Apple Concept - Final character

Here is my final character finished and coloured, i made sure i kept the features from the second stage but altered the shape so it doesn't look like clap trap anymore, i wanted to make sure it was obvious that clap trap wasnt the inspiration, and i feel that ive changed it enough so you can't, making sure i didnt just rip off the character was hard. but i like to think i made it look different enough while still keeping it a wild west sherrif

Board game - Research part 2

never mind the buzzcocks - we were thinking about implementing music into out board game and the most apparent music game we could think of is the tv show never mind the buzzcocks, the one that stood out for us the most is the intros round, where the team of 3 picks 1 person to guess the intro to the song, and the other two have to hum the intro to the best of their abilities so they 3rd might be able to guess it.

this always proves hilarious and we would love to have something like that in our game, which makes people enjoy themselves over everything else, as we feel fun is the utmost important thing to make people play.

Board game - research

Pass the bomb - pass the bomb was the first board game me and the team played to start looking for ideas, and little did we know it would also be the main inspiration for our game entirely,

the game is played by picking out 11 card from a deck, each card has a few letters arranged, the players pass a bomb around by setting the timer on it, then drawing a card, then in turn each player has to think of a word that has those letters in it in the exact order, then pass to the player on their left.

it turned out to be very fun and very exciting, even though it was a fairly old game, it was still fun to play. we labeled it down to being very beginner friendly, and the concept was simple, we decided to make sure our game was also very simple whilst still trying to keep it interesting

Apple Concept - Wild west research

Given that my game is set in the wild west, i thought it might be a good idea
to research the time period and what was really iconic about it.
Frequently reffered to as ‘the wild west’ the correct term for it is ‘the american
old west’, this refers to the later half of the 19th century, After the 18th century
and the push beyond the Appalachian mountains, the term is generally applied to
anywhere west of the mississippi river in earlier periods and westward from the
frontier strip toward the later part of the 19th century, more broadly, the period
stretches from the earlier 19th century to the end of the mexican revolution in
1920.

Running from predictable stereotypes such as clint eastwood, and classic western
movies i will create the look of classic wild west flicks but stylised in a lighthearted
fashion.

Apple concept - research

A game that really caught my eye was point blank for the arcade and ps1, it was a very arcadey shooting game with brief instructions as to what to do, but they were blunt and easily understandable, so i may use a technique like this to instruct my own game, the game itself was also very fun and addicting, with minigames that didnt make sense but hilarious at the same time.

Apple Concept - Character development pt.2

this is the main character idea for my game, i kept the shape of the clap trap, but i changed the features around to make him look like a sherrif in the wild west, next i will keep the features but change the shape so it doesn't look similar

Apple Concept - Character Development pt.1

Here is a cartoon drawing of the clap trap, i just drew the main influence to my character to give myself a starting point, i wanted to make use of block colour to really make it look like a cartoon.

Apple Concept - initial research

When beginning my research the first thing i looked at was how much the iphone could be pushed to its limits, i began to look at games that made use of 3D, i looked at the game 'worms', which makes use of 3D looking characters but 2D environments on a flat plane. which i thought was a clever idea.

i then found the game 'fruit ninja' which is one of the most downloaded games on the iphone today, which uses basic 3D graphics, but is a very simple concept, fruit flies onto the screen which you then have to mke use of the touch screen and slice them in half, the aim is just to amass the highest score possible, possibly this is another case of the game itself doesn't need to be hugely complex, just fun to play.

almost every game i looked at was 3D, so in my opinion having it 3D is a necessity.

Having come up with possible ideas i have decided to go with a robot themed 3rd person action game, in the style of 'robot wars' but on a much larger scale, with customisable guns and armour.

I have found the perfect game to research for the customisable robot aspect of this idea, it's called 'chromehounds' and it's very much the sort of game i would think of designing for this concept, the mech customisation is unrivaled and is a very good reference point for me to admire when designing characters.

EDIT:   i have decided to change my idea, but sticking with a robot theme it's now set in the wild west, with a sherrif/cowboy style robot, the reason for changing is that the original battle idea was too run of the mill, too standard, and it didn't really showcase what the iphone is capable of, i'll now research a few robot characters and western settings to determine a final character.

1. Cl4p-TP

a character from the game 'borderlands' by gearbox software, i have always adored the character design for this little robot, it has a perfectly fitting voice for such a creature it's stature and personality, also i find the overall design very unique, very subtle and very inspring, i would love to come up with a main character who is as appealing.

personal game history part 1.

1. Mortal Kombat 3 - SNES - , what caught my eye originally was the characters and how good they all looked, but given i was 3 years old at the time the violence scared me so i didnt touch it for a while, later i went back and thoroughly enjoyed it, for the sheer creativity of the special moves and combos, and the speed the game was set just made it all flow so fluently, to this day it is one of my favourite games of all time.

2. Donkey Kong Country - SNES - , the first thing to grab my attention were the graphics, which isn't surprising, it was very ahead of it's time and even Shigeru Miyamoto himself critisised the game, declaring it was a watered down game with pretty graphics to mask a poor game, he later withdrew this statement after the game sold through the roof because when it boiled down to it, it was almost the perfect platformer game, it even had 2 player simultaneous co op play which at the time wasn't very commonly seen, the game had outstading music and sound effects by rareware's standards and still has firmly planted itself in my memory forever.

