Week Two: In Which The Level Is Remade From The Grid Up

Just a few quick things I did after last weeks blog entry in this paragraph. I started on making bump maps and normal maps for some of the textures, just to get some practice for when we'd have our finalized textures in the game, I like to think I've gotten pretty good at that. I've also been trying to make a shader, a toon shader to be specific, I have it working in a separate file from our actual game, but will have to do some more work to implement it fully.

Now on to my big project for the week, rebuilding the level. Last semester when we made our level instead of making it in Maya and importing it, we instead made it completely in openGL; This caused problems with lighting as well as making it nearly impossible to edit, at least with any ease. I went into Maya, and taking all the main point of the track, completely rebuilt it, there were a few edits after to make sure everything lined up with the old track, but for the most part it worked out well. Now that the level is actually in Maya and can easily be edited, I have been able to go in and change around a few pieces and add in objects to make our game more closely match the vision we had for it last semester. By the time our game is complete I hope you can look forward to some amazing scenery as you race around the track.

Later on this week expect some impressions from LittleBigPlanet 2, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Last Window: The Secret of Cape West, and an in-depth criticism of one of them, as per my homework requirements.

- N. Gale  

Week One: In Which Progress is Made on a Graphical Basis

Although we have only had one week of classes so far and have yet to really begin work on complete our new goals for this semester I have started to do a few modifications to our current textures. If you remember the game What Does it All Mean by Something Clever last semester, you'll probably remember that although the game performed well, and included most requirements, it looked a bit too dark, or not as enjoyable as it could be. So this past week I have experimented by changing certain textures to various styles to see what would work best, I tried with some cartoony graphic, and have started working on some code in OpenGL that makes things appear cell-shaded. I have also tried implementing a graphical style reminiscent of the new Tron movie, which I think would fit well with a few other object already in our game (i.e. the force field and points bubbles).

I'm not yet happy with the results, but I'll keep working until I get it just right.

My Time as a Raccoon: Ten Minutes with Sly Cooper

I have always wanted to play the Sly Cooper games but never got around to it during the age of the PS2, so I though, when it was released as a collection PS3, I just had to get it. Knowing it would be somewhat similar to one of my current favorite games of this generation, Infamous, I picked it up around Christmas but got sidetracked by Donkey Kong Country Returns. Since I must now play a game I've never played before, it seemed like the perfect time to finally try it out, and I'm glad I did.

The game begins with quick little setup video, getting the main character into place for you to control him. The first thing I noticed was how cartoony the game looked, which is definitely a plus for me, and it works very well for the type of game it is. Once I pressed start I got i little talking to from a nerdy annoying turtle (images of Slippy flash in my head) and he told we what was going on and what needed to be done.

Oh Bentley, I predict many annoying conversations from you in my near future

Kryptonite

It is time for me to talk to you about a bad game, maybe one of the worst, Superman 64. I'll admit right now that I never actually completed the game fully, but I believe I've made it further than most people would be willing to go in this terrible, terrible game. Superman 64 is plagued by terrible controls, a terrible story, terrible graphics, and terrible sound ( I still don't believe I've used the word 'Terrible' enough yet).

The entire premise of the game is that Lex Luthor has imprisoned your friends in a virtual metropolis and you, being Superman, must go and rescue them. There you have it, that's the entire story, told in one short cut-scene at the opening.

The beginning of a truly epic tale

You can't hide from the Grim Reaper. Especially when he's got a gun.

I have always loved graphical adventure games from my first experiences with them in the form of The Secret of Monkey Island to the more recent, and more scarce ones, such as games like Hotel Dusk and Heavy Rain. The draw of these types of games isn't so much the difficulty and gameplay as it is the story and atmosphere of the game. The game I believe best represents this genre and my personal favourite is Grim Fandango, a 1998 computer game made by LucasArts.

The main story of Grim Fandango boils down to this; you, Manuel "Manny" Calavera, are a travel agent for the DOD (Department of Death), tasked with selling people tickets to the Ninth Underworld based on the quality of their soul, ranging from a walking stick (With built in compass) to a ticket on the Double N straight to the Ninth Underworld. After discovering a mistake causing someone to be cheated out of their Double N ticket, you set off on an epic 4 year journey filled with conspiracy plot twists, and many great and unique characters.

Each character has their own personality that changes along with the four year path of the game.

The Shape of Things to Come

And so my blog is finally created. I thought I would offer a look into the future of my blog, albeit the very near future, in fact, most likely tomorrow. As I have already written what I will post tomorrow (but have a physical inability to completely finish something till the last minute) it should be easy to outline my next few posts.

Firstly, I am required to play through a maximum of ten minutes in a game I have never had the pleasure of experiencing before, and of course writing something about it. For this I played Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racoonus, a game I have always wanted to play and for some very strange reason never felt the urge to buy, until now that is. Secondly I will be talking about a game I find fun, Grim Fandango, and discussing the aspects that make it fun. Thirdly I will tell you why a certain game, Superman 64, is not fun, which I feel may have been a bit too easy of a choice.

Along with these random homework assignments I will be posting my progress on the game "What Does it All Mean" by Something Clever. This week look forward to a discussion on my work improving textures, and creating new models for the racers.

And thus ends the journey of my first blog post, written at 1am because, honestly, who needs to sleep. Now to end this post as I will end all posts, a dash followed by my name two spaces down and aligned to the right side of the page.

- N. Gale