Game Design Lessons I Learned From Hockey

I’m not going to lie: I’ve become a bit of a hockey fan since I was first introduced to the sport two years ago. It’s an exciting sport, and I find it to be a lot of fun to watch and follow. Now that I’ve been getting more into it, I’ve come to a realization: hockey and video games have a lot in common. Sure, they’re both forms of entertainment, and yes, there’s a series of NHL video games, but there’s much more to it than that. There are actually elements of game design that can be found behind the scenes in ice hockey, so keep reading to see the similarities I’ve found, and how they can be applied to creating games. 

 

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2012
02/24
CATEGORY
Game Design
Game Design Theory
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Starting and Maintaining Your Own Game Project: Part 2

A while back, I posted part one of two on starting and maintaining your own game project, so now the time has come for part two! Part one was all about starting up a project, but part two is more about the maintenance side of things. This post will focus on ways of setting up and organizing a schedule, communicating with your team, keeping your team motivated, and tips for dealing with common problems I’ve come across during my work on Delirium. If you missed part one, you can find it here: Project Planning and Team Recruitment.

 

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2012
02/17
CATEGORY
Projects
Making it into the Industry
Delirium
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Tutorials for Making Custom Textures

To go along with the textures and materials tutorial video I’m currently working on, I’ve decided to put together a list of tutorial sites for those interested in creating their own textures from scratch. In my upcoming video, I’ll show how to edit a few textures to prepare them for use in the Unreal Development Kit, but I won’t be covering how to create your own textures from scratch. Be sure to look over the links below if that’s something you’re interested in doing, and let me know if you have any tutorials you want me to add! Remember, I’m definitely not an expert at this, so check out these tutorials to start in the right direction. Also note that the following tutorials are specifically for Photoshop.

 

Bonus! If you’re interested in creating textures for 3D models/static meshes, check out this tutorial by lead texture artist Daniel Vijoi: Creating Next-Gen Textures

 

Thanks for reading, and keep a look out for my Textures and Materials in UDK video coming soon!

2012
02/15
CATEGORY
Misc
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I’m Alive!

Wow, have I been super busy these past few months! It’s my last semester here at UAT, so I’ve been working on finishing up classes, sprucing up my portfolio and resume, and getting ready to apply for jobs. On top of all that, my game project, Delirium, was selected by our university to go to GDC, so we’ve been hard at work in preparation for the conference. So now that I’m finally back into the swing of things, I’m back to posting here! I know it’s been quite a while, unfortunately, and I am definitely behind, especially with my UDK video tutorials. While I do have enough free time to resume posting, it might be a little longer until I’m able to put out another UDK turorial (sorry about that!). There have definitely been some cool changes in the most recent version of UDK, so for I’d highly recommend downloading it and playing around with the new features. I’m currently building a new team deathmatch level in the January version, so I’ll be posting more about that soon. I also hope to post about tips for job hunting and applications, as well as preparing your portfolio for a job or conference, since that is what I’ve been working on recently. Anyway, thanks for sticking with me if you’re reading this, and look forward to new posts this coming week!

2012
02/10
CATEGORY
Misc
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Starting and Maintaining Your Own Game Project: Part 1

As you probably know, I’ve been rather busy working on my game project, Delirium. (Don’t worry, I’m still working on those UDK videos, too!) We’re currently preparing for an upcoming pitch for possible sponsorship to GDC, but I thought I’d do a post about what it’s like to start up your own game project, and, more importantly, keep it running. This post marks part one of the guide, which details project planning and team recruitment. This will mostly be a guide for anyone who hasn’t started their own project before, but it will also include some helpful tips that I’ve learned through my own experiences.

 

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2011
11/28
CATEGORY
Delirium
Making it into the Industry
Projects
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Unreal University and Upcoming Videos

I’ve currently got two new UDK workshop videos in the works, both of which I hope to finish up this weekend. The first video will be focused on using the terrain, landscape, and foliage tools, while the second will be about creating and importing materials, since it seems to be a popular topic. I’m also planning on making a workshop video for UnrealScript, but I need to brush up my skills a bit with it before I work on that one. If you have any other suggestions for workshop videos, let me know!

 

While you’re waiting for my videos, why not check out some from Unreal University? The Unreal University sessions from this year’s Montreal International Games Summit are now available on the UDK youtube channel. There are nine videos up currently, and I definitely recommend checking them out (plus, they’re free!).

 

Check out the videos here: Unreal University Sessions

 

Since we’re on the subject of UDK, the October 2011 build is available for download! You can download it straight from the official UDK site, and since it’s what I’ll be using for my videos, I highly recommend getting it soon.

2011
11/08
CATEGORY
Misc
UDK
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What I Learned at GDC: Making Someone Else’s Game

There were a lot of really great talks at this year’s GDC Online, but there was one in particular that proved to be extremely motivational. If you’re going into the game industry, you’ve probably learned by now that you will have to work on a game you don’t want to. While you may be itching to make the next Final Fantasy, you might actually be making a Barbie game. Laralyn McWilliams gave an excellent talk on this very subject, entitled “Get Over Yourself: Making Someone Else’s Game.” 

 

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2011
10/18
CATEGORY
Making it into the Industry
What I Learned at GDC
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Game Project and GDC Online

Before I get back to more regular postings, I wanted to say sorry for being so behind lately! I’ve been hard at work on my new horror game project, but now that things are settling down a bit more, I have more time to post here and work on more videos. I also just got back from GDC Online in Austin a few days ago, which means I’ll start posting my “What I Learned at GDC” series again! I’ve also got several UDK workshop videos that have been sitting on the backburner, so I’ll get to work on those soon, too!

 

 

 

 

For those of you who might be interested, I’ve assembled a team of about ten to fifteen people to work on a 2D horror game called “Delirium.” We’ve been working on the game for a little over a month now, and will have the first two levels working by the end of this month! We’ve started a development blog for the game, which you can check out here: www.deliriumgame.wordpress.com . The rest of the team and myself will be posting about our progress on the game there, so be sure to check it out from time to time! Thanks for your support!

2011
10/16
CATEGORY
Misc
My Horror Game
Projects
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Prototyping Tools

Woah, it’s been a while since I’ve updated on here! Sorry about that guys! As many of you have heard, I’ve recently started up my own game project, and we’ve just begun pre-production. We seem to be off to a good start so far, and I’ll be posting more news about it and my experiences working with it later on.

 

In the mean time, I thought I’d talk a little bit about prototyping tools for game designers. As designers, it is our job to clearly describe the game’s vision, but sometimes, it’s just too difficult to do with words alone. Sure, you could use mock-ups or graphs to help get your point across, but every once in a while, it helps to just show everyone on the team exactly what you’re looking for. This is where prototyping comes in, and if you don’t happen to be very good at coding, digital prototyping can often be a difficult task. Fortunately for us, there are tools we have at our disposal! Many of you have heard of, if not used, Game Maker, which is a great tool that makes prototyping a breeze with its drag-and-drop coding. As much as I love using Game Maker, there is, however, a newer tool that takes what Game Maker does and builds on it. I’m talking about Stencyl, and while I haven’t used it much, it seems to be a fantastic prototyping tool. It retains the simplicity of usability that Game Maker has, while also allowing you to easily collaborate with a team. And don’t worry: you still don’t really have to code! Stencyl features an interesting little snapping code system, where you can snap blocks of code together to form strings… think Kismet meets Game Maker. There are a lot of cool features, so check out their web site for more information and to download the free tool!

 

http://www.stencyl.com/

 

This is the tool my team and I will be using for our prototyping needs, and I highly recommend it to any other game designers. You can even use it to create iOS and flash games, if you want it for more than just prototyping. That’s all I’ve got for today, but I’ll be posting more soon. Also, if you have any suggestions for my next UDK workshop video, let me know. Thanks for reading!

2011
09/12
CATEGORY
Game Design
6 comments

Vacation Time!

Hey everyone! I’m going on a quick vacation this weekend, then PAX Dev for the remainder of next week, so I probably won’t be on here much. But no worries: I’ll be answering any questions you might have later next week. When I get back, expect some update notes for the first workshop video, as well as a new post about learning programming and its importance. I’ve also got some good news regarding my project, so for any fellow UAT students, I’ll be posting more about that later, as well. If you’re going to be at PAX Dev, let me know and maybe we can meet up, otherwise, I’ll be back soon! Thanks as always for your support!

2011
08/20
CATEGORY
Misc
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