This is an incredibly cute talk taken from TED. The video was brought to my attention by a member of the Train2Game forum.
It is a talk by a Dad and his young daughter about the game they made together at a weekend game jam.
They make some very excellent points together in a heart melting way.
You can enjoy the video below:
With the release of Windows 8 and the student games being published on the Store, Eurogamer has done a story on the World Record Game Jam.
You can read the article below
You can listen to the interview at
http://audioboo.fm/boos/1030916-train2game-student-talks-to-mark-kingdon-on-t2g-student-radio
or read the transcript below:
Hello, I am here with Jonny Robinson from Milton Keynes, how you doing Jonny?
I’m doing very well thanks how is yourself?
I’m very good thank you, Could you tell me what course you’re on?
I’m on the Games designer course.
What is the most dramatic or exciting thing you have done in your life?
Winning the Gadget Show, that was quite cool, the Make Something Unreal Live 2012. Pretty exciting times with Epic!
What is your reason for getting in to the gaming industry and how will the gaming industry, change your life?
I wanted to get in the gaming industry when I was very young, it’s one of those things that I explain a lot to my friends that when I was young I used to put the gaming industry on a pedestal. You know you kind of worship it, you want it so bad but then you realise, I don’t know if I can do that so you kind of dismiss it for years. I then saw this course advertised in the news paper and I thought, you know what – I’ll give it a shot, it’s an online course I can do it in my own spare time and when I actually did the course I felt a lot more confident in myself. I felt I should share my experience with people so I did a lot of Train2Game promoting for the design course because it helped me a lot with my confidence and so really I would say it is one of the best decisions I have ever made so far.
After you earn your Train2Game diploma, what would be your greatest ambition in the industry?
Obviously get a full time job. I am also working with my team, the Commando Kiwi team, on a new project. I’ll chuck that out there as well, it’s the first time I’ve mentioned it. We are going to put something up on our Facebook very soon. We made a game for the Gadget Show which was “The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain” on the iOS and now we are taking a further step into the industry with the Unreal Engine, as that’s what we won at the Gadget Show. I can’t really say to much but we are on the fronts of making this new game.
What platform is the game going to be on?
At the moment we are going to stick to our current market and go with iOS but there has been hints with the team for Steam as well.
What genre is it going to be?
That’s stuff I am keeping reserved, I will let you know the scoop when I am ready to release the information.
What is your story, what are the past experiences that have shaped your life to who you are today?
Being where I am at the right time I suppose and just keep on striving for success, keep your head up and just keep going. I wouldn’t say anything has altered me, I would just say it’s the path I have been led on, you know, by destiny or whatever you want to call it but so far, if it is so called destiny, it has led me down a fine route, I have met some really interesting people.
I also know you have a blog to help fledgling designers get in to the industry, what inspired you to start that?
I have been doing video diaries for a long time and I know there are a lot of blogs out there like Gamasutra, they make some really incredible articles. I realised that there are not many from a student point of view that’s actually been in the industry and tasted that addiction as I like to call it. You know once your in the industry you kind of feel like an over whelming sense of adrenaline and I just feel like if I need to keep blurting my mind out there to people saying you need to get in this industry, it’s amazing! I’m doing whatever I can as it’s not programming or art its more design and it is a very niche market. I can guarantee you, you ask any designer and you say, what does it mean to be a game designer? What skill sets do you have? Every designer will tell you something completely different and that’s what I am trying to get across in my blogs. You have to be really open minded to be a designer and really blend your key skills to the actual studio themselves.
That leads me quite nicely on to my last point, what advice would you give to someone looking to get in to the games industry?
First of all, attend Game Jams, that’s the first one. I know Train2Game just did one with Microsoft and I attended one last year that was with Epic. The second I would recommend is trying to talk to people in the community, go on the Train2Game Forums and just generally create games. No one ever says in the industry who have you worked for, they say what experience have you got?
If people want to read more about it, where can people find your blog?
My website is www.ironcore1.wordpress,com
Thank you very much Jonny and keep us updated on all things Commando Kiwi
No problem, thank you very much for your time Mark, Ta-ra!
