Sunday 17 June 2012

Hello folks..

Just making an update telling you about what's been happening in the past few weeks..

Dare To Be Digital 2012


Week 1 of D2BD is over, with week 2 starting tomorrow! It's been pretty good thus far, the university is really impressive with good equipment and support etc. The mentors from Blitz games and Cobra mobile have been great so I look forward to this week!



Our game "Badgers Vs. Turtles is a turn based strategy game being made for the iPad. We are making it using the Unreal Engine so hoping for a very impressive outcome. We are constantly updating blogs and our websites so please follow us via the following links:

https://www.facebook.com/MustMakeGames

http://twitter.com/#!/Dare2012_MMG

http://www.daretobedigital.com/d2bd/team-information-2012/team.php?idTeam=2067&year=2012

This was the group mug shot of everyone at the competition! We are at the back to the right! We are holding up little game characters


I'm currently living in the halls of residence, the though of halls again is a bit depressing since I've been living in an amazing house for the past year but at least I don't pay for the bills and have an en-suite room. The rooms are very tall, classic Victorian style architecture so it gets really cold and because it is situated on a main road its REALLY loud at night. I haven't had a good night sleep for a good while now unfortunately. Ear plugs are helping!

Lastly, I was waiting months and months for the new Macbook Pro lineup to arrive which did last week. I was disappointed to find there was only a 15" retina model and no 13" so if Apple follow suit I will be waiting till October in hope for a 13" retina model. It does look amazing though! 

Rant over, thanks for reading. 

Thursday 24 May 2012

End of May update!

SUP!.. It has been a long time since I have 'blogged'. Here are my biggest updates since September.

Q.U.B.E got released on Steam
Look! I'm in credits hur hur hur! I honestly didn't do that much with this game.. I was asked a lot to do scripting tasks which isn't part of my skill-set.. I was working on a cool hologram like effect but they decided to drop it =( Still though, I have met good contacts during my time with these guys!!


Look! I am beside Valve! =)

I left Spiral Game Studios
I mainly left due to a build up of university work and had to prioritise! I was sad to leave but I got over it...


Degree has finished
Yeee haaah! After four long years of long late nights I have finally finished my degree. By July I should have a Masters in Computer Engineering. Like I mentioned in September, my thesis was going to be on a "Customisable Character System" for a games engine! I finished this and managed to score a fat 82%. The video below is the technical demonstration of my project:


As well as this! Our games creation group made a game for the charity organisation 'Water for Africa'. It's a management game and can be played on the following link:

Water for Africa Management Game

Lastly, an environment piece I made using Zbrush, Max and UDK! I could have done soo much better for this and I'm not sure on how I will do for it!



Orion: Dino Beatdown released
Spiral Games title which I worked on got released! Unfortunately it was extremely buggy on release! I would have prevented that! ;) but it's getting there with patches! Check it out on the steam store.


Updated my portfolio
I have yet again changed my portfolio website, design wise and content.

Pixel Maniac


Got a contract offer from Digital Arrow Studios as a Technical artist






A nice group of developers wanted me to join their project doing techy things in Unreal however I had to decline their offer due to something else I got into!!!!! (Below!)


Got into Dare to Be Digital 2012
Me and some friends got into an amazing project called Dare to be Digital! Instead of telling you about it, watch this video!


Definitely cannot wait till this starts! We submitted our video pitch however got very lucky when they "lost" our application but reviewed it and let us through to the next stage. We then had to go to Sheffield for a presentation and question session which went amazing! No bad comments or feedback at all! They mentioned a few really positive ideas so we look forward to adding them! I'm in a team with four other people including:

Alastair, Aggressive Team leader - Level Design and 2D flash art
Bradley 'Auzzie' Austin - Programming and game design
Heather 'Twitter Bitch' Cooper - Programming and game design
Steven 'Geordie' Daord - 3D art

So all is well with that and I can't wait to tell more when I get to Dundee!!