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Game Stuff!
2 min read
Haven't added a journal for a while and thought it was about time I did!
Badly formatted mess that it is...
In the world of work I've managed to get another job creating some assets for an Android game! I'm really happy to be working in art again! Hopefully I can continue to expand my portfolio and slowly improve my abilities with pixels.
Really getting into animation again now, I'm hoping to start creating more animated and more complex bits and pieces soon but my main job (working on a beach!) is hindering that a bit.
In other news, my companies game, Mech Mania, is finally clawing its way back out from several long months in Development Hell. Our programmer had to leave for a bit after having his first kid after some turmoil after the previous programmer had attempted to hold the game code hostage. Lots of stress has thankfully dissipated and we can now look forward to some wonderful progress!!!
I've recently fallen in love with the simple style of this game! The animation has a lot of character and charm (check out the Tigsource link so see the enemies!). I've not had anything to do with it but after coming across it I'm watching its development.
indiegames.com/2014/05/ready_b…
forums.tigsource.com/index.php…
Badly formatted mess that it is...
In the world of work I've managed to get another job creating some assets for an Android game! I'm really happy to be working in art again! Hopefully I can continue to expand my portfolio and slowly improve my abilities with pixels.
Really getting into animation again now, I'm hoping to start creating more animated and more complex bits and pieces soon but my main job (working on a beach!) is hindering that a bit.
In other news, my companies game, Mech Mania, is finally clawing its way back out from several long months in Development Hell. Our programmer had to leave for a bit after having his first kid after some turmoil after the previous programmer had attempted to hold the game code hostage. Lots of stress has thankfully dissipated and we can now look forward to some wonderful progress!!!
Irkalla!
I've recently fallen in love with the simple style of this game! The animation has a lot of character and charm (check out the Tigsource link so see the enemies!). I've not had anything to do with it but after coming across it I'm watching its development.
indiegames.com/2014/05/ready_b…
forums.tigsource.com/index.php…
In other news, 
recreated my The Last Unicorn piece using Minecraft! I was pretty surprised by this, must have taken a while!
recreated my The Last Unicorn piece using Minecraft! I was pretty surprised by this, must have taken a while!Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
A bit more experience!
2 min read
Today a game I did the art for finally went online, I think just over a month after my role in it was finished!
Working freelance is as fun as I remember it to be, with constant changes filtering down and iteration it really got my rather stagnant creativity moving again. I provided all of the art assets (apart from the logos for which we had to use the clients. This included all of the buttons in their off, over and down, all of the backgrounds!
The main bulk of the job was creating the animations, with eight characters in total with four animations each lasting between 6 and 10 frames! The art style was really simple so it wasn't tricky but repetitive and trying to get decent movement in a character that's only 24 pixels is rather tricky.
Six of the eight characters also had to resemble real people and be signed off by them, working within the 24 pixel limit (I did sneakily increase it for some!) made for an interesting challenge to show gender as well as keeping each character distinct and having enough length to its limbs for the animations.
All tolled by day ten I had created over 1000 images each individually drawn. I've really got a taste for much tighter deadlines
In the time it was managed!
The game is now live, it's a rhythm game using four keys on the keyboard and a mouse to navigate the menu.
The final game on the BBC website ---> www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra/games/rapb…
There are some images in my gallery from the project too.
Working freelance is as fun as I remember it to be, with constant changes filtering down and iteration it really got my rather stagnant creativity moving again. I provided all of the art assets (apart from the logos for which we had to use the clients. This included all of the buttons in their off, over and down, all of the backgrounds!
The main bulk of the job was creating the animations, with eight characters in total with four animations each lasting between 6 and 10 frames! The art style was really simple so it wasn't tricky but repetitive and trying to get decent movement in a character that's only 24 pixels is rather tricky.
Six of the eight characters also had to resemble real people and be signed off by them, working within the 24 pixel limit (I did sneakily increase it for some!) made for an interesting challenge to show gender as well as keeping each character distinct and having enough length to its limbs for the animations.
All tolled by day ten I had created over 1000 images each individually drawn. I've really got a taste for much tighter deadlines
In the time it was managed!
The game is now live, it's a rhythm game using four keys on the keyboard and a mouse to navigate the menu.
The final game on the BBC website ---> www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra/games/rapb…
There are some images in my gallery from the project too.
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You live and learn
1 min read
It's funny, looking back to April this year I was quite a different person.
My perspective on video games, the industry and design have changed considerably and I reckon for the better!
