Tag Archives: Games design

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: Games industry blasts to new heights

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The latest numbers from trade association UKIE show the UK games industry being worth £3.266 billion. It accounts for almost half of the entertainment market in the United Kingdom

Over 28,000 people are employed by the industry, 9000 of which are skilled roles at over 200 development studios. The research suggests over 32 million people actively play games in the UK, with the average age of 33. An equivalent of more than one console is owned per household.

In addition Google Play, the android market place, is catching up to Apple’s App Store.

Google play has just surpassed 25 billion downloads of its 675,000 applications and the App store hit 25 billion downloads back in March of its 700,00 apps.

Google has seen over 500 million Android device activations and Apple has seen over 400 million iOS devices activated. The number of Apple devices should rise with the recent release of iOS 6 and the iPhone 5. A current potential 900 million mobile gamers on Android and iOS alone.

Google intends to celebrate the 25 billion downloads milestone by offering cheaper featured apps and other discounts on films, books, albums and magazines for the next five days.

With such large numbers people can not ignore the games industry. It is now a big part of the world and should only get bigger with the introduction of the tax break.

The numbers have been released for the start of the London Games Festival which begins today with the opening of Eurogamer.

Train2Game News: Another student in his local paper

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Train2Game Student, Joao Soares, has been featured in his local paper following the World record Game Jam.

The article can be read in the link below:

Games_Wickford_Today__Walthamstow_September_2012

Train2Game News: Students featured in local papers

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Train2Game Students Dan Hawkins, Richard Scott-Jones and Jason Teefey have been featured in their local papers. The students talk about their time at the World record breaking Game Jam.

You can read the articles in the links below:

Games Sudbury Mercury September 2012

Redhill games industry student

The Surrey Comet September 2012

Train2Game News: Train2Game talk to Pocket Gamer

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Choosing Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows 8 wasn’t the only notable aspect of Train2Game’s recent game jam at the University of Bedfordshire.
The event was also a world record breaker.
The 48 hour hack saw a total of 299 students come together to create a series of games fit for the platform’s Metro UI, with an adjudicator from Guinness giving the event his seal of approval when the coding was over.
But, according to Train2Game course director Myra Smallman, Train2Game’s hacks aren’t all about setting records – they’re also about helping newcomers gain exposure, and uniting them with the platform most suited to the kind of games jams deliver: mobile.
We caught up with Smallman for her take on Train2Game’s record breaking bash in Bedford.


Pocket Gamer: What makes Windows 8 a good platform for today’s students to familiarise themselves with?
Myra Smallman: On our courses we aim to give students training with a wide range of different development tools.
We see Windows 8 as a vital development tool for them to be able to use as we think it will be one of the main platforms for games design in the future. It also supports the native languages they are familiar and comfortable with.
The students have the chance to choose what is right for them – C++/DX, HTML5/JS, XAML, C#

Can you tell us some more about the event’s ‘best in show’ winner, Royal Rush? Will it be released on Windows Store?
Royal Rush was chosen as the winner because the judges could see so many positives about the game.
The team jelled well together, the game used an innovative gaming mechanic and was perfect as a mobile title, with drop in game play and it’s instantly addictive.
We hope to see it in the Windows Store for Windows 8 on 26 October.

The game jam produced some 20 games, which have apparently been submitted for review to the Windows Store. How many of these will make it to market, and what slice of the profits would students see if so?
The plan is for all the games to be free to download, so there’s no revenue to share, but this is a great promotional opportunity for the students and their games.
Some would say there’s more value in them showcasing their work at this point in their careers, rather than making a quick buck.

Microsoft’s Andrew Webber, Guinness World Records’ Gaz Deaves and Myra Smallman


One thing we try to communicate to the students is the that gaming is a business, publishing and marketing are going to be vital to their future in the games industry. This experience is part of our whole ethos of getting students ready for work.
We hope to see the vast majority of the games in the Windows Store as long as they meet the required quality measures for successful submission.

Is a 48 hour game jam actually a good way of developing games intended for release??
Primarily, game jams are fun, but we also like to think that they teach our students how to work as a team and how to work under pressure.
We are very proud that our students have a level of dedication and talent that has allowed them to produce playable games within 48 hours.
In terms of quality of a release, it’s unlikely that all the titles completed in this way will be up to the standard of a game built over months or even years, but what it can produce is innovation.
Many mobile titles are based around a simple and addictive gaming mechanic, and the game jam environment is ideal to produce this simplistic game play that demonstrates a clever idea. Should one of the games prove particularly popular it could be further developed in the future by the students that created it.

