Finishing stuff up

Things are finally starting to slow down. I have finished all of my finals except for game engine. My Advanced Seminar project went fairly well. Of course it could have been a lot better, and I'm not happy about my artwork at all, but I am generally happy with the end product. The last thing I need to do is some work in Game Engine. Torque Game Engine is being quite sassy, and I still need to finish up some parts of my "game" for my final. It isn't going to be anything flashy. You run around an environment, collect 5 rocks, and then go through a tunnel that opens up when you collect them all. It's simple, but surprisingly complicated to implement.

On a super awesome side note. Our America's Army maps have been officially released. If you want to try my teams map, just download Americas Army, and look for the map Canyon. That's me! I have been playing it a little. It is so rewarding seeing people having fun with something you built. I only wish every project I worked on was half this awesome.

oh and I'll be posting the final version of my seminar project on my portfolio website in a couple days. It is called "Flight of the Damocles".

IT's ALL WRONG!!

The last twenty four hours have possibly been the most stressful day of my life. Our America's Army map went live today. Late last night, we realized that we still had some bugs to fix that we had created through our earlier fixings. After all the shenanigans, it ended up being 2 oclock in the morning by the time we "finished". I quote the word finished, because finished we were not. You can probably imagine how stressed out I was at 2 in the morning, now imagine how stressed I was at 6 in the morning. Long story short, several of us pulled an all nighter just to have a version from 10 days ago get posted up for download in the game.

Yeah... you can imagine the violent seas of Dhali inspired anxiety that I am swimming in right now.

MIGS Post and etc.

Ok, so tons of stuff have happened. MIGS was amazing. I have thirty pages of notes taken on subjects ranging from storytelling in an open environment to increasing meaning in video games to uses metrics to meter difficulty in level design. It was as Kintaro Oe would say, "very educational!" I didn't do as much networking as I would have liked. It is very intimidating to try and strike up a conversation with someone you want to be. I saw a few of the other guys manage to get a lot of business cards, but most of their conversations looked empty. I had a few conversations here and there, and I asked many of the speakers questions, but I only ever gave out my business card to one person. Whatever the case, MIGS was excellent. There was so much that happened and I can barely scratch the surface here.

We started fixing bugs revealed in beta testing of our America's Army maps just a few days ago. I tried to coordinate things from here, but that is rather hard when you are so far away. I also wasn't able to help with the fixing of the bugs. My computer doesn't like the AA mission editor. Luckily the bugs were few, and my team mates were gung ho about fixing them. I believe the last of them were fixed today. The map is due to be released on the 10th. I'm pretty happy about it.

I also posted a new prototype on my website. It is a simple side scrolling dodging game. After doing a few quick prototypes and talking with some people about prototyping, I have decided that I am going to try and step up each prototype each time. This last prototype actually had some artwork in it although simple. I am going to try and step it up some more for the next one. I might try working on a prototype of some mechanics for my production II project.

Migs and stuff

As usual I am busy busy busy. I made another quickie game tonight. It's called BlockJumper. It is a simple platforming game.Check it out here
BlockJumper
I am also in charge of organizing the slides for Champlain College's slide show at MIGS. The college paid for a booth at MIGS, and they are going to have a slideshow going constantly. I have a whole bunch of images, and I have to sort through them and organize them into a logical order. I created a flowchart to help me organize the pictures into different concepts.
The problem I am having right now is that I realised that I don't have a Champlain Logo. I have a couple of perfect screens that are EMC logos, but nothing to use for a Champlain College logo. I suppose I will probably have to go make one. I need to finish it before class tommorow at 5:30. I also have to edit all the images so that they are jpgs at 4:3 ratio. It's a good thing I have little to until class tommorow other than play Fallout 3.

Oh man Fallout 3 is so good. If you enjoy things that are awesome, play Fallout 3. It is a good time. I don't mean to be vague, but there is no way that I could possibly have enough time to explain all my awesome escapades and adventures here.

GRRR Art!

