Hey guys! How’s it going?
I haven’t blogged anything interesting for too long, expect loads of cool stuff over the next week or so, and throughout my summer adventure.
So to get back to the point, I’m here to talk about my recent adventure in Stevenson College, Edinburgh.
A 2-Day gaming event, organised by the Edinburgh Science Festival, Abertay University and Dare To Be Digital.
At the event you got teamed up with a group of fellow 12-16 year old gamers and a Coder from Abertay. Your task?
Simple. Make a game!
Well, technically it’s not so simple, however we did it so here is my story of how it came about.
Day 1
After being dragged out of bed far too early I got quickly dressed and stuff. Then we arrived at Stevenson College, after registering, and waiting around for the rest of the kids to come we were all told to go into the auditorium for a small presentation on the history of the Scottish games industry.
Brian Baglow took the presentation and it was very interesting, after this, we were all assigned a team and a group leader.
My team wasn’t the most enthusiastic and sadly I felt let me down, however we got on with it and came out with a rather spiffing game to show for it.
Colourless was it’s name. The idea was simple, bad guys would whizz around and colour blocks black, the player would then run after them, recolouring all the blocks as he went. The idea was suggested by Ronan from the Let The Games Begin team, and was worked on by Me, Mitch, Andrew, Struan, Fraser and Ruaraidh with the help of Jason from the Coder team.
Andrew spent the time in the first day drawing out Mr.Sid, our main character and protagonist. While the rest of us provided a constant stream of ideas and monsters for the game, I mainly just told the others what to do and made sure we were all doing something.
As the day got on we got lots done Andrew did most of the work art-wise with the rest of the team chipping in when needed.
Wolfson Microelectronics gave us a small presentation on the importance of sound in games, where as in the early days a “ping” and a “pong” now games like FFXIII have whole orchestras perform for the game. Pretty amazing stuff really.
When it came to the end of the first day we had a rather plain looking game, none of the actual game mechanics were coded in yet, therefore it was pretty boring.
Day 2
Another day, and yet more game-making to be done. At the start of the day before we went to the games lab me Dan and Struan mucked about for a while.
No-one seemed quite as enthusiastic today. The new game mechanics were coded in so that when Sid walked over the blocks they were recoloured a colour that was chosen by the player at the start of the game. The choice was between red, green and blue. The credits were also coded in meaning our good work is now recognisable. The bad guys were also coded to fire a paintball at random things, our player can also fire back, colouring in a block if he hits it adding a new element to the game, the ever popular Combat system.
So, the game mechanics were pretty sound, unique and fresh which was refreshing but we still had a bit os artwork to get into the game and we also needed some levels compatible with the new game engine. Mitch was on the job ASAP, leaving everyone except Struan and Jason nothing to do except polish off the games code and design level backgrounds.
I totally loved the first while, even if the rest of the team didn’t. We got a talk after lunch about the different roles in the games industry from Brian. I have to admit I think Designer (As in the guy who makes the idea for the game and oversees its conception by the team, think film director goes gaming) is the right role for me.
It was more relaxed on day 2, though we got far less done in the time we had.
The table across from us was looking sharp, PaperCut was the game’s name, it reminded me of hardcore Shoot ‘Em Ups like R-type and Perfect Cherry Blossom (Which if you’ve played you’ll know how bloomin’ hard it is!!!)
As my worries for our top spot escalated PaperCut just seemed to get better and better… I admit the game looked good, but it wasn’t unique, unlike Colourless.
As we were all working and a Radio popped in to have a chat with PaperCut as they were the furthest on at the time.I would give you a timeline but time just flew by and it didn’t really matter at the time so I didn’t keep track of it. They all seemed rather nice but it was obvious the boys just wanted to get on with the game.
Also, Phil Harris Editor of SquareGo payed us a visit.I was very excited and proud at the positive and helpful comments on Colourless he gave us, truly great that a pro in the games review industry said our game was unique.
To end my rant, everything was going well, outwith a small sense of idleness on my part. A small while before home-time we all just settled down and played games before the prize giving.
The prize giving was epic, all of us stuffed into the auditorium muttering who we thought would win. I knew that we were in with a chance to win, but our game couldn’t quite stand up to PaperCut’s flawless artwork and sheer quality of product. The concept of a new hardcore shooter wouldn’t go amiss but the concept of Colourless was totally unseen before and it wouldn’t be disappointing if someone took the concept and came out with an A-grade game.
In the end PaperCut won best game, deservedly so!
It was good fun, and an experience not to be forgotten and I sincerely hope everyone else enjoyed the event as much as me!
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Cool post. well done.