Greg Pidgeon
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
FHM.com
Just out of interest following on from the game research, check out www.fhm.com on the FHM.com's 100 Greatest Games. Some absolute classics here, along with some fantastically stupid ones too. Below are screenshots from a couple of my favorites...
Bikini Bounce
Arse Race
Bikini Bounce
Arse Race
City Of Heroes 1
Below is a description on the game taken from the website for the game, www.cityofheroes.com, some of the characters created using the game and a screenshot from the game itself.
City Of Heroes 2
The Super Powered Massively Multiplayer RPG
Welcome to City of Heroes, the online world that's home to an entire universe of heroes, where you and thousands of other players take on the roles of super powered heroes - in a stunning, 3D graphical world.
Super Powered Action and Adventure
Create Your Own Hero
Choose from hundreds of different powers and design your own unique costume.
Confront super villains, aliens, madmen, criminals, and other fearsome foes. Take on personalized missions and rid the city of several different evil organizations and hundreds of individual enemies.
Band together with other players to fight evil and become the premiere hero group in the city!
Explore the skyscrapers, slums, sewers and streets of Paragon City, a sprawling online metropolis that offers unlimited adventures and countless surprises.
Become an integral part of twenty different ongoing story arcs as the villain groups menace Paragon City and react to player victories and defeats.
City Of Heores 3
Here are some of the characters that have been created with the 'City Of Heroes' online game, along with a screenshot of the actual game.....
Screenshot
Screenshot
Design Exercise (Week 6)
Designer/Creative Director
In this exercise we were put into pairs, Dave & me being a group. Each being the designer for their own project and the creative director for the other persons. The aim of the exercise was to create icons and a visual identity for our toys.
My idea for the icons and navigation was to set it out much like the standard desktop navigation on a Mac.
i.e
The directional joystick of the Navman handheld device would be used to scroll a toolbar of icons that enlarged as the user rolled over them. The icons would include things such as health, strength, tolls, cash etc and would be represented graphically.
I pitched this idea to Dave and he gave me some feedback before I went any further. The points are as follows....
1. The icons would need to be vector graphics in order to scale whilst scrolling.
2. Detail of graphics is key to making them appealing as the primary user interface (e.g streath icon could be a weight bar but would need to be shaded to add to realism perhaps)
3. Keep in mind target age group. Icons could be a catooney style as the product is aimed at a younger age group.
After taking into account the above ceative direction a mocked a couple of icons (in about 2 mins cos I ran clean out of time).
Dave concentated on one icon for the main menu of his digital toy. The design is below.
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As his creative director I liked the design so I asked where it was going to be located. He showed me and the size it would be. I suggested that as it was such a detailed icon it might get confused if it was only going to be small. So dave took out the back ground writting to give it more impact at such a small size. So it would look like this...
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A constructive session I thought, also making me think about the navigation graphics a little more which is good and its always nice to have an outside view on your work. Helps you to think about things you wouldn't normally have thought about.
Apologies
Just thought I'd drop a post to apologise for the lack of action in the last week on my blog. I'd like to say its because I getted to New York as per the plan but no I managed to get a mother of a chest infection the day before I flew, my GP stating "it was decided it was not safe for Greg to travel". What a joke. But life goes on and so does my blog, more posts to follow.....
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Sodaplay Transfigured
An e-mail from Rob prompted us to go to an interesting seminar @ the Media Lounge on Thurs 10th Feb. The evening was enjoyed, with interesting talks given by a couple of the resisdent artists but the real attraction was 'Sodaplay Transfigured'. This was a talk given by 2 of the MD's of Soda, a multi-media production company. One of their projects called the 'Soda Constructor' has become very popular in the past year or so and now has a large fanbase and even offshoot websites paying pilgimage to it.
Below are a couple of images of what has been created using the constructor already but the possibilties are endless. Check out the real deal @ www.sodaplay.com.
Below are a couple of images of what has been created using the constructor already but the possibilties are endless. Check out the real deal @ www.sodaplay.com.
Actionscript
Off the back of our '5 Random Throws' Assignment I thought I'd check out what other sort of things you can do with Actionscript. www.actionscript.cl is a gallery of around 38 different funky actionscript driven animations/games.
Below are some of the ones I enjoyed, but use the above link to check them out for yourself.
Below are some of the ones I enjoyed, but use the above link to check them out for yourself.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Sketchbook Scans
For the 16 x 16 assignment I storyboarded some ideas in my sketchbook. Just thought I'd do some scans to let you guys know how I'm getting on (ie not doing as much work as I should be I feel). Anyway check em' out below...
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MiniClip.com
In our wednesday mornings with Dave we are no longer concentrating on the 16 x 16 animations and are now working on the toy assignment. In todays tutorial Dave asked us to have a look on miniclip.com & shockwave.com and play some online games (did I mention I love my course) in order to research which ones had the most playability and what their unique feature is. Below are some screenshots & descriptions of the games I played & what about them stood out to me.....
3 Foot Ninja II
3 Foot Ninja II is a platform type role playing/fighting game. Quite similar concept to the old 'Double Dragon' game. Alot of time & effort has been put into the interface on this one. Appealing graphics, continous narrative, easily navigatable & strong gameplay. A good all rounder.
My Rating ...
Bush Royal Rampage
In this game you play President Bush (& later on The Queen) as he single handedly defeats the terrorist threat on our streets. With a novelty theme which dictates this will never be taken seriously as a game, that said its crowning feature has to be the controls which really improve the gameplay. The target is controlled with the mouse which works beautifully, then a left click is used to fire.
My Rating...
Capoeira Fighter III
Capoeria Fighter III is an arcade style fighting game. Simplistic 2D gameplay coupled with interesting characters & cartoony graphics make this a gem.
My Rating...
Hostile Skies
Hostile Skies is a fighter pilot game set in France 1916. You are 'Billy Coppins' a fighter ace in the French Armee de L'air. Your mission is to defeat Falkenhayn's attacking fighters & land safely on the allied air strip.
Nice graphics, a usuable interface, very high playability & even a little history slashed in for good measure.
My Rating ...
Park A Lot
Park A Lot basically consists of getting in, driving & parking cars in a car park outside a shopping mall. The feature that struck me first about this game is the well designed interface & graphics. Unfortunately the gameplay of the game is poor so again didn't hold my interest very long.
My Rating...
Zed
Zed is a basic platform game. Your objective is to collect 'gold' from around the levels to progress to the next stages. As with any platform game this does have appeal, but like many games theres just nothing new or eyecatching here.
My Rating...