So, I have a milestone due tonight (mostly artwork), and I suck at art. I'm sorry but there really isn't any other logical explanation for it. Everything I have tried looks terrible. I'm just not going to be able to finish this part of my milestone. I have been doing nothing but working on my seminar project for 3 straight days, and I don't really feel like I have gotten anything done until today. Grr I'm grumpy and tired from working so much. I can't wait until Diane gets here.

Obama is President!

I am so relieved that Obama was elected. I feel a lot more secure, and I have much more hope for my future. With declining markets, I had fears for myself entering the job market, but my fears are abating, because I have faith that by the time I reach the job market the economy will be sliding back up.

Calming down

Things are finally starting to calm down a little. We submitted, and then resubmitted to Gamma after talking with Heather Kelley. Heather Kelley is a part of Kokoromi, and lucky us she also works at the EMC. Last Tuesday Chris, Max, and I went down to Burlington, and we had a chance to speak with Kelley about our game. She gave us some feedback, and told us to resubmit with our changes.

Speaking of the EMC... They just had their grand opening. I went down for it, and it was awesome! I am excited to maybe work there next semester or over the summer. The entire facility is homey yet savvy looking, and there are plenty of workstations set up in pods. I really like the pod structure. I find that it fosters team work. It feels as if the table the computers are at is the project, and you are all in a circle concentrating on a physical embodiment of your project.

Now I have to concentrate on my Seminar project.

Super Busy

Lots of stuff going on. Just submitted "Falling" to Gamma. The selected get announced November first. I have been working furiously to try and get my portfolio site. I visited my girlfriend this weekend. It was great to see her, but I got zero work done. I have class all day Tomorrow, and I probably won't be able to work on the website till Tuesday. I need to finish my milestones for my schmup project (due Friday), and get my website done. Wish me luck with my work.

Portfolio

I am finally creating something that can be considered a portfolio. I have started construction of a website that will house my works. Production of the website has begun and it is turning out well, but I still need to purchase the domain and web space. As soon as I get the domain, I plan on ordering business cards. Then, at MIGS I can hand out my card to people with a link to my website. I am super excited about this. I feel like all my work the past couple of years is finally congealing into something real. I just hope the web hosting doesn't end up being sassy. I think I am going to go with godaddy for my hosting. Wish me luck with my website. I'll post a link when it is up.

Distractions

I have done very little work this past week. First I became addicted to Heroes. Wow that is a good show, but I ran out of episodes to watch, so that is no longer plaguing me. Then I got the urge to play Vampires The Masquerade: Bloodlines. It is one of my favorite games. It is a first person role playing game set in the Masquerade universe. It is filled with dark intricately twisting story lines, and hypersexualized vampires culture. It is the most immersive game that I have ever played. Luckily Max has sorta taken charge on the Gamme project, and we actually have a schedule now. I have to make some art assets for Monday. We'll see how that goes.

Seminar Project

I have been making good progress on my Advanced Seminar game. I have posted my current build. Keep in mind that it is extremely rough at this point. The game is centered around dodging as apposed to shooting. The bar on the right fills as bullets fly past you. When the bar fills up, you can press spacebar to unleash a blast. The arrow keys are to dodge. Enjoy, and let me know what you think. http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/26174/Shooter.exe

P.S. the sound is really annoying right now.

Project ideas, stereoscopy, AA, Stuff

The last week has set down quite a few things. First of all, we are not doing our stereoscopy in Torque as previously planned. My friends and I had planned to participate in Gamma3d with a stereoscopic game made in Torque 3d. Unfortunately, we still don't know enough about Torque to be able to program stereoscopy in. Instead we have opted back to using flash. Chris is our programmer, although I'm hoping that I can at least help him edit parameters later on. We are working indirectly with a company called Entrik. Entrik is a start up company comprised of graduated Champlain College students. You can check out there site at www.entrikgames.com. Chris has worked with them before, and they were gracious enough to share their flash stereoscopy code with us. Chris recently also figured out how we could impliment point perspective in order that we can "fake" 3d. We are working with a falling concept. The idea is that you are having a bad dream where you are constantly falling. Objects are flying at at you constantly, and you have to dodge out of the way. It's a simple idea tha should be easy to understand, and fun to play(duh).

