Tuesday 19 January 2010

Researching... Searching....

I'm am indulging on one of my favourite pastimes - research. It doesn't matter what it is - buying a new computer, a new game whatever. Getting to spend hours on the Interweb finding things is always time well spent.

I'm getting started with my work for this semester. I've been drawing a character. Uncle Jimmy subtly suggested I leave the Vikings (and their ilk) alone and look down other avenues. So Cyberpunk and Steampunk it is and I am quickly falling in love with the Steampunk aesthetic! I really want a pair of Steampunk goggles! Anyway... I'm hoping to use these as themes for the characters I'm going to be developing and put them in to a game setting - I'm thinking once I have worked on the Characters, putting them into a Pitch Document for a game. I think that would be detail enough for the game they would be in?

Anywho... bye for now!

Friday 15 January 2010

Take your turn...

Generally speaking I'm not a fan of turn based play in computer games. Card games, board games are fine, but in computer games it just frustrates me. I love Age of Empires, but the DS version drives me up the wall as I never get in to it like I do on the PC version. For me there's no flow.

However (did you see that coming?)... I was a while back introduced to a game called BloodBowl by someone (mainly because they wanted someone to play against). Essentially it's American football played by various fantasy races and a lot more bloody. As perfect a game as this sounds, I never bothered getting it (mainly because I had just bought Madden 2010 and so didn't have £40 to spare).

I now have it on the DS and it is indeed a turn based game. Not surprising as it is derived from a table top game by the same name. According to my own logic and preferences I should not like this game, but now I've got the hang of it I've been playing it on the train back and forth to Uni and I'm really enjoying it.

It has dawned on me though that there is another reason why I like this game when I loose interest in other turn based computer games - I love American Football and American Football is actually a turn based sport. Each 'play' is a 'turn'. One complaint from people who don't like it is that it stops and starts, but that's precisely one of the things I love about it- how the offense/defense line up with their set play - what they feel is the best strategy for that play and try to outdo the other team whether that involves scoring or preventing a score (or intercepting, sacking etc etc).

I think Amercing Football is the only turn based sport I can think of and I think that is why I like BloodBowl when other games have left me bored.

Sunday 10 January 2010

New Semester...

Soooo... new semester == new project.

My idea so far is to look at character design. Looking at what makes good characters and ways of designing them. I've done a small bit of reading over the Christmas break and foun some interesting things that I thin would work well in using them to structure or 'flesh out' a character design. This theory would go with hand drawn designs for character which would also go with, hopefully, doing some modelling of the characters.

Maybe I should also include some analysis of existing 'sucessful' characters?

Well, that's what I'm thinking at the moment.

Time to share...

I thought I would share this article from The Guardian (although technically it would be in The Observer):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/10/playing-in-the-virtual-world