively on creating high quality, innovative game experiences for mobile and handheld platforms.

The Studio comprises small, agile teams working on new IP & well-known SEGA IP. Project durations are 5-10 months, building on the success of their first projects on iOS – Sonic Jump.

The team follows an ethos of staying compact, agile and focused – combining talent from a variety of game genres and backgrounds, and welcomes applications from candidates of all levels of experience.

Key Responsibilities

  • Produce Concept, Prototype and In-Game Art within design and technical limitations for mobile platforms.
  • Create an appealing and consistent look for the games visuals that suites both the genre and brand requirements.
  • Additional tasks as required

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

  • Self-driven individual with good organization skills
  • Traditional 2D & 3D art skills.
  • A good eye for lighting, shading, colour, detail and form
  • Thoroughly knowledge of Photoshop & 3DS Max and/or similar digital art programs.
  • An eye for accurate proportion, form, and detail

Pluses

  • Previous games industry on smart phone and tablets game titles advantageous.
  • Passion for computer games and digital arts highly advantageous

You can apply by going HERE.

 

DEVELOPER

Job Title Mobile Game Engineer
Job Category Programming
Skills Required Mobile / iOS / Android
Location Midlands
Job Description Studio Overview

Hardlight is SEGA’s third UK based studio and is focused exclusively on creating high quality, innovative game experiences for mobile handheld platforms.  With their first project ‘Sonic Jump’ released on iOS in late October, their next projects are due through 2013.

The team was founded with the ethos of staying compact, agile and focused – combining talent from a variety of game genres and backgrounds and working closely with SEGA R&D Studio to stay at the cutting edge of developments in technology, middleware and game experiences.

Key Responsibilities  

  • Work with other members of the team on creating high quality mobile titles
  • Implement game features in partnership with artists and designers
  • Learn and help develop various areas of features going into mobile handheld titles
  • Constantly develop your skillset and experience in the mobile space

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

  • Development experience in C/C++
  • Experience developing titles for mobile devices (either independently or as part of a larger studio)
  • Comfortable with game design and implementation
  • Examples of own demos, with source code, very beneficial dependent on past professional experience

Pluses  

  • Passion for computer games highly advantageous
  • Development experience with C# or HTML5
  • Knowledge of OpenGL ES and other graphical development libraries

You can apply for the position HERE.

 

DESIGN

Job Title Level Designer
Job Category Game Design
Skills Required Game Design
Location Midlands, UK, Midlands
Job Description Level Designer

My client is looking for a talented Level Designer to join their team. Working as part of the design team the successful candidate will become a key member of a creative group looking to shape the next wave of exciting triple-A action titles.

Requirements

• Understanding of game design theory such as accessibility, pacing and balancing
• Exceptional team player with the ability to collaborate and communicate without losing sight of the gameplay vision
• Previous experience of building levels in a visual game design tool
• Prior knowledge of visual scripting (using CryEngine Flow Graph, Kismet or similar) to define and develop gameplay logic
• Willingness to take design direction when offered
• Work well under pressure to meet deadlines
• Experience playing first-person shooters
• Demo / video examples of relevant work (e.g. personal portfolio or content created in at least one shipped title)
• A general passion for video games, along with the desire to make the best games possible
• Strong interpersonal and problem solving skills
• ‘Outside of the box thinking’ with a desire to create interesting and original gameplay experiences

For more information please contact Simon Hope via email at: simon@aswift.com

 

QA

Jagex Ltd, the UK’s leading independent Online Games Studio, is looking for a passionate Junior Software QA Tester to join our Web Systems team and assure the quality of company websites.

Working within our growing Software Testing Department, you will be responsible assisting our internal web developers with the creation of applications used by staff and our players. The focus of the testing team is to ensure the highest quality and timely delivery of projects. You will also be expected to provide constructive feedback throughout the development lifecycle.

We are looking for highly motivated team players with strong communication and high attention to detail, who have a professional and methodical approach to work.

