Introducing Art and Programming for Games

Written in April 2008, at the start of the unit...

This unit is challenging to say the least, but also (after the initial feelings of impending doom) rather fun.

We basically have 12 weeks to produce a technical demo of a game of our choice, a pitch document to go along with it and some written work. At the end, we pitch the game to a real-world company representative (possibly from Sony this year). We work in groups of five on this unit.

I will upload more detail after I have completed the unit, so watch this space...

Written in July 2008, after the results...

I was intending on uploading the video demo of our game here, but as it transpired, our lecturers thought the idea was potentially marketable - much to our amazement! Therefore, unfortunately, I can't upload any real details here because the game concept was largely the brainchild of another member of our team, and should he wish to take the idea further, it would be unfair for me to give away any of the ideas here!

I can say that our demo was a side-scrolling fighter, which utilised 2D hand-drawn sprites and fully 3D worlds. The main fighting mechanic is based on rhythm-action games such as Dancing Stage, or Samba De Amigo, which despite how it sounds, is not that complicated in practice.

My main role on the team was to create the 3D environment for our demo level, which I achieved using 3D Studio Max, and also 3D World Studio, which is a cheap but powerful BSP level editor created by Leadwerks. I was also repsonsible for a large chunk of the programming, which was done in DarkBasic Professional.

The final mark I received for this unit was 76%.