Category Archives: train 2 game

Train2Game News: Amanda Blatch student diary: Week 2

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

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

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

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

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

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up

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Five months since its release, Minecraft on the Xbox 360 is still selling 27,000 units daily. That’s an estimated 4 million copies sold, further solidifying the games legacy.

Valve’s Steam distribution service now sells software as well as games. The software is for games development. The products currently available on the store are ArtRage Studio Pro, CameraBag 2, GameMaker: Studio, 3D-Coat, 3DMark Vantage, 3DMark 11 and of course, Source Film-maker.

Halo 4 won’t be getting Kinect controls, says 343 Industries’ Frank O’Connor. His opinion is that while the motion sensor has its uses when it comes to the UI, controlling a core game is not what it’s for. Kinect will be used for Halo Waypoint however, which can be launched from in the game.

Reportedly, Arkane studios’ Dishonored will take over twenty hours to complete playing stealthily with killing no one. A brutal play through, killing anyone in your path, will take between 12 to 14 hours but that’s without exploring every nook and cranny, and knowing the solution to everything beforehand. It should take more thorough or inexperienced players longer than that.

PlayStation Europe is offering a month long internship to who ever can make the best game on LittleBigPlanet for the PS Vita. The best submission, as voted by a PlayStation judging panel, will be rewarded with a month-long internship at Swedish studio Tarsier. Games will be judged on gameplay, originality, and commercial appeal. The winner will eventually help work on official DLC for the game. To register an interest, go here.

A new mod has been developed for Crysis. The mod, StarCry, sees many different hit sci-fi shows making their way into the new user made campaign for the game. Franchises such as Stargate SG1 and Star Wars are featured in the mod.

Chasing Aurora developer, Martin Pichlmair, says that Nintendo is working hard to make the Wii U eShop friendly and open for independent developers. This opens up a whole new market with a new innovative console to work with.

World of Tanks official site, Wargaming.net, say that registration numbers have passed the 40 million mark. Players have been pouring into servers to check out the big 8.0 update, which overhauled WoT’s visuals and added proper physics. World of Tanks is one of the biggest free to play games in the world.

Cliff Bleszinski has announced he is leaving Epic. After two decades with the company he is moving on to expand his career. Whilst with the company he was responsible for games such as Jazzy Jackrabbit and the highly acclaimed Gears Of War series.

Bad Piggies, the Angry Birds spin-off from Rovio, shot to the top spot on the US iTunes App Store within three hours of launch. The firm said the game was the fastest chart-topper in the company’s history. The game is the third from the Finnish studio this year to hit the top spot within it’s first day of release. The other titles were Amazing Alex and of course, Angry Birds Space.

Train2Game News: SpecialEffect challenges Train2Game students

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SpecialEffect, the games charity, have a challenge for Train2Game students. Their goal is to get 25,000 views of their brand new “SpecialEffect – The Gamers Charity video” by December 25th.

They would like all Train2Game students share it via Facebook and Twitter to get fellow gamers to watch it and share. A community is big as ours should have no trouble getting the video up to 25,000 views.

You can read more about the charity and watch the video in the links below.

Will you take up the challenge?

http://www.specialeffect.org.uk/pages/about.htm

Train2Game News: Ben Stoneman’s final student diary

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JOB OFFER

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

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

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

“TERMS OF CONTRACT”

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

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

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

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

Train2Game News: GameCityNights coming to a place near you

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The GameCityNights festival is going nationwide. The event annually held in Nottingham it is now hitting the road.

The festival celebrates everything from the game world with previous keynote speakers from Crytek UK, Harmonix music systems and Sony London Studio.

This years event is sponsored by Edge Magazine, SimCity, Maxis, EA and more. Previous years the festival has had no financial support so to get such big names is a big step forward.

“After three years of Nights gigs in Nottingham and loads of brilliant guests and audience members, it seemed like a good time to share the love,” says Iain Simons, director of GameCity. “The one thing we love more than doing GameCityNights events is driving – so this really is the ideal combination for us”

More details of the event are soon to come – it’s guaranteed to feature many playable games, intimate talks and panels with industry icons. There’s also the GameCity Arcade: a free space for indie devs to put their games. All the games will also feature on Edge’s website.

