Events after the Game Jam.

So my team lost the Game Jam (you may have guessed :P) and we were all disappointed after working so hard to make our game. The actual idea was a world where Russia have decided to revert back to communism and have try to conquer Ukraine (not referencing any current world affairs what so ever...)! Although we lost, my team and I know what we did wrong and we will return to this event next year even hungrier for success. You cannot meet success without meeting failure first as they say!  

Anyway moving forward, MY PROJECT IS ALMOST DONE!!!! I have managed to make ten models for six different parts of the players ship. These parts are the body, head, wing(s), engine, weapon and tail. This means that there are one million different ships to give the player.

 Sorry, couldn't help myself :P. But seriously the models all get built into one ship that the player uses to play  GAR. Here are some example of ships you can get.

Now this is done, I can now write up the testing document so I can get people to test these player models and see what the reaction is to them. I can also start the dissertation part of the project...yay...

Now I do want to talk about a new game that is being developed right now that (in my opinion) will give twitter a whole new dimension of social interaction. This game is called Hashtag Dungeon developed by Sean Oxspring and Kieran Hicks. Hashtag Dungeon is a rogue-like dungeon crawler that uses twitter as a means of creating and designing dungeons for players to interact with.

Hashtag Dungeon have set a release date of the 4th of July for this so you will be able to make your own worlds soon. If you wish to learn more of this game, go on the website and have look for yourself here. Also each developer have their own twitter pages that you can follow. Click on the respected names for Sean Oxspring & Kieran Hicks twitter pages.

That's it for now, hopefully the next time I post my dissertation will be done (Hopefully). Until then, goodbye and have a look at Hashtag Dungeon. Trust me, its gonna be good!    

We have an idea

The theme has been released! It is Beautiful Oppression. We have been discussing what our game will be and finally have come to a conclusion. Its certainly an interesting idea...I can't explain too much now but you will see progress in due course. Now it is time to create the textures of this game. ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH!    

We have arrived!

We are here! the game jam is starting at 11 where the theme will be announced. We have brought many supplies. Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as:

• 4 packs of Jelly Babies
• 8 cans of Relentless
• 4 cans of redbull
• 8 bottles of Lucozade 
• I liter of Lucozade
• a bag of humbugs and glacier mints
• salted Peanuts
• Polo's (spearmint and normal)
• Jackmans throat sweets
• Strepsils 
• American hard gums
• jelly beans
• 3 flavored water
• 4 bottles of water
• Trebor strong and soft mints
• walkers baked 
• oven roasted chicken & thyme
• 6 packets of Wotsits
• double chocolate digestives 
• Milk chocolate digestives 
• rich tea biscuits
• Maryland cookies
• Jaffa cakes
• Custard Creams
• GUM
• 1.8 liters of tea
• Teabags 
• Sweetener
• Mug
• Bill Bailey DVD's
• Black Books DVD
• 3 pairs of Head Phones
• An Enderman
• Minecraft Pickaxe
• 4 Badges
• Cards against Humanity
• 3 laptops
• 2 Nexus 7's
• Xbox controller 
• 2 Dead Parrots (Stuffed of course) 
• 3 dressing gowns
• 2 top hats
• A pipe like sherlock holmes!

Sorry, I went all 12 days of christmas on you!

Here is the team! dAkshEN3 on the right, The Waggster on the left at the back and next to him is...Sam! I shall be placed next to dAkshEN3 ready for this. About 20 mins till we start...Panic...PANIC!!!

Its been a while...

Well...long time no see! its been 3 months since I last spoke on here. I have been very busy during these months doing all kinds of wonderful activities.

Firstly, I have been working on my project during my 3rd year at university. My project is looking at procedurally generated characters namely space crafts. It's called Do procedurally generated space-crafts for the game demo "Galactic Arms Race" make gameplay more enjoyable? So far I have been able to get a cube on screen and am now currently making new space craft parts while programming the code that will procedurally generate the ships. Here's a picture for you!

This game was originally created by Erin Hastings, Kenneth O. Stanley and the rest of their team. They made this to show the possibilities of PGC (procedurally generated content)  by evolving weapons in GAR. You can find this on their paper Automatic content generation in the Galactic Arms Race Video Game.  You can also visit their blog if you are curios about buying this game,  it has been greenlit by steam! Click on this for the GAR blog and click here for their paper if you wish to read it, it's very interesting!