Key Duties Include:

  • Testing software tools and system applications
  • Providing constructive and qualitative feedback to developers
  • Analysing systems and developing the required tests
  • Providing design input to facilitate module testability
  • Creating structured test scripts and test plans
  • Contributing on a regular basis to improving processes and procedures
  • Regularly informing team leader of project progress and raising issues as they arise
  • Reviewing non-game website content

Essential Requirements:

  • Experience of software testing
  • Understanding of internet technologies including HTTP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript
  • Experience testing web/internet applications, including browser compatibility and security testing
  • Ability to understand software design documents to identify test scope and strategy
  • Excellent communication and organisation skills
  • Experience working in test driven agile development
  • A high level of attention to detail, strong analytical skills and problem solving ability

Desirable Requirements:

  • Good knowledge of bug tracking tool Jira
  • Experience of automated testing using Selenium
  • Experience with automated test tools, processes and test strategies
  • Experience analysing projects and determining their testing requirements
  • Passion for games
  • In-depth knowledge of writing automated and manual test scripts
  • ISEB Foundation qualified
  • Degree in Computer Science/Engineering  or equivalent experience
  • Experience of working on networked and MMO games

You can apply HERE.

Train2Game News: Injustice Gods Among Us – Quarter Finals

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Green Arrow and Solomon GrundyIt is the quarter finals of the Injustice: Gods Among Us battle arena!! Train2Game students vote on who you want to win the latest matches of the week.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment reveal the fifth week of challengers in this week’s Injustice Battle Arena, kicking off the quarterfinal round of matches that will pit previous weeks’ preliminary tournament victors against each other to determine who will advance to the semifinals.

This week, first round champions Batman and Wonder Woman collide as technological prowess and peak physical condition meet superhuman strength and speed, while in another ring, the fastest man in the world takes on perhaps the most mischievous, as the lightning-quick Flash faces off against the unpredictable villain, The Joker. Additional matches this week include a brutal clash between preliminary round champions Aquaman and Green Lantern, and finally, a bout of raw Krypton power versus deadly precision as Superman takes on Green Arrow.

They should be epic battles with great destruction in them all!

You can view these all-new Injustice Battle Arena videos below, analyzing each contender’s strengths, offering celebrity commentary on the matches.

To cast your vote and be eligible to win prizes, visit: http://ema.io/MzAz

The victors of these legendary match-ups will be announced soon, with all new game play videos featuring the winning contenders.

Voice your opinion via Facebook, YouTube or Twitter and join the debate!

Train2Game News: Sim City server issues

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SimCityAs you may know if you tried to play the new Sim City game when it first came out it had terribly bad server issues. Train2Game has been sent a press release from EA about the issues:

Here’s a quick update on the problems we were experiencing with SimCity – and a little something extra for people who bought the game.

The server issues which began at launch have improved significantly as we added more capacity. But some people are still experiencing response and stability problems that we’re working fast to address.

So what went wrong? The short answer is: a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta.

OK, we agree, that was dumb, but we are committed to fixing it. In the last 48 hours we increased server capacity by 120 percent. It’s working – the number of people who have gotten in and built cities has improved dramatically. The number of disrupted experiences has dropped by roughly 80 percent.

So we’re close to fixed, but not quite there. I’m hoping to post another update this weekend to let everyone know that the launch issues are behind us.

Something Special for Your Trouble

The good news is that SimCity is a solid hit in all major markets. The consensus among critics and players is that this is fundamentally a great game. But this SimCity is made to be played online, and if you can’t get a stable connection, you’re NOT having a good experience. So we’re not going to rest until we’ve fixed the remaining server issues.

And to get us back in your good graces, we’re going to offer you a free PC download game from the EA portfolio. On March 18, SimCity players who have activated their game will receive an email telling them how to redeem their free game.

I know that’s a little contrived – kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy. But we feel bad about what happened. We’re hoping you won’t stay mad and that we’ll be friends again when SimCity is running at 100 percent.

SimCity is a GREAT game and the people who made it are incredibly proud.

Since sending out this press release the problems seem to have been sorted. Players have been able to connect to their cities in the game for nearly 8 million hours of game play time and game crashes have reduced by 92% from day one.

Train2Game News: Train2Game Radio interviews Michael Bird

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Michael BirdTrain2Game radio interviewed Michael Bird last week. Michael has very nearly finished the Train2Game Art & Animation course. He tells about how he grew up and became the artist he is today with help from his parents. He also has a valuable bit of advice for all students!

You can listen to the interview with Michael here: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1260505-train2game-student-michael-bird-on-t2g-student-radio

Or read the transcript below:

Hello my name is Michael Bird, I live in Kettering which is in Northamptonshire and the course I’m doing is the Art & Animation course.

Hi Michael, how you doing?

Hi, Mark, I’m all right thank you.

 

Excellent, So what’s your story? What are the past experiences that have shaped your life?

Well I’ve always been an artist. I was never taught how to be an artist, I inherited it from my parents. When they discovered I could draw from drawing on walls and stuff, they pushed me to do it and I’ve exhibited my work throughout my life, when I was at school and times after that. I have always had it as a passion and I’ve always played Video Games from the day the first Video Games came out like Pong and Pacman that we could play at home. Since then it’s been two passions, parallel with each other and this came along and I’ve had a chance to combine the two. Hopefully I can prosper doing them both!

 

So where as most people were told off for drawing on walls, you were encouraged!?

Yeah, yeah, basically yeah! Well you know, I wasn’t encouraged to draw all over the walls but they felt he has obviously got something, let’s give him some paper and pencil and let him just scribble. They guided me where I needed to be guided and yeah! I’m just blessed with being able to do it without being taught how to do it.

 

So are your parents quite good artists as well then I assume?

Yeah yeah, my Dad’s had art sold all over the world, commissions sold all over the world. My Mum is more of a colourist. She’s excellent with colour and I’ve picked it up off both of them. They’ve had all their work exhibited everywhere so yeah, it’s all good!

 

You said you’d exhibited some of your work somewhere, where have you exhibited your work?

My work has been exhibited locally around the Northamptonshire area. It’s been in the local press, this is going back to when I was about twelve, I think I had my first exhibition. I say, it got in the news because it was very different to everyone else. I was very fantasy art then, swords and dungeons and dragons and all that stuff and since then since I’ve done continuous exhibitions people have come up to me and say “I’d like to know if you can do this for me” and it’s commission pieces. Most of my work is actually all around my house.

 

To display to all the people who come in and see you I guess?

Yes! I do have comments like “What’s that?” or “Who did that?” and I say “Well I did!”. They then just stand there or sit there and stare at it and usually they come up and say “Oh. Can you do something for me then?”.

 

That’s got to feel nice when people come up and say that to you?

Yeah! They go through “well what inspired you to do that piece?” I say it’s just in my head so I do it! They say “What does it mean” well what do you think it means? Because what it means to me is different to what it means to them. When you do a picture or a piece of art it’s what a person thinks when they look at it.

 

So where are you in the course now?

I’ve just completed assignment 42, so I’m right near the very end. I’ve got one more portfolio piece to do and then I’ve got one more lesson and then I think it’s on to do a demo reel.

 

So that’s got to feel pretty exciting hasn’t it?

Yeah! I’ve gone through the waves and the troughs to do the course. You get so far and then you’re brain can’t take it any more and you wonder, can I really carry on with this course? Or you’ll have big failures and you think well I’ve got to carry on! What’s the point in doing it if you get half way through and can’t be doing it any more?

 

So you said you had a bit of trouble going through with the course, so what made you say you will keep going with everything, what made you push through?

Determination. Just the will to get it done! If you do it and you fail, you may as well not even have tried. You do get these bad points and you have to carry on. You do have these bad bits, you just pick yourself up and start again.

 

Well that’s perfect! Thank you very much for your time today Michael.

It’s a pleasure. Thank you very much for letting me do it!

 

It’s my pleasure, I will talk to you soon.

OK, thank you very much!