Isometric shiznit and London

Hola! Since my last post I have been working on an isometric level! I chose the theme of heaven and hell, just to make things awkward, and came up with two towers joined by a bridge, and a capture the ‘Orb’ thing going on. Here’s a rough idea of how it looks:

 

Click on it to see it bigger :)

I’m also gonna be on my way to Bradford games festival, twinkling my toes into the real game world!

 

I went back to my new house is London last weekend, in Northolt. You can imagine what I was like being so close to central London. Lots of fun was had and lots of Krispy Kreme’s were ingested. Here’s a few pictures!

 

The overpriced snob school, Eton.

 

The overpriced cakes, Selfridges.

 

The Queen’s Crib, Windsor!  

Games Design Brief 2? BRING IT ON BITCHES!!

Yoyoyo

Second games design brief that made my eyes cry with the thought of Newtonian Laws which turned out to just be common sense! This one is set in a sewer, and your character is a rat..Your nutrition bar is constantly dropping and you must find enough food in the level to top up your nutrition bar enough to finish the level.

 

Mechanics include: A water wheel that needs the water to be switched on to operate

- Germs and ameoba’s as enemies in the water

- Radioactive waste that needs a gas mask to get past

- ‘The Stink’ which is activated when a certain point is passed, and must be avoided.

- ‘The Flush’ which washes the player backwards and speeds the nutrition bars depletion.

- Rubble which must be clawed out the way

- Hot jets which boost the played in the air to reach new levels, but can cause damage as they alternate between cool safe water and boiling arse burning water.

This was my first idea (Click to see it bigger) for a level. Although everything fits nicely and works, I thought (with the help of Pete Botternly, games designer extroidinare) that the level needed something else to make it stand out.

You may not be able to see it clearly here, but the idea was that I would have two levels, one on top of the other, which the player could move back and forth between to complete puzzles in the contrasting levels. This gave the level edge and made the player think.

 

I apologise for the hideous pictures, they’re on my new phone because of lack of printer! I will post the final level later since my lazy ass hasn’t done it yet! Enjoy :)

Updates on projects

Got the level all finished and handed in (And got wrong for folding it in half because I’m too cheap to buy an A3 plastic folder).

My new project for games design has much stricter guidelines to adhere to: it must follow the first 3 newton’s laws, must have surfaces of lesser and more friction, must have secondary affects such as weather etc. I have chosen the sewer setting and think I’m gonna do a level based as a rat in 3rd person.

The liqourices allsorts projects still going well after maya. This week we’re focusing on painting our characters and coming up with different ideas.

I was also dabbling at being shit with landscapes again:

 

Allsorts and Maya :D

We spent last week’s creative thinking lesson creating characters and creatures out of Liquorices allsorts and Marshmallows. I managed to come up with the idea of a mosquito like creature that would be a character in a child’s game where you have to pop balloons. Here’s the sexy so and so: I used watercolour and painted marshmallows to colour him.

This week was an introduction to maya which was fairly daunting at first, but then after half an hour you realize the hardest thing is actually getting something on the screen to work with!

Here’s my (Crappy) attempt…

 

Liquorices allsorts tower ftw!

Second Project including liquorice allsorts!

So here's the work I've been doing :) Uni life's crazeeeeeeeeeeeeeee




My liquorish creature :)



Liquorish character taking form on paper



Plan for a 2D scroller in a toy shop :D I'll explain it all later :D

First piece of work

Got to present this on Friday! Everything is explained on the picture itself..

In the flat, In the uni in which I'll be studying Games Design

I am officially here people :D I'm starting my course tomorrow! I haven't posted in ages because really nothings happened up till now.

My room is quite amazing now I've pimped it up with the PS3/Computer/HD monitor and then all my girly things.

I will update tomorrow after I have officially entered the world of games design :D

The realization that their are sexist people out there.

So I decide to buy Prototype, in the dawning that I’m nearly finished infamous, and will maybe get a platinum on it, so I want to buy prototype. I go down with the hubby, wandering into games shops to see where I can get my best deal. Turns out it’s game, so I go over to pay and Liam (Hubby) comes with. So I put it down and then the guