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.