Do you imagine you will work together with Microsoft on a similar sort of event in the future?
Hopefully. At the moment we are all exhausted, but we very much enjoyed working with Microsoft.
Those at Microsoft involved provided tremendous support to our students and given the opportunity we would very much like to work with them again.
Thanks to Myra for her time.

Train2Game News: Against all the odds brave Oliver soldiers on to bridge the age gap

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Oliver Smith only has one lung, half a heart and is 7 foot 3 but like Master Chief from Halo, against all odds he is out to help the world.

Oliver, 19, has a plan to get young people interacting with the elderly through the medium of video games.

His idea is to get the older generation playing games and using instant messaging services like Skype. This way they can stay in contact and have common interests with their young relatives.

Oliver said “I wanted to do something to help elderly people communicate with young members of their families

“It just seemed a good idea, youngsters spend a lot of time gaming and their grandparents can become isolated because of health reasons and end up in homes. If they know how to use computers and things like Skype it can bring families together.”

He has always found video games have helped him through life. They were always there to cheer him up in some of his darker moments. He is now a student of Train2Game on the QA course and most recently took part in the world record winning Game Jam. He joined the course so he has a chance to be a part of the industry that has helped him.

Unconventional Oliver is not what you would think of when you imagine someone who helps the elderly however. He is what is known as, a Goth.

Talking about his lifestyle he said “I love the statement being a Goth makes and I’m what you’d call ‘steam punk’ – but a lot of people, particularly older folk, are a bit prejudice when they see the way I dress in leather and eyeliner, with my coat held together with safety pins.

“I’ve always been a bit of a rebel and I know my parents were afraid I might go that far off the rails with drink, loud music and late nights that I might never come back.

“I was born with heart and respiratory problems which nearly killed me me when I was younger… I think that made me feel a bit alienated and after all I’m seven feet three inches tall and look different.

“I guess I fitted into the Goth world pretty easily after all that.”

He contacted Exeter council with his idea and they happily helped Oliver by putting his business on there website.

Good luck with everything you do Oliver!

Train2Game News: Students talking about the Game Jam

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This is a video of students talking about Train2Game and the Game Jam from the weekend!

 

Train2Game News: Mid-week Round up

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Train2Game student Fiona Stewart has been featured in The Sun. She talks about how she moved from traditional art to digital art and how it has affected her life. The Sun also featured an article about Daniel Gent, a disabled student of Train2Game who uses a voice activated computer.

Microsoft are bringing Atari’s extensive back catalogue to tablets and browsers. The new portal is called Atari Arcade and it’s opening with eight titles: Asteroids, Combat, Centipede, Lunar Lander, Missile Command, Pong, Super Breakout and Yar’s Revenge. The rest of the games are set to be released over the next few months.

343 Industries and Microsoft are releasing eight different pre-order incentives for Halo 4. Depending on where you order the game from you get a different in game item. The in game items include: Different Armour sets, Avatar Items and multi-player Emblems.

Humble Bundle Six has been released. The Humble Bundles are great for picking up some of the top indie games whilst helping charity at the same time. You pay what you want for the bundle but need to pay a minimum amount to get the game Dustforce. Other games included are: Rochard, Shatter, S.P.A.Z, Torchlight and Vessel.

Sony are releasing two new thinner PlayStation 3s. These new consoles are 25% slimmer than the current models and one boasts a 500GB hard drive the other is a 12GB flash memory model but a 250GB hard drive will be available.

Sony are also launching PlayStation Mobile in October. It is a new store for games to be released for mobile devices. An SDK for the store will be released in November opening up a new market for games developers.

Nintendo has come to an agreement with Unity. Developers can use the engine to create games for the Wii U. Unity users will have to pay for a license to develop for the Wii U, just like with the other platforms.

EA will support the very first GaymerCon. The convention is for the LGBT community to come together through their love of gaming. Their website says its purpose is to educate and inform “the gaming community of the presence of sexuality in our digital lives and promoting acceptance and social change through gaming.”

Finally a big congratulations to the winning team at the weekends world record winning Game Jam. RetroMetro won with their game, Royal Rush. I hope you enjoy your prizes and I hope everyone who attended the Game Jam had an excellent time!