“So if you’ve got something to say or a game to show, get in touch,” says Simons.

If you have been working on a game lately and are looking for a place to show it and get feedback from the public, this is a good time.

Dates and locations are below:

November 13: National Media Museum, Bradford
November 20: BFI Southbank, London
November 21: Dublin Science Gallery, Dublin

January 24: Antenna, Nottingham
January 29: Arnolfini, Bristol
January 31: Junction, Cambridge

February 5: MAC, Birmingham
February 22: Animated Exeter Festival
February 23: GEEK2013, Margate
February 25: Carriageworks, Leeds
February 26: FACT, Liverpool

For more details on the event go to nights.gamecity.org

Train2Game News: Students in their local papers

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

You can see the articles in the links below.

Sevenoaks_Chronicle_September_2012

Southall Gazette September 2012

Woking Informer September 2012

Well done guys. Good luck with everything you do.

Train2Game witnesses start of Zombie apocalypse

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Whilst Train2Game were at Eurogamer over the weekend, they witnessed the beginning of the Zombie apocalypse.

The link below shows the picture evidence of these nightmare creatures with Train2Game

http://www.facebook.com/Train2GameEuroGamer2012

See everything Train2Game got up to at Eurogamer 2012

Not for the faint hearted!

Train2Game News: A day at Eurogamer Expo: Part 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Train2Game News: A day at Eurogamer Expo: Part 1

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On Saturday I was sent to the Eurogamer Expo held at Earl’s Court in London. I am going to give a recap of my day for anyone who couldn’t be there.

My first clue that the day was going to be a good one was seeing The Mask queuing to enter. I was surrounded by hundreds of other early entry ticket holders all eager to burst through the door and get their hands on the up coming games.

As the doors opened and we all filed in. I knew exactly what I wanted to play. I walked straight to the over 18 area to finally get my first taste of Arkane Studio’s Dishonored.

The demo gave you a good taste. I got to use the possession skill, walking around in guards bodies to sneak around, before falling out and assassinating them. The blink skill is a good mechanic, similar to that of Nightcrawler from Xmen, you can teleport short distances without being detected and get to hard to reach areas. The world its self looks beautiful and the level design is so versatile. I can not wait to get my hands on this game.

Next up I had a shot at Hitman: Absolution. Everyone who played the Square-Enix game got a little Agent 47 model, who now sits proudly on my desk. The graphics are of a very high standard and the game play is typical Hitman from what I could see. Having only played Hitman:Blood Money previously, I was happy to see the ability to peak from hiding places, which was seriously lacking in earlier games. This will probably be another one I end up getting.

After seeing highly amusing stickers that were for the iOS game Carmaggedon I had to hunt down the stand. It is a remake of the game released fifteen years ago that had so much controversy surrounding it. When the game was first released the public didn’t like the fact that you had to run over people. They had to change it to zombies or face the game being banned. Now that times have changed the game is back in all its glory, the way it should have been.

I then visited the Train2Game stand to say hello. I was happy to see many students and potential students attending. Royal Rush, the winning game from the world record winning Game Jam, made by RetroMetro, was playable at the stand. Train2Game held competitions daily, who ever got the highest score on the game was awarded a prize later in the day.

At midday it was time for the Dishonored developer session. We all took our seats and were introduced to Christophe Carrier and Dinga Bakaba from Arkane Studios. They took us through the story and some of their development ideas before doing two demos for us. The first time through they demonstrated the stealth aspects of the game, using the blink mechanic and distractions to get to the end of the level. No one was killed and he was only spotted once before disappearing out of sight. The second time was much more brutal. Killing everyone he could find using different methods. The highlight of which being the moment he froze time with a bullet in mid air, possessed the guard who had fired it and walked in front of the shot before leaving his body and unfreezing time, making the guard shoot himself.

That covers my morning at Eurogamer. There was so much to do and see through out the day I am going to have to split this in to two blogs across the day. Check back later for the continuation.

 

Train2Game News: Game Jam creativity blossoms in to something more

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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