Drawings: Rough sheep character sketches.

Rough Sketches of the main sheep character. I don't like this one at all however... I want to rework it, especially if I'm to animate it in Flash. Perhaps I should draw them out in flash too...

Possible name ideas:

Hank Lamb (shank)

Marton Sheep (Mutton)

Research: Sheep

Info links and images for sheep reference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep

Research: Side Scrolling Beat 'em Up

Links to Games:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_%27em_up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streets_of_rage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Axe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_crashers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_dragon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fight

Self Study 1: Game Idea.

For my Idea I plan to do a Streets of Rage style game with the main character being a ship trying to escape from his farm before he ends up being killed for meat.

The main character would be a sheep while other characters would be other farm animals such as:
-Sheeps
-Pigs
-Cows
-Chickens
-Horses
-Farm hands
-Ducks
-Farm Machenery

Backgrounds would be farm based and perhaps some more spoofy ideas if I come up with any.

New Project: Self Study 1

Negotiated Study: Working Assets.
Subject: Digital Art for Computer Games.

Rational/Working Statement:
I intend to produce assets that would hopefully be useable within a flash game.
This would involve creating character concepts and animating them doing vairious movements within a game.

Aims:
I aim to develop character and animations for their movement and attacking abilities.

Details/Content:
The content should be able to be imported into flash and used for a flash game.
The animations need to be functional while keeping a smooth quality.
The game will be using the theme of:
-Cute Farm Animals.
-Gory Cartoon Style Violence.
-Farmyard Backgrounds.
These are the themes that would be important to keep in mind while designing the characters.
Early on in the project I need to do a quick test of using models that are built and textured within Maya, animate and render each frame then import them into flash. This will decide for me whever I would be animating in 2D or 3D.

Specific Skills:
2D Digital Concept Designs - Photoshop/Sketchbook Pro.
2D Digital Concept Art - Photoshop/Sketchbook Pro.
2D Animation - Flash.

Assessment Criteria:
Critical and Theoretical Knowlege.
Conceptual Ability.
Visual Development Skills.
Practical Skills/Use of Media Technique.
Professional Practice.

Review: World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft steals souls! I swear this game I played it for 4 years and recently quit in august 09 and still I'm tempted every so often to resub to it...
Especially now with the new expansion coming...

World of Warcraft is another MMO (I seem to spend alot of my time playing these nowdays) that's a pay to play subscription based game. The plot basically is of 2 waring factions: The Alliance which is made of Humans, Dwarfs, Gnomes, Night Elves, Draenei and soon Worgens with the new expansions. The second faction is called The Horde and is made up of the Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, Forsaken, Blood Elves and with the next expansion Goblins. Basically the two factions dislike eachother but have to deal with outside forces trying to destroy them both while still being at odd with eachother.

Well let's talk about my experience within the game. I had several characters in this game but I'm just going to talk about one character I played.

He was one of my favourites Magicka the Forsaken Priest. When I made him I was amused by the thought of a healing priest that couldn't even heal his own jawbone back on. This character was my main til the point just before the expansion Wrath of the Lich King came out so he was decked out in Season 2-3 gear (yeah I wasn't exactly the top when it came to arena games but what can you do?)

Yeah so I spent most of my time PvPing in this game. That basically means playing against other people around the world as opposed to co-operating with them through the dungeons. I did actually do the PvE content but lets just say I'm even worse at it than the PvPing. I could tell stories about mishaps I've had while raiding or getting lost while just trying to level up.


Part of the appeal for this game was definatly the social interaction with people who played. I spent most of my time with a group of Irish players, a Romanian and a Croatian most of who I still stay in contact with today. In between playing arenas and battle grounds we spent our time chasing down Alliance attacks and trying to find exploits to get into areas of the game we shouldn't of.


All in all I had real fun with the game. The graphics are getting a bit dated since the game is getting about 5 years old now however it's still a solid base that's still being improved upon today. Alot of MMO's that have come out since are usually mesured up against them which is both a good and bad thing seeing as it can hinder new releases that are being compared to.

Review: Age of Conan - Hyborian Adventures.