Aside from project, my little group team Norwegian blue have decide to work together this year and make a game. We went all diplomatic on this and thought of a few game ideas. Mine were Chickengod, Game Craft and Chthonia (or Covonia as the rest of my team seemed to call it)! Chickengod was a platformer which the player was the god of chickens trying to save his chicken subjects from the evil Devil Fox and his evil minions. Game Craft was a casual game in which the player draws his own platformer games and play them with their friends. Chthonia is an action-adventure game where the player is a young troubled teenager called Rhian Saga who happens to be blessed with magic making her a witch. Magic returns to the world causing lots of mythical creatures to reappear but their presence is destroying the planet therefore, Rhian must go and stop them. They were my ideas but sadly none of them were picked, Game Craft ending in third place. The game we have decided to do is one called Khemiea which is a shooter mixed with the anime Full Metal Alchemist plus all the in your face killing taken out. It does sound weird but if you what to know more on how it works, look on dAkshEn's blog. My new background for this blog has some of our circles on it so please have a look. Their purpose in the game is explained by dAkshEn3.

Finally, tomorrow there is the Canjam! This is a game jam which we have 24 hours to make a game based on one theme and mechanic. Last year, Team Norwegian Blue won the game design awards and this year we hope to go even further. This years one has big trophy which will have the winners name on it plus Rockstar And CRYtek will BE THERE TO TALK AND JUDGE OMG SO EXCITED AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...("Breathe Andrew, Breathe").

Ok...I think that's better...that was...a mad moment, sorry about that. Winners will also get a small trophy and hopefully Rockstar and Crytek will bring gifts for winners to take home. I hope to win obviously but this event is always a good bit of fun. This year I have a top hat plus a Sherlock Holmes pipe...I AM READY FOR THIS! I will post pictures on my blog on what's happening during the 24 hours and hopefully we will have a special twitter page up to show everyone our little messages while we do our programming.  you know dAkshEN in my team (AKA the code ninja) and there is also Kieran (AKA the waggster)  and...Sam. You can look on the waggsters blog just by clicking here.

So yeah, I think that's everything, have a good night and I look forward to informing you on how the Canjam goes. Now I must continue to pack ("gets up and looks around" )...where did I put that dressing gown!

Happy New Year!

So here we are. We have reached the end of 2013 and begin our days in 2014.

The start of a new year is always a strange experience as it is the beginning of a new journey for all of us. Whether you have made a resolution for the new year or not, we all have new aims for us to try and achieve. So it is now that we look ahead to a new year.

Let us not forget what happened this year. We lost a piece of history in this world in Nelson Mandela. A man of hope, courage and love, he was a symbol for south Africa and proof that one person can make a difference if they believe in themselves. We had the beginnings of a new generation for Sony and Microsoft in the games industry. By this I mean the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. We also have seen the potential of the Oculus Rift. This device could change the future of games (tho I won't be playing Outlast with it)!

There is plenty to discuss about what happened last year but really, I don't want to talk about the past. We are stepping into the first day of 2014 and we must re-new our chosen purpose. We must try and become better people and we must, step up a gear. As a programmer, I will try and get better at making games and just general problem solving. In order for me to focus on this I must remember that it is my future that matters. This is the same message for all of you.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that this is a new year. We must look at what we can do in this year and not what we did last year. Learn from our mistakes in the past and make 2014 a year of great achievements.

I wish all of you a happy new year and hope this year brings you glorious achievements to your life, HUZZAH!

One step beyond!

Testing.....testing...12..12......is this thing on?....yes?....YES! right then

Hello and welcome to my blog, its a little (*glances up an down) empty at the moment but don't worry, I'll sort that out in due course.

Lets give a little explanation of what will be on here. I will talk about university, projects, games, news, other blogs and just general randomness.

I will also let you know about any interesting activities on my colleagues blogs that I feel you should see. At the moment my good friend dAkshEN3 or Kylar Grey (or whatever he likes to be called), has started designing a game called Khemeia. Its a game based on the idea of alchemy and the anime series "Full Metal Alchemist". It's a wonderful idea so I would suggest you go and look at it now. Here is the link, http://electricsheep.dakshen.co.uk/...go to it....GO TO IT!

The next post should have my portfolio uploaded ready for all of you to have a look at and download if you wish. until then thank you for visiting, I hope you return for more.

HUZZAH!