And the studio team are home and resting up … a couple of webcam pics showing their joy to keep everyone going untill monday morning when we will post the industry board feedback on the demo …
Saturday, a break and a whole other world as we do the SLQ GAME ON “Elements of Games” workshop with Alex Drummond - The way of the concept artist!
Ten days into the studio-gameOn project and the team have hit their first milestone successfully - just in time to all go home for the weekend! Here a screen grab taken via our webcam shows them clustered around one of the programmer’s machines watching the first B-Movie - the game! prototype running … no audio sadly but there was also cheers and laughs and suspiciously western movie music ….
RSS: If you use an RSS reader like Google, you can link to the studio NEWS feed
The team clustered around to watch the first low-fi prototype of the game!
Yug and Yhatzee from our own adored Australian Gamer magazine turned up at the week one Industry Board feedback meeting. Thye were neatly caught in black and white by our photographer, Keith Novak, and have done the studio and team proud in a feature article today:
Need you ask? They stay in the studio and have a quick frag fest in UT! While from the outside the studio looks nice and quiet and closed for the night, inside Rory and some of the art team and design team are finding a way to unload the stresses of the project!
RSS: If you use an RSS reader like Google, you can link to the studio NEWS feed
After the Industry Board meeting with the team last week, week two is a case of head down and make that game for Rory and the production teams … They are posting their progress on the various development blogs here (lins in side menu).
Meanwhile, life for our studio manager, Sheryl, and the marketing team (Gemma and Josh M) is reving up - this is the other side of the project - making the game making process as visible as possible and getting the public to see the Brisbane game making industry as part of the state and city profile, getting wanna-be game makers to see how a small studio operates and most importantly, showing people that making games is a serious career!
Gemma did a stint down at the state library - heh heh - note to selves - next time send two people down to do a publicity gig - it is really quite difficult for one person to approach the public. If you are visiting the State Library, look out for our studio-gameOn representative - we will post their schedule here!
Gallery: some of the more prosaic but essential sides of making a game - the project management overview board if filling up, daily project meetings to ensure everyone is on track and our own Gemma setting up down at the State Library!
RSS: If you use an RSS reader like Google, you can link to the studio NEWS feed
And the final day of week one - getting concepts ready to present to the industry board for feedback and advice - the game that will be made gets chosen today
The story of a game and a game development project …. well the week has been pretty intense - don’t forget the first day was actually spent setting up the studio premises, slightly cruel perhaps but this project has many many KPIs and the process was one of them, right down to the setting up - you can follow most of this first week over on Flickr and youtube …
Machines all set up, tis design design and design again - think of an idea - hand it over to the concept artists to visualise, give the basic mechanics to the programming team to protoype (did we mention half the programming team now find themselves working in AS3 - hey, they have C and C+ backgrounds .. eeeasy) - the team had four days, oh no - make that THREE because after all the fourth day was presentations! And the team - well they were not a team when we started - they have never worked together before, so we have people bonding under mega stress - heh heh, that is how we like it!
You can see some of the design concept work over on youtube, a selection represented here for your delight:
Rory, our actual lead producer slash programmer slash responsible-for-the-game-person wanted to have at least two ideas ready for the first industry board meeting .. and two he got … but time time is not on their side - the team have one solid concept which fits the timeline and the audience and one, ooooh very sexy one which will probably have to be put aside until another opportunity ….
In this game you get to play the stunt man in a series of very B-grade movies - gameplay is all about completing stunts and achieving the best stunt series for the particular movie set - the mock up above is for a Godzilla movie, there are so many different potential levels for this one, gameplay involves finding and completing the best stunts for the scene. Player is rewarded with points - and their own movie stunt clip!
Abbey in action doing the concept art gor B-Grade Movie
Game concept two: GOLEM
Gotta keep this description thin I’m afraid, a gem but too long for this particular project and so being put back under wraps for another time - but the idea revolves around being a golem … very cool - no combat but a lot of very careful eating …
The team have been working hard all week to put together more than one concept so that they can take advantage of our honoured Industry Board’s presence. From the first day, Rory was determined to use the time between Monday and Friday (we worked it out as 3 days actually) to ensure that the team were able to present at least two good concepts for review and advice! Full story tomorrow but meanwhile, a few snippets and some pics - a selection from the day from setting up throught the presentations and the discussions with John Passfield, Duncan Curtis and Marko Grgic and Adrian Cook, the arrival of Yug of Australian Gamer along with Yahtzee and Lauren (Back! Back! Back!) …. more photos via Flickr
The studio has closed down for the day but the presentation to the industry board tomorrow means that a couple of our team members are already starting to burn that midnite oil!
Entries (RSS)
Powered by FireStats