Saturday, October 30, 2010

Best Game Coverage 2010

I was watching the Big Live Live Show on Giant Bomb last night and was really blown away by the interview with Supergiant Games. Retrospectives are pretty common these days but Giant Bomb are doing something different here by giving a very intimate look at the development process as it happens.

The segment has two parts, the first is a video of their trip to PAX to show off their game, Bastion,  for the first time. We get to see their reactions to peoples first impressions, both on the floor and online message boards.

The next segment is a live interview. They show a very early build of the game, discuss changes they made after PAX feedback and the merits of the lack of a design document. Also, they dish out some advice to aspiring game developers. Its really inspiring stuff.

The PAX video is first up and the interview starts at around 16 mins.
The first minute of the video is black, dont be dishartened.



This is going to be an ongoing segment. I am really looking forward to the next segment already.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Haunted by abandoned Board Game idea

I am haunted by the first board game idea I had that I abandoned due to time constraints.

Luckily I have started building it in Unity.
I think it could make a good iPhone game and it would be great to release something in to the app store this year and see how it goes.

As is becoming apparent I am finding it easy to generate Big Picture Macro ideas but I am struggling with the finer points.

Perhaps I will be able to collaborate with some people in class to bring this to completion.

I will upload my work so far later.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Board Game Design Exercise

I have found this weeks board game design exercise to be extremely challenging.

For days I endeavoured to generate a great idea to build a game on, but was eluded. Finally today I thought that perhaps the key to creation was not to wait for a great idea but rather try to improve a good one.

With this in mind I sat down with a pen and paper and awaited inspiration.

Nothing.

I decided to leave the house, and had a nice little idea as I drove around. Excellent, this is something I could work with. Again I hit the couch, once again armed with pen and paper. Ready to polish and develop.

I soon became bogged down in a quagmire of details. There was definitely a good idea in there somewhere, but it so om became clear that it was going to take more than a day to develop.

It has become clear that sitting down with a pen and paper is not a very productive scenario for me. So I decided to try and recreate my earlier success, this time by cooking.

I ended up coming up with somthing simpler, and combining it with a few discarded idaes from earlier in the week, pairing it down again and adding a few more ideas.

In the end I have come up with somthing usable. Its not the amazing idea that I had hoped that I would have, but at least I feel that I am learning more about my own design process.

Quick rundown of stuff I have been playing

Civilisation - Still broken, waiting for a patch.

Doom 2 RPG - Turnbased RPG are a great fit for moblie games, but the lack of iPhone optimisation is frustrating.

Plants Vs Zombies - Sooooo good. A lesser developer would have releases the extra content as 4 different games.

Comic Jumper - Apparently it is possible to polish a turd, and to a rather high luster at that.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Followers