Train2Game may be pleased to hear that Modern Warfare 3 will be ‘colour-blind friendly’

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Train2Game students may be interested to hear that the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will be colour-blind friendly.

VP of Sledgehammer games Michael Condrey confirmed the news, after being asked a question by a Call of Duty fan, on the developers official blog.

“Research suggests that as much as 6% of the general population suffers from Color Blindness, or more accurately Colour Vision Deficiency. Men (9-12%) are 20x more likely to be afflicted than women (0.25-1%).”   He wrote.

“Those numbers vary depending on which source you quote, but we estimate that nearly a million gamers are playing Call of Duty every day with this issue.  I am happy to report that we are working on a Colour Blind Assist option for Modern Warfare 3.”

“So start honing your MP skills, Nick.  You won’t be able blame your red-green deficiency for all that friendly-fire come November 8th.”  Condrey concluded.

It raises an interesting question for Train2Game students who’ve already been developing their own games, have you taken the possible colour-blindness of users into consideration?

As previously reported by the Train2Game blog, Sledgehammer are one of three studios that are contributing to the development of Modern Warfare 3.

The Train2Game blog brought Train2Game students the reveal trailer back in May, while the as also seen on the Train2Game blog, publisher Activision say it’ll bring the most advanced multiplayer ever.

So Train2Game, have you thought about the colour-blind? Should more developers take it into consideration?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: Sledgehammer via CVG]

Train2Game Industry Experience Diaries – Johnny Robinson No.2

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Train2Game Game Designer Johnny Robinson is on a  Train2Game student work placement at DR Studios.

This is the second in a series of Train2Game student work placement diaries Johnny will be writing during his placement. Read it below or on the official Train2Game industry experience diaries website.

You can also watch Johnny’s second video diary here on the Train2Game blog.

Train2Game students can play Civilization on Facebook as more devs join social media gaming

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Regular Train2Game blog readers will be familiar with Zynga’s Allies & Empires, which has gained more users than social gaming behemoth Farmville.

Its release was seen by some as a pre-emptive move against, Sid Meier’s Civilization World which is now available to play on Facebook. Yes, that’s the same Civilization that’s been such a hit with PC Gamers for many, many years.

“With over ten million units sold worldwide, Sid Meier’s Civilization  is world renowned as one of the greatest strategy game franchises,” said Christoph Hartmann, President of  publisher2K.

“We’re excited to bring this fun and social game to people on Facebook, enabling fans of the series to play Civilization World from almost anywhere in the world; while offering newcomers a chance to enjoy this addictive strategy gameplay that has fascinated gamers for two decades.”

The game is described as ‘an online world where players collaborate with friends to become the strongest nation to accomplish an end goal of becoming the world’s most powerful civilization.’

“Our team set out to create an exciting  Civilization  game for Facebook where for the first time, players can join with their friends to build a powerful empire and rule the world,” said Sid Meier, Director of Creative Development at Firaxis Games.

“Civilization World  is a fun and engaging game that both fans of the series and fans of Facebook games will find immediately addictive, and we look forward to adding to the experience as the game continues to evolve in this dynamic new gaming world.”

Civilization’s move to the social media sphere may not come as a big surprise to some Train2Game students, given that Frontierville and former Civilization II designer Brian Reynolds has previously heaped praise on social media games.

He also mentioned how the role of a Game Designer is much more important in a smaller, social media title than a Triple-A game.

“But it turns out that the skills we have are really valuable in social games and it’s actually really fun to design those games. First of all, I’m working on the forefront of a new thing. Second of all, I’m reaching (millions), tens of (millions) of players I could never have reached before” said Reynolds.

And third, I really need my skills. It’s harder to design these games. We do the same things we did with strategy games: Design simple systems that interact in complex ways, but they have to be so much more accessible then they used to.”

And as reported by the Train2Game blog, another PC strategy title in the form of Age of Empires will also soon be heading to Facebook.

Train2Game students already know that Facebook is a huge area of gaming now, and the fact that big developers and publishers want to get involve only solidifies this.