Next, I recently submitted my proposal for my Game Seminar project. I am making vertical shooter. I really like this design, because it has a grounding in something that is extremely well developed already. There is a very tried and true formula to vertical shmups, and I plan to take advantage of that, and then shift things into more innovative territory. I'll keep you posted as I refine the mechanics.

The AA project has been submitted yet again. I wasn't able to participate in this iteration nearly as much as before, but I did end up having to fix a few things for the guys back home at the last minute. The AA devs complained that the west side had an uphill advantage because the west team comes in around the south, where the village slopes upward. So, the team dropped that section of the village down, so that it is at the same height as the northern district, and the center market area is actually now the only raised section. They also added an under construction theme to the southern district that makes it stand out more. They guys also redid the look of the hill. Based upon some reference images, they gave the hills a tiered look. Overall I think it all looks good.

The last thing I want to mention is that I am currently on Vacation! No I'm not in the Caribean or sunny Spain. I'm in Dover NewHampshire. Doesn't sound like much of a vacation spot? Well, this is where my girlfriend lives, so I find this to be the most magical place on earth. I'm back in Montreal on Sunday.

AA Update

Just got an update last night on the America's Army Project. Kevin, one of our liasons at AA sent us a a message. They still arn't satisfied with the look of the hills, and the believe that there is a balance issue because one of the teams starts with the uphill advantage. They also commented saying that it looks much better. I am very excited seeing as this problems are much more cut and dry than before. We also have until Wednesday to make these fixes. That's a whole week! My only fears come from the fact that I will be able to help very little, and seeing as classes have started. everyone is much more busy.

I have heard from Wes and Sean. They said they are up to it, but that is all so far. I am praying for them.

YAY my computer is working.

I finally got my computer working. I had to buy a new hard drive, a new DVD drive, and a new operating system to do it, but it finally worked.

Fresh news on Gamma 3d is that we are still lost in the woods. Guillaume is being told not to teach us any straight C code, and to just stick to scripting and the syllabus, but we are ripping through the simple "Torque for Teens" book assigned to the class. Guillaume has told us that there is no way that we can get stereoscopy to work in Torque without some serious Programming. He doesn't seem to think it would be too hard, but he has been told to steer us away from that. Our options now stand at either convincing the higher ups to let Guillaume teach us more advanced stuff, or using flash and trying to make the best of it. We already have basic designs laid out for either, but we don't have a lot of time to implement them.

P.S. Can't find camera charger. Sorry no pics

5 Ideas

Ok so the four of us have brainstormed 5 different ideas. We are writing small descriptions of each, and on Monday we plan to present each of these ideas to our Game Engine teacher and to our Advanced Seminar teacher. I don't want to give our ideas away yet, but I'll let you know on Monday what our chosen Idea is. I'm still afraid we won't be able to figure stereoscopy with Torque, but I believe Guillaume will be able to help us with it.

New Stuff is Happening

So, I still haven't put in my new computer parts yet. I have to fix some other things first, but that will hopefully get done soon. But enough about that. I am happy to announce that I will be working to get a project into GAMMA 3D. GAMMA is an event held in Montreal as a game art exhibit. Last years theme was 256 pixels, and this years theme is 3D using red cyan anaglyphs. This is the traditional 3d glasses approach. I am working with the other three designers up here in Montreal Max, Asa, and Chris. We had Game Engine I yesterday where we spoke with our teacher Guillaume about the project. We asked him for his help, and we decided to use the class to help the project. We are slated to learn Torque 3D in Game Engine, so we are going to use Torque to make our game.

We have a few ideas so far, and I'll post what we are doing once we figure it out.

Computer Broken

Sorry I am lagging behind, but my computer is making me eat angry cakes right now.

Switching Over

Ok, so everything so far has been about America's Army and I know there will more of that ahead, but with the recent submission in I have a couple of weeks to not worry about it while the devs mull it over and instead work on some other things.