3.  Street Racer - SNES - , a rather obscure game which wasn't very high profile at the time, street racer was a game by early Ubisoft, a very 'wacky racers' style racing game which involved unique characters in a car fitting their personality, each racer had a few weapons and tools at their disposal like electricuting nearby enemies of flying over obsticles with a magic carpet, it also had a few minigames, like playing football with a giant ball or a last man standing royal rumble, all of which played well and added depth to an already deep game, what really set this game aside for me was it's music, themes and melodies which were simply amazing, but since it was sunsoft who did the music, i am not surprised given their music from their own library of games.

4. Poke'mon franchise - Various Consoles - , poke'mon is quite possibly the defining game of most teenagers' childhoods, whether or not you turn into an avid gamer everyone seems to have played poke'mon at some point growing up, i certainly did and to this day it will never be beat in sheer creativity, when poke'mon red/blue first came out they took everyone by surprise, with a simple yet unique style of gameplay, set out on an adventure starting with 1 of 3 creatures go from town to town catching other monsters to add to your team of a possible 6, battling other poke'mon trainers along the way to ultimately taking your team against the end 5 trainers to become the champion, but with features such as being able to link with friends with a link cable and doing battle that way and also trade poke'mon with each other, made poke'mon a smash hit worldwide, branching off it's own card game and tv series, and to this day poke'mon is still going strong in the game industry, and was a huge part of my childhood.

5. Super Mario 64 - Nintendo 64 - , super mario 64 was the first game i ever played on the N64, and my mind was officially blown, i had never seen graphics like it and the way it played was simply phenominal, it truely showcased what the machine was capable of and is likely THE defining game of the N64 era, with it's HUGE worldly adventure into various worlds, made possible by jumping into paintings in princess peachs's castle, meant they could make whatever worlds they wanted and make it believable, with stunning sounds and music and a truely satisfying playthrough each time i play it, it is a game that will never be topped with sheer first impressions.

6.  DooM 64 - Nintendo 64 - , DooM 64, genuinely scared me, to the point where even watching my dad play it would make me leave the room, it wasn't the graphics, or the scenery or lighting, it was the sounds, the music was chilling and the noise that made me leave the room was the noise your character made when he died, just a simple scream but it was enough to worry me, for that reason i could never forget it, when i eventually got the courage to play it i realised i had nothing to worry about, the game is very hard, but not too hard that it isn't fun anymore, it has a creative last boss and the enemies have been well thought out, it was different to earlier DooM games in the fact it was less arcade like and more of a horror concept, with darker lightning and a darker atmosphere, this is most likely because it wasn't made by Id software who worked on the others, this one was made by Midway.

7. Donkey Kong 64 - Nintendo 64 - Given i was a huge donkey kong fan from a young age when DK64 came out i was very excited to get it, it took the bar set by Mario 64 and raised it yet again, after the hugely successful Banjo Kazooie games, rareware decided to have another go at reinventing the donkey kong franchise and turning it into a 3D platformer adventure game, a formula which had me hooked for years, the ability to play as other kongs with unique traits made it able to play through a level up to 5 times and getting a fresh experience every time, with great rareware standard music and sounds and a fun multiplayer DK64 will always be in my top 10 games of all time.

8. Unholy War - Playstation - The unholy war was a rather lowly known game, but an amazing one, it worked in a unique way that there were about 14+ playable characters, half of which wer eall about nature and  half all about machinery and technology, pitted in a war against each other until one force has obliterated the other, it worked as a board game until 2 players met on a single spac, the players would then do battle in a 3d sky view environment until only 1 remains, who would then claim the space, personally i liked the character 'Razorfane' because he was all about buzzsaws and nasty blades which looked very cool, and i have always been drawn to the machine/robot characters in any game at first.

9. Crash team racing - Playstation - CTR is a highly mario kart inspired game, it plays alot like mario kart, but it has more of a bubbly personality with the characters and isn't as static as mario kart 64, mario kart 64 is still a wonderful game, i just feel CTR was more thought out, whether it's the voices or the music, or just the single player adventure, it just feels like more of a complete package.

10. Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance - Gamecube - This game is the game that got me interested in game design, there was a bonus feature on the game which showed you how the gae was made by following the team around for a full day, watching the motion capture, the arena design, the characters animation and model design not forgetting the programming, all interested me so much i then had to really analise the whole thing and decide what interested me the most was the character design, seeing the model for shang tsung being made and textured, and cyrax's fatality being made in maya software, made me excited to one day be able to do it myself

Goodswen's talk

today i recieved a lecture from chris goodswen, a former student of NUCA, i learnt some very interesting things about the games industry in general, some i had thoughts about, and some that were completely new to me, i was happy to see demonstrations of his work while studying here, it gives me something to try to equal or surpass quality wise, i was impressed with the work on show although i was rather dissapointed to hear that it was mostly self taught, i do hope we get taught a decent amount about the 3D studio programmes available, i will teach myself if necessary but i do like having some guidelines to follow when learning new techniques.

the lecture was most educational, learning about how chris had no 3D knowledge whatsoever when joining the course but now produces proffesional quality work is inspiring, and gives a boost of confidence to those of us who are in the same situation as him, i do hope we have more talks from him in the future.