So Train2Game, what are your thoughts on Civilization coming to Facebook? Would you play it? What other classic games would you like to see online?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: Gamasutra]

Train2Game Game Developer Phillip Stevens from Paignton speaks to Train2Game Radio

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Phillip Stevens is studying to become a Game Developer with Train2Game. Train2Game Radio caught up with him to find out why he chose to study with Train2Game, how he’s finding the course and what he wants to achieve in a career in the games industry.

Listen to the interview at http://audioboo.fm/train2game

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game students may have to wait for Skyrim mod tools

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Skyrim Dragon Fight screenshot

Train2Game students looking to get their hands on modding tools for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim may have to wait for a little while after the game is released.

“We put a big premium on our editor, which we then ship with the games,” Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard told Gamasutra.

“It’s going to come out again with Skyrim, the Creation Kit. So when it comes to content creation, we just have so much of it that we have to put a lot of development time into the tools, because the game is so big.

“We’re hoping [the Creation Kit] will be available as a download on launch day. I don’t know if I can promise day-one, but it will be very close.”

Skyrim looks extremely impressive indeed, and it’d be interesting to see what modders can do with the Creation Kit.

You can find out a little more about Skyrim here on the Train2Game blog

In an interview published on the Train2Game blog last month, Red Faction: Armageddon Lead Level Designer Jameson Durall said that modding is an excellent way for those with desires to get into the games industry to practice their skills.

Indeed, Valve, who was reported by the Train2Game blog will be releasing the Source SDK for free have a long history of supporting modders, and as many Train2Game students will know, the popular shooter Counter-Strike begun as a mod for the original Half-Life.

More recently, Valve have allowed Team Fortress 2 community developers a cut of the revenue made from the in-game items sold through digital transactions.

Some amazing games have been made by modders for various engines, who knows what they could come up with when using the Skyrim Creation Kit.

So Train2Game, is the Skyrim Creation Kit something that interests you? Or are you just looking forward to the game itself?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forums.

[Source: Gamasutra via VG247] 

Train2Game news, Retailers not good for dev creativity say Paradox

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Many Train2Game students have aspirations to work on the Triple A games that get stocked on shelves in shopping centres and supermarkets, but this area has not been good for creativity in the industry.

That’s according to CEO of Paradox Interactive, Fredrik Wester who revealed that the strategy title specialists generate most of their revenue through digital downloads.

“This year we’re close to ninety percent of our revenue being digital” he told PC Gamer.

“Retail sales are like a bonus for us now. We don’t really need retailers any more and that is a release because retailers have not been good for the industry. They’ve not been good for the creative part of the industry, for finding new cool games.”

“People complain to publishers that there are only sequels on the market, but that’s because retailers want to see sequels, because they can do their chart diagrams for how things sell and things like that. So one of the things preventing more creative gaming has been the retail challenge.”

“I can only say this now because we’re not depending on them, so it’s really relieving to be able to say that.”

Paradox’s main digital partner is Steam, with GamersGate also a big parter. Recently, the company had success publishing indie title Magika, which has been downloaded over 600,000 times. It’s proved to be a popular game on the Train2Game forum.

It also offers inspiration to Train2Game students in that Magika was developed by students at a Swedish University who’ve now got a hit game on their hands!

Essentially, Paradox suggest that digital platforms allow developers to self publish and take creative risks that retailers may not want to be a part of. Self-publishing could also potentially allow Train2Game students direct access to a market for their games.

Earlier this year, the Train2Game blog reported that Alan Wake developer Remedy sees an all digital future.

So Train2Game, do you agree that digital distribution allows game developers to be more creative? Would you publish in that way? Or is seeing a game you’ve developed on store shelves the ultimate goal?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: PC Gamer]

Train2Game Game Developers take note: The “real battleground” for new consoles is AI say Ubisoft

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As reported by the Train2Game blog, Ubisoft appear to be very keen to see the next generation of consoles appear sooner rather than later.

Now, in comments that may come as a surprise to Train2Game students, the publisher says it won’t be graphics that push games forward, but the A.I. in them. This one therefore may especially be of interest to the Train2Game Game Developers.

“AI has always been the real battleground. The challenge is that, if you see an AI coming, you’ve failed. And that’s a problem we have to overcome as we create the impression of flawless, seamless worlds.” Ubisoft’s Yves Jacquier told GamesIndustry.biz.