Orientation for Montreal is over. Champlain has us running all over the city for the past 3 days getting used to our surroundings. I really feel like I kind of know my way around the city now. Classes start Tuesday, and I have all day of Monday to do what ever I want. I would like to start using my new computer, but I ran into a few snags putting it together tonight. It came down to the fact that I have to install Windows on my second hard drive, but the windows disk I have isn't the right one. I bought an install disk years ago, but the disk I found in my things was just a recovery disk. The short of it is that I am going to have to find an install disk somewhere. It is 11:30 right now and it doesn't look like I'll get it working tonight. I was really excited to start pondering over some Unreal work, but I guess that will have to wait for the days ahead.

P.S. sorry still no Montreal pics. I keep forgetting to charge my camera.

Big Change

A lot has happened in the past few days. I moved out of my apartment Friday morning. While moving out I had to talk Sean through how to fix the mini map over the phone. I was a little nervous about this, but no one else was available to do it and the project was due that day. Thankfully he called me a few hours later to let me know that it turned out fine.

For those of you that don't know, I am studying abroad in Montreal Canada for a semester. I just arrived this past Friday, and I have been completely blown away by the awesomeness of this city. There is stuff happening everywhere. There are literally thousands of restaurants and a never ending supply of interesting shops selling everything from fried squid to wooden sculptures. The school has kept us very busy over the past couple days, which is good because they have essentially forced us to learn the city. I still can't wait for Monday though, when I can finally relax and upgrade my computer with some new parts I bought. As soon as I install my new parts I play to get a copy of Unreal 3 so that I can start working with the editor. I have lots of pictures that we took yesterday, but I need to get them from Nichole my RA. Maybe next time I'll post some beautiful pictures. Well, here's to hoping the AA devs like the changes to the map, and to a wonderful new semester.

Done yet?

There is this horrible feeling you get when you are almost done a project. You can't help think that you are forgetting something. I am in the gamelab right now, and all I have left to do is fix the mini map, or at least that is all I think I have left to do. I am blogging right now so that I can bring out my thoughts about the map and try and catch other things I have to do. I adjusted the heights of some of the walls of the wooden stalls in the market so that players can get a good shot through some and a poor shot through others. Elken fixed the comm volumes and the identifying text on the new objective last night. It's just me and Sean now, and I can't help but think that I am missing something critical. What else am I forgetting? I fixed the east side spawn point. The squad leader had acccidentally been put on Delta squad. Me and Sean also found a few spots where the terrain had little hiccups. Ooh I just found a spot where the player can leave the play area.
I am feeling rather anxious about the project right now. In a few hours I will leave the project in Sean's hands. He will be the last sailor aboard a boat desperately trying to make it to port that is quickly running out of crew. I pray that this all goes well, and that the AA devs like our changes.

A little bit closer

Sean tweaked the terrain a little last night, and today we did more testing. We pulled someone in from the game lab for about half an hour so that we could play 2 on 2. We decided that more paths were needed leading out of the center towards the other objectives. This is integral to making players actually capture all the objectives. We didn't get any capture wins yesterday when we played, but after putting in the extra paths we got a couple today. It still needs more work though. I think I am recognizing that in order for players from one team to go after the other teams favored objective, they need a very safe way to get there. These new safe paths that we have put in still need more cover to make them "safer". We have also been working to alter the center a little here and there to give the players more cover when capturing the point in the center.

Good Progress Today

We made some great progress today even though things started out slow and I was a little worried at first. I got to the game lab at noon, and no one else was there. Then I realized that I had forgotten to bring a flash drive with Americas Army on it, so I had to wait while it downloaded. Then, shortly after Elken and Sean arrived we had to leave the game lab. Apparently the game lab was reserved from 1 till 3. We then decided to go to the library and hash out some ideas. We spent a couple of hours going over the ideas we had and we came to a lot of conclusions. First of all, we didn't quite go with either Elkens idea or mine. Instead we ended up combining the two designs together. We took Elkens idea of two paths with a third objective in the market, and we used my concept of integrating the center hills into limiting the extra pathing we had. At 3 we got back to the game lab and we integrated the changes. We ran some tests on the map. At first we just walked around the map to get a feel for it, but the first round we had where we actually played the map was amazing. I could really feel the difference. I walked into the market area at the beginning of the match and a strange foreign experience came over me. I felt safe. Limiting the players options made the playing field far easier to understand. I didn't have to worry about enemies coming from a thousand directions. It still wasn't something that was legitimately "safe", but first person shooters arn't suppose to be safe. No, instead it had just become maneagable. I also found that combat in the market area is awesome. The high visibility high cover environment created tons of extremely long satisfying firefights. The only problem we still have with the map is that it looks like capture wins are going to be somewhat unlikely. The map favors Team West capturing the southern objective and Team East capturing the northern objective. Both teams then fight over the middle objective. This works out fine, but it usually doesn't get past this. Tonight Sean is going over the terrain and fixing the texturing. Tomorrow we will tackle the issue of the low rate of point capturing. We talked about it a lot today, and we have a lot of ideas about how to fix it. Wish us luck.