A teenager from Alferton who is paralysed from the shoulders down after a car accident is now fulfilling his dream to be a games designer. 17 year old Daniel Gent has been Tetraplegic for nearly 3 years but with a lot of determination and the help of voice recognition technology he is following a distance learning programme through Train2Game and is already making his own games.
BBC Radio Derby’s Emma Wotts went to meet Daniel and he told her how difficult life was after the accident.
Daniel: My thoughts in my head for the first 6 months weren’t that great. I wasn’t myself, I didn’t know what my future was. It was hard to decide after my accident. I could feel more now than I could before but at the time I didn’t really see a future. Breaking my neck in three places made me think it would be impossible. Meeting people with similar injuries and how they carried on and how they were getting on with their life made me want to push towards something and carry on with my family. Not living off the Government but supply, supporting and giving my family what they need.
Emma: What do you think that turning point was? What was that moment when you thought, I need to do something?
Daniel: It was more when I was first introduced to my daughter at the time when my partner was pregnant I didn’t really see a future, I couldn’t see myself as being a father. I didn’t really want her to have a Dad that was, as I am paralysed from the neck down. When I first met her it kinda changed everything, I wanted to be the dad that every dad wants to be.
Emma: And hopefully now you will be able to earn money or be able to provide for your family. How important is this to you?
Daniel: It’s going to change a lot of things, I get quite a lot of depression and feeling down but when these things happen such as the game jam when I went to that it changes a lot of your perspectives on life and it just made me want to carry on doing what I am doing. I just see it as a dream working with certain people such as Microsoft and meeting the people I did. It never would of happened without Train2Game.
Emma: How do you feel now about the future?
Daniel: Now I see it being a lot brighter and a lot more doors are opening from all wider areas, it’s going to change a lot of things. I can see my future well worth staying around for. I can just say it has given me a reason to carry on.
Emma: What would you say to anyone else who has been through what you have who thought they wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything in the future. Someone who’s really down about their life as you did just 3 years ago. What would you say to them?
Daniel: Whether you are disabled or if you suffer from depression you are going to go through a lot of doors and sometimes it isn’t going to be what you want but you will find that right door and everything is going to open up and you’ll see the future is a lot different. It’s not going to come to you naturally. You aren’t going to wake up in the morning and it’s going to be there. You’ve got to go out there and grab it as you can. I would say volunteering for anything you can just to get yourself motivated and take your mind off things. I found that a lot more useful, being active and going out more. If you are inside then that is where it is mostly going to depress you. Life is not going to be easy but you can make it easy.
Broadcast on BBC Radio Derby 18 October 2012 – audio available via http://audioboo.fm/train2game
Microsoft are developing a new technology to read hand gestures. The device means more games design potential.
The device, currently named Digits, is worn on the wrist and creates a 3D model of the hand gesture that you do. It has been designed to be more comfortable than sensor gloves.
The technology was developed at the University of Cambridge, with help from researchers at Newcastle University and the University of Crete. It was unveiled at a conference on user-interface technology and a video has been posted online demonstrating the device in action.
Digits uses a camera-based sensor that detects infra-red (IR) light coupled with software that interprets the data produced to construct a model of a fully articulated hand skeleton. This is then used to interpret what the user’s hand is doing.
The equipment involves a IR laser beam which sends out a thin invisible line across the user’s hand to measure the distance to their fingers and thumbs to determine to what degree they are bent upwards.
David Kim, project leader, said “The Digits sensor doesn’t rely on external infrastructure which means users are not bound to a fixed space
“Ultimately we would like to reduce Digits to the size of a watch that can be worn all the time.”
Microsoft have given some ideas of how the device could be used including, but not limited to, shaping your hand like a gun for first person shooters and pressing your thumb down to fire, further improving your immersion without the need for a lot of space, like is the case with Kinect.
Microsoft’s team acknowledged the current device was still some way from being ready for market. It currently needs to be attached to a PC to carry out the necessary computations, making it impractical for real-world use. It also struggles if two fingers are crossed, the hand is flattened or if the user is holding something while making the gestures. However, the researchers suggested all these issues could be overcome with further work.
We have been sent our Guiness world record certificate! The certificate was awarded for most participants at a 48 hour Game Jam. Well done everyone once again! It is a huge achievement.
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 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.
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!
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.
The Train2Game Blog 