“In general the industry expects that graphics will not be a strong feature any more… Obviously, graphics are better for marketing purposes because you can show things. AI you can’t show.”

“Our challenge with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox [360] is that we’re extremely limited in what we can do. It’s a challenge for the engineers to provide nice graphics and nice AI and nice sound with a very small amount of memory and computation time.”

“We think that the next generation of consoles won’t have these limits any more. Games might have more realistic graphics and more on-screen, but what’s the value of making something more realistic and better animated if you have poor AI?”

And as previously mentioned on the Train2Game blog, Ubisoft have previously stated that a new generation of consoles is needed to bring more creativity into game development.

Train2Game students no doubt have many ideas of what they could do if they could build better games with much improved A.I.

So Train2Game, do you agree with Ubisoft? Is improving AI the next step for the next-generation?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: GamesIndustry.biz]

Train2Game students could be among them? The Games Industry needs ‘a greater number of female graduates’ .

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There are plenty of women on Train2Game courses aspiring to work in the game industry, they may therefore be interested to hear that LucasArts creative Director Clint Hocking says the games industry needs more female employees.

In a column in Edge magazine – a useful publication for Train2Game students – Hocking criticised what he called the ‘Viking Culture’ of the game industry, and says that it needs to change.

“Game development studios and their teams are largely staffed in the same way that Viking longships were crewed. Consequently, the culture is overflowing with beer and pent-up aggression, and a very significant portion of our overall cultural output is fart jokes. I think we can do better.”

He adds that establishing a more balanced culture in the games industry would go a long way to games reaching a “truly mass market audience.”

Hocking believes the best way to do this is to encourage more women into the industry.

“This means that we need to better position the industry as a desirable workplace, one in which female artists, designers, programmers and project managers would want to be employed. It involves reaching out to universities and colleges to help them attract more female applicants to their programmes, enabling us to benefit from a greater number of female graduates.”

“Like the Viking expansion itself, this transformation probably needs to be driven from the bottom up. Like it or not, the culture onboard your ships is the culture you’re exporting. Fart jokes have their place in culture, but when fart jokes become your culture you have a problem.” he added.

There are plenty of women on Train2Game courses who definitely want to become part of the games industry, and there are certain organisations that could help them.

As reported by the Train2Game blog last month, the Women In Games Jobs event that takes place in September could be of great benefit to female Train2Game students.

And as posted by Train2Game Course Director Tony Bickley on the Train2Game forum, WIG will be holding networking event for women working, or planning to work in the games industry, during the Develop Conference later this month.

So Train2Game, what are your thoughts on Hocking’s comments? Is there too big a male culture in the games industry? Do you think it needs to change?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: GamesIndustry.biz]

Train2Game students do you agree? Two screens “is the future” say Nintendo

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As extensively reported by the Train2Game blog, Nintendo revealed the Wii U at E3 last month. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the new console is the controller which features a large touchscreen.

According to Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime a two screen set up for consoles is the future, and he believes that the company do have history setting industry trends.

“All I can say is that this is not the first time that Nintendo and our competitors have had dramatically different views on the future of gaming,” said Fils-Aime.

“When we launched the original DS everyone was saying the handheld competitor coming from Sony has more powerful graphics, that’s really the way to go. And we showed that no, two screens, a touch screen, a microphone, that actually led to better gaming experiences.” He continued.

“With the Wii, as well, Nintendo shunned the idea that a modern console needed high-resolution graphics. “We said we think that a motion-controlled experience could be more fun,”

“86 million units later around the world, I think people would say we got that one right as well.”

The Nintendo boss of America is confident the company have done it again with the Wii U.

“In this case we’re saying that this two-screen experience – either two screens playing the same game or two screens doing fundamentally different things – is the future,” he said.

And as reported by the Train2Game blog last month, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata sad that core gamers – which includes many Train2Game students – will be drawn to the Nintendo Wii U.

So Train2Game, do you think Nintendo are right? Is gaming on two screens the future of the industry? Or are Nintendo just pumping their own egos?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: Beefjack]