Start of design prototype

I did a few hours of work trying to incorporate my changes into the level. I changed the hills about how I wanted them. As I expected the tunnel was somewhat sassy, and I haven't quite finished it yet. I also need to adjust the spawn points. I will do those two things in the morning, and then at noon tomorrow Sean, Elkin, and I can start really getting to work.

New Hills

Ok so the other comment the devs had, was that they still don't like the two center hills, so I decided that it would be a good idea to work the hills into my fix for the center. At the meeting yesterday we decided that 4 options was too many, so I am going to make the hills larger so that they flow into the mountainside in a way that is both more believable, and that cuts off one of the routes. I am going to bridge the east hill into the mountain cutting of the south east path to the market, and do the same for the west hill, but put in a tunnel to keep the south west path open. I will also pull the west hill into the market more to make it difficult to get into the market from the north west. This creates two nice opposite entrances. The only thing I am worried about is the tunnel. If the tunnel proves too difficult, then I will switch the sides that the entrances are on.

Redesign

So the America's Army devs were somewhat disappointed with our map. They told us that we were doing a great job, but they had a problem with the center area of our map. The told us that in their play test no one entered it. This is problematic especially because the center area, or market, is my favorite area of the map. So my team met today to hash out a plan to fix it. We have until next Friday which gives us a solid week, but most of us are gone next week. There are six of us in all, but it is mostly just going to be me and Elken next week. We decided that me and Elken would work on two different ideas over the weekend, and on Monday we will decide which one to go with.
The original design essentially gave the player four choices at the begining which is too many.
My altered design limits the players choices down to three at the beginning. I also plan to alter the two center hills which the devs said they felt were still out of place. Luckily Sean, our terrain artist, will be around to help me out with this.

Catching up

I feel like anyone reading this has missed out. So much has happened in the past two years. I know I don't really have time to write it all down right now, but I guess I'll put something down. The biggest thing to happen to me recently is my involvement with the America's Army project at the EMC. The EMC or Emergent Media Center is a department at my college that produces media pieces for groups through grants and other forms of funding. Ann the head of the department runs a blog at http://emergentmediacenter.blogspot.com/ I was recently chosen as a Producer/Level Designer for the project. We were charged with making a couple of multiplayer maps for the game America's Army. We finished a couple weeks ago, but we still arn't sure what they are going to do with our maps. I am anxious for the outcome. Luckily we have a phone conference this Wednesday, so hopefully we will find out.

Lets start again

Ok so I wasn't really sure what to write at first, so I wrote some sentimental poetical junk that I like the sound of so I'm gunna leave it there, but allow me to write a more practical first post here.
ahem... My name is Joel Christian Pelletier. I am 20 years old. I am a gamer, a lover, a fan of anime, and I have an irrational fear of Africa. I knew what I wanted to do when I was about 10 years old, and I haven't had any doubts since then. I want to make video games (No that isn't right). Making video games is the only job that I know that I will ever love (better). Wish me luck, and maybe I will actually post things here.

Crossroads

I find myself at a crossroads. I have completed 2 years of courses at Champlain College. I find myself filled with skills, but with few examples of my abilities. I yearn for an opportunity to show the world what I am capable of.
I am a Designer. I create video games, but I am still just a beginner. It is now necessary that I spread my wings and make something to prove who I am. There is no point in waiting any longer.