Web Link

Whoo boy how to start on this game? How about the phrase "Suckered in"
That's really what I was thinking after the 1st few weeks after buying this game.



Okay lets start with the standard overview:

Age of Conan is a game made by a company called Fun Com starting everyone's favourite barbarian Conan. Conan the Grumpy Barbarian basically is under attack from the usual "dark forces" that you see in these types of fantasy games and you play as the "chosen one" however being the chosen one in an MMO game surrounded by several other "chosen ones" it's kinda dulled down a bit.

The game starts with the standard character creation where you get to pick from 3 races. The egyptian like Stygians, the Greek like Aquilonians and the Viking like Cimmerians. There's a difference between classes depending on what race you pick but it pretty much boils down to your standard Warrior, Rogue, Mage and Healer affair. Your character starts off as an escaped slave on an island and without spoiling the plot (for people who care about such things) you pretty much you spend the 1st 20 levels on that island going through the storyline before being thrown into the game proper.

Now Personally I feel that while this tutorial island was pretty well done you are basically suckered in by spending so much time there. I had a blast running through that island and was greatly dissapointed once I left.

Let me just elaborate here a bit...

I pretty much bought this game when it 1st came out and really it felt like a game that should of just been hitting beta let alone being released to the masses. Once I had left the island I was confronted with memory leaks, bugs, bad monster and player balancing issues, graphical glitches and streaches of levels with just nothing to do but grind my way through mobs.


Graphics wise this game is one of the pretties I've seen in an MMO there really is some awsome views and great effects such as when you cut someone's head off in moves that are like Mortal Kombat Fatalities. However with the game's mature lables I found some real interesting/strange scenes of people including:

- A Drunk Pirate peeing into the sea.
- A snake that had eaten a person with their hand still waving out of it's mouth.

All in all I found the game fun but the crippling ammount of bugs and problems made me quit after the 1st month.

Oh and the final twist of the knife where Funcom was trying to get players back, I literally got an e-mail threatening to delete my characters if I didn't re-subscribe. Well if I didn't want to play anymore then I certainly won't if my characters are effectivly dead.

Wrexham in Bloom.

Well the Newi uni got approached by the wrexham council to design some posters or something for their "battery bee's" project.
Something about recycling batteries by placing them in bins that are along some nature route. Honestly apart from the whole thing seeming like a way to cut costs and get something for free it wasn't really relevent for a games student but hey we ran with it.

Since there was a mention of a website they had seen here we thought that perhaps making a little flash game would be allright and at least relevent to us. However they really did seem more interested in posters and leaflets, something a graphics designer or an illustrator would of been suited for. Feels like a carpenter being asked to build a submarine sometimes....

So here was our idea a simple flash game called Buzz Blitz a shoot-em-up game where you control a bee shooting batteries into falling bins. The idea being every time you missed the background would get more and more polluted until you lost.

Start Screen:



Gameplay Mock Up:


((Ah sod it I can't figure out how to post it as a animated gif, I'll figure it out later))

Game over screen:


Yeah so at least I got it over and done with.

Bradford animation festival.

Website link

Yeah I went to the Bradford animation festival in 09... not that I remember much of it now in May 2010. I think in the future it might be worth investing in a video camera for these events since my memory is bad and having a record to paste up here might be worth it.... if it's allowed with all the copyright stuff and whatnot.

Yeah I think if I can I might invest in one to keep records....

So -what- do I remember?...
Oh well there was the walk, practically having an asthma attack getting there.... yeah
There was a talk on games on the iPhone, making simple games cheaply and quickly.
Also a man who designed and made his game by himself with a simple line art drawing style. Personally I thought he was more interesting in the art and meanings of his game than the actual making and technical aspects of it which most of us were more interested in...

The best bit was the speaker who was replacing someone who didn't show up. He was showing a stunt bike game that his team was working on. It was showcasing the game itself, the developmental phases it was in and the modes that the game would have. This I found the most interesting because it was actually showing how they were working through the game itself over how to market or how they were selling the game.

Starting off...

Blogging.... urg....
Seriously I hate these things...

Right so this is where I'm gonna have to stick up my Personal Development Portfolio stuff and I've really left this stuff WAAAAAAY too late again.

hmph...