I've been terribly aloof, utterly lost in trying to single-handed run my first ever game project and it's really impacted on my social life. The pressure of it and one single unbroken project with out a break has been really detrimental to my creativity, I'm feeling uninspired and pretty stagnant!!!
Fittingly while sitting on Twitter today, the recurrent theme appeared to be Indies who attempt to be Independent too early.
I'm certainly among them, I've made plenty of mistakes and learnt from them.
Now to slowly get back into my life with this new found perspective and keep trying!
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I turned down PAX D=
3 min read
Now before you say 'WTF?! Seriously??' There is sound reasoning behind this decision.
Lets face it, it would have been an awesome experience to attend PAX East and even more so to be there as an exhibitor but a few things conspired against us.
I applied to attend PAX earlier last year in an attempt to get ourselves noticed by Indie Fund but I eventually received a reply that was quite disheartening. On first reading it dismissed my company, but after a re-read I noticed the person who had replied had mistaken our company for some sort of marketing agency!
Realizing this I quickly sent out a new response, and then the holidays hit.
Once Christmas and New Year had passed I assume they had the backlog to dig through and up came my little message. A few days ago I received a positive response with an invitation attached. The price took me back at first, though I was still brimming with excitement I just went looking for solutions.
The air fair - £400, my parents offered to cover this which was amazing of them! So that was one worry wiped away already. Next, buying the booth itself!
The Booth - £928 this would buy us a 10x10 foot booth. On the day I received the e-mail there were only four booths of this size left (there were pretty thin picking is all the size brackets!) and these were located right out on the fringes.
The Hotel - £100-£200 a night for five nights (arrival, set-up, the event and take-down). Now, leaving it this late meant that every hotel within walking and affordable taxi distance had already been booked solidly. The remaining hotels were either expensive or so far out that the taxi fare would certainly ruin us!
Now these prices are excluding food, drink, booth construction and taxi fares. Plus my business partner would have come too, doubling up almost all of the above!
I am not one to give up on thing immediately.
I got in contact with an organization called the Indie Megabooth who work with PAX to get am amazing deal for Indie companies. The people behind it were very helpful and friendly, but again money and deadlines have prevented us going this year and next year.
Maybe 2015 PAX, maybe.
It worked out much better this way, for a company of my size PAX isn't the best fit. We are essentially unknown (though by the time the event came around our game would be finished) and all that money could be much better spent on development and on digital marketing!
I sent the final e-mail earlier today, our PAX journey has ended for now but I am glad of the experience.
Lets face it, it would have been an awesome experience to attend PAX East and even more so to be there as an exhibitor but a few things conspired against us.
I applied to attend PAX earlier last year in an attempt to get ourselves noticed by Indie Fund but I eventually received a reply that was quite disheartening. On first reading it dismissed my company, but after a re-read I noticed the person who had replied had mistaken our company for some sort of marketing agency!
Realizing this I quickly sent out a new response, and then the holidays hit.
Once Christmas and New Year had passed I assume they had the backlog to dig through and up came my little message. A few days ago I received a positive response with an invitation attached. The price took me back at first, though I was still brimming with excitement I just went looking for solutions.
The air fair - £400, my parents offered to cover this which was amazing of them! So that was one worry wiped away already. Next, buying the booth itself!
The Booth - £928 this would buy us a 10x10 foot booth. On the day I received the e-mail there were only four booths of this size left (there were pretty thin picking is all the size brackets!) and these were located right out on the fringes.
The Hotel - £100-£200 a night for five nights (arrival, set-up, the event and take-down). Now, leaving it this late meant that every hotel within walking and affordable taxi distance had already been booked solidly. The remaining hotels were either expensive or so far out that the taxi fare would certainly ruin us!
Now these prices are excluding food, drink, booth construction and taxi fares. Plus my business partner would have come too, doubling up almost all of the above!
I am not one to give up on thing immediately.
I got in contact with an organization called the Indie Megabooth who work with PAX to get am amazing deal for Indie companies. The people behind it were very helpful and friendly, but again money and deadlines have prevented us going this year and next year.
Maybe 2015 PAX, maybe.
It worked out much better this way, for a company of my size PAX isn't the best fit. We are essentially unknown (though by the time the event came around our game would be finished) and all that money could be much better spent on development and on digital marketing!
I sent the final e-mail earlier today, our PAX journey has ended for now but I am glad of the experience.
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A year in review
10 min read
I'm jumping on the reflection bandwagon I thought I'd ramble a little on this quite mad year!
The most fun I'd had all year, these two events are great for those of you who want to experience a broad spectrum of games! I lost count of how many games I was playing at once, some digital and many live action. While in one of the informative talks someone could start asking me questions as part of the spy game or the Zombie LARP may stampede through, Nerf guns blazing. Excellent opportunity for inspiration, making friends and networking!
Possibly one of the most surreal episodes from my life could be taken from Rezzed. I met some extraordinary people and came across old friends. Among the casualties of my handshake was the legendary creator of the Arma 2 mod Dayz, Dean 'Rocket' Hall and Matt Lightfoot. Dean gave a very inspiring talk and came across as a very down to earth and funny guy.
The most unusual event was when myself and a friend were on our way out to buy something to drink (it was damn expensive in the venue!) a guy with a video camera stopped us and asked us if we wanted to be in a quick skit for the Develop Awards, taking place later in the week. Of course we agreed and were then told we were waiting on Peter Molyneux!
After a short while he turned up, and along with some other convention goers who had also been Shanghaied we went out to the seafront and proceeded to chase Peter Molyneux up and down Brighton promenade.
Afterwards I got to speak with him for a good ten-fifteen minutes and I have to say, although he mucks things up in terms of what we'll be getting in a game. He is an extremely passionate man who loves his art and certainly needs to be met! I talked to him about 'Player generated narrative' as it fascinates me, even better, he took a business card!
I attended the conference as an Associate and really did have one of the best times of my life! The other Associates were really fun people to work with and the delegates were amazing. I'm not sure quite where to begin with this one!
I made sure to pick the brains of Microsoft's Windows 8 booth about the fate of XNA and porting. The guy to his credit was extremely helpful. I also met people from Valve, Unity, Autodesk and a whole host of others, all the while depositing business cards like ninja stars.
One particular, and also semi-surreal highlight was watching Indie Game: The Movie in Brighton's Odeon Cinema eating free fish and chips and drinking free wine in amazing company. I would seriously recommend being an Associate to anyone, student, professional, amateur, just go for it!
Taking place a few weeks before the actual Explay Festival (to avoid the two overlapping as they did last year) the game jam was sponsored by the Welcome Trust and took place at the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol and the Science Museum in London! Linked by a live webcam the two sites were supposed to work alongside each other but sadly there was a fault ad the link was down for the duration with a few Skype calls taking its place.
This was my second game jam ever, I was the usual mixture of excitement and apprehension. My business partner, Chris, seemed apprehensive and downright forlorn at the prospect (although a veteran of several game jams already). Although we were in business together, to date we had never worked side-by-side like this and I was looking forward to it!
The theme was Deception!
We grabbed an artist named John during the team creation melee and very quickly moved our ideas along into one game and set about making it.
As this was sponsored by the Welcome Trust, we had several Scientist roaming around offering information and advice for gamifying(sp??) science. Keeping with the Deception theme, and with help from an awesome scientist, we attempted to gamify the HIV virus's attack on the human body.
The first day proved to be very productive, though the venue had to close for the night, we bundled back to Chris's to carry on through the night.
We thought things were going so well we even had a little sleep.
Next day the venue was late opening so several teams resumed their work on the pavement (deadlines a' coming!) while we waited for the door to be unlocked. The second day was a bit more manic but as the coder, Chris was bearing most of the pressure while me and John attempted to alleviate what we could.
After a few cock-ups with the drop-box permissions we made the deadline (and thankfully so did everyone else
). Once everyone had settled down, or been woken up, we all gathered for a quick show and tell before making our way to the pub!
Now it was down to the judges to decide which game would win overall.
The event began with a networking evening at the historic Roman Baths in Bath, with a keynote given by Dr Joe Twist, CEO of UKIE. As you can imagine, being on halloween night, in the baths, amoungst so many game designers, people got a bit merry. Exasperated by the free wine the party went on till the early hours and apparently we're not talking about that night anymore!
This event was the first I have ever attended as an exhibitor, it was Infinite Playgrounds first real outing and I think we did very well! On display we had some postcards and playable for the first time we had Mech Mania and Track Heroes!
![]()
![]()
After some teething troubles we had both of the games up and running, drawing a small crowd. Possibly the best moment in my life to date was when people asked if they could play the game again.
With some excellent industry talks, great games, the bootcamp and the gamejam as well as the charity Johann Sebastian Joust, I would certainly recommend anyone in the south west of England attend it and anyone else for that matter!
After all that, the surprise was really very genuine. We won the Explay Gamejam!
Other than those sheltering from a Zombie Apocalypse, there aren't many who spend 48 hours inside a shopping mall. However, in the name of Bradleystoke Radio we barricaded ourselves in and got ready to repel the oncoming horde of Christmas Shoppers!
Another of my slightly unusual escapades, I had agreed to take part in a 48 hour game jam with a bit of a twist. There was no theme to speak of and no competing teams. Instead there was one team and a huge pile of community submissions.
To give the community even more involvement in the project a live webcam was pointed at us the entire time along with a 'making of' documentary chronicling our progress and states of sleep deprivation. At one point the webcam surpassed 200 people!
Our goal was to take all of these ideas and from them craft one game! They ranged dramatically from characters to entire PowerPoint presentations and all of them were eventually shoehorned into one narrative.
For the genre we opted for an RPG in the old 8bit style with myself working on the mechanics, leveling and balancing (and some graphics). Balancing an RPG in a few hours was pretty tricky, the game couldn't be too difficult but had to get harder as the player went on. This was made trickier as the player could fight the bosses in any order and also the player could level up.. so the bosses also had to level up with the player. Balancing four player characters against each boss as they level!!!
At one point the Live Steam actually ordered us a pizza, the topping having been chosen by committee, was more of an acquired taste. I had never seen so many spicy bits and pieces pilled on top of bread and tomato before! We ate it anyway and it did the trick. I wasn't tired anymore!!!
Possibly the biggest highlight of the event (and least expected!) was the appearance of a boy named Louis. He had been watching on the Live Steam and seen that we had selected his character to be one of the four main characters you play as. He suddenly appeared on the second day filled with excitement that his character had been selected and even more so when his was the one being worked on when he arrived!
By the closing of the second day it was all down to Chris once again to implement what we had created and get this finished game uploaded! We had an issue with the internet so the game was late uploading but we did finish on time!
All in all I had 6 hours sleep in 36 hours.
A Bit of Alright & The Wild Rumpus
The most fun I'd had all year, these two events are great for those of you who want to experience a broad spectrum of games! I lost count of how many games I was playing at once, some digital and many live action. While in one of the informative talks someone could start asking me questions as part of the spy game or the Zombie LARP may stampede through, Nerf guns blazing. Excellent opportunity for inspiration, making friends and networking!
Rezzed
Possibly one of the most surreal episodes from my life could be taken from Rezzed. I met some extraordinary people and came across old friends. Among the casualties of my handshake was the legendary creator of the Arma 2 mod Dayz, Dean 'Rocket' Hall and Matt Lightfoot. Dean gave a very inspiring talk and came across as a very down to earth and funny guy.
The most unusual event was when myself and a friend were on our way out to buy something to drink (it was damn expensive in the venue!) a guy with a video camera stopped us and asked us if we wanted to be in a quick skit for the Develop Awards, taking place later in the week. Of course we agreed and were then told we were waiting on Peter Molyneux!
After a short while he turned up, and along with some other convention goers who had also been Shanghaied we went out to the seafront and proceeded to chase Peter Molyneux up and down Brighton promenade.
Afterwards I got to speak with him for a good ten-fifteen minutes and I have to say, although he mucks things up in terms of what we'll be getting in a game. He is an extremely passionate man who loves his art and certainly needs to be met! I talked to him about 'Player generated narrative' as it fascinates me, even better, he took a business card!
Develop Conference
I attended the conference as an Associate and really did have one of the best times of my life! The other Associates were really fun people to work with and the delegates were amazing. I'm not sure quite where to begin with this one!
I made sure to pick the brains of Microsoft's Windows 8 booth about the fate of XNA and porting. The guy to his credit was extremely helpful. I also met people from Valve, Unity, Autodesk and a whole host of others, all the while depositing business cards like ninja stars.
One particular, and also semi-surreal highlight was watching Indie Game: The Movie in Brighton's Odeon Cinema eating free fish and chips and drinking free wine in amazing company. I would seriously recommend being an Associate to anyone, student, professional, amateur, just go for it!
Explay Game Jam
Taking place a few weeks before the actual Explay Festival (to avoid the two overlapping as they did last year) the game jam was sponsored by the Welcome Trust and took place at the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol and the Science Museum in London! Linked by a live webcam the two sites were supposed to work alongside each other but sadly there was a fault ad the link was down for the duration with a few Skype calls taking its place.
This was my second game jam ever, I was the usual mixture of excitement and apprehension. My business partner, Chris, seemed apprehensive and downright forlorn at the prospect (although a veteran of several game jams already). Although we were in business together, to date we had never worked side-by-side like this and I was looking forward to it!
The theme was Deception!
We grabbed an artist named John during the team creation melee and very quickly moved our ideas along into one game and set about making it.
As this was sponsored by the Welcome Trust, we had several Scientist roaming around offering information and advice for gamifying(sp??) science. Keeping with the Deception theme, and with help from an awesome scientist, we attempted to gamify the HIV virus's attack on the human body.
The first day proved to be very productive, though the venue had to close for the night, we bundled back to Chris's to carry on through the night.
We thought things were going so well we even had a little sleep.
Next day the venue was late opening so several teams resumed their work on the pavement (deadlines a' coming!) while we waited for the door to be unlocked. The second day was a bit more manic but as the coder, Chris was bearing most of the pressure while me and John attempted to alleviate what we could.
After a few cock-ups with the drop-box permissions we made the deadline (and thankfully so did everyone else
). Once everyone had settled down, or been woken up, we all gathered for a quick show and tell before making our way to the pub!Now it was down to the judges to decide which game would win overall.
HIVe (our game)
Explay Festival
The event began with a networking evening at the historic Roman Baths in Bath, with a keynote given by Dr Joe Twist, CEO of UKIE. As you can imagine, being on halloween night, in the baths, amoungst so many game designers, people got a bit merry. Exasperated by the free wine the party went on till the early hours and apparently we're not talking about that night anymore!
This event was the first I have ever attended as an exhibitor, it was Infinite Playgrounds first real outing and I think we did very well! On display we had some postcards and playable for the first time we had Mech Mania and Track Heroes!
Alpha version of Mech Mania
</sub> Track Heroes
After some teething troubles we had both of the games up and running, drawing a small crowd. Possibly the best moment in my life to date was when people asked if they could play the game again.
With some excellent industry talks, great games, the bootcamp and the gamejam as well as the charity Johann Sebastian Joust, I would certainly recommend anyone in the south west of England attend it and anyone else for that matter!
After all that, the surprise was really very genuine. We won the Explay Gamejam!
VGM-A-Thon 48 Community Game Jam
Other than those sheltering from a Zombie Apocalypse, there aren't many who spend 48 hours inside a shopping mall. However, in the name of Bradleystoke Radio we barricaded ourselves in and got ready to repel the oncoming horde of Christmas Shoppers!
Another of my slightly unusual escapades, I had agreed to take part in a 48 hour game jam with a bit of a twist. There was no theme to speak of and no competing teams. Instead there was one team and a huge pile of community submissions.
To give the community even more involvement in the project a live webcam was pointed at us the entire time along with a 'making of' documentary chronicling our progress and states of sleep deprivation. At one point the webcam surpassed 200 people!
Our goal was to take all of these ideas and from them craft one game! They ranged dramatically from characters to entire PowerPoint presentations and all of them were eventually shoehorned into one narrative.
For the genre we opted for an RPG in the old 8bit style with myself working on the mechanics, leveling and balancing (and some graphics). Balancing an RPG in a few hours was pretty tricky, the game couldn't be too difficult but had to get harder as the player went on. This was made trickier as the player could fight the bosses in any order and also the player could level up.. so the bosses also had to level up with the player. Balancing four player characters against each boss as they level!!!
At one point the Live Steam actually ordered us a pizza, the topping having been chosen by committee, was more of an acquired taste. I had never seen so many spicy bits and pieces pilled on top of bread and tomato before! We ate it anyway and it did the trick. I wasn't tired anymore!!!
Possibly the biggest highlight of the event (and least expected!) was the appearance of a boy named Louis. He had been watching on the Live Steam and seen that we had selected his character to be one of the four main characters you play as. He suddenly appeared on the second day filled with excitement that his character had been selected and even more so when his was the one being worked on when he arrived!
By the closing of the second day it was all down to Chris once again to implement what we had created and get this finished game uploaded! We had an issue with the internet so the game was late uploading but we did finish on time!
All in all I had 6 hours sleep in 36 hours.
Our creation!
So whats next?
We've applied to have a stand at PAX and within the next two months should begin our Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds to get Mech Mania finished! We have many other community games and projects in the pipeline and can't wait to get started on them!
Bring on 2013!
We've applied to have a stand at PAX and within the next two months should begin our Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds to get Mech Mania finished! We have many other community games and projects in the pipeline and can't wait to get started on them!
Bring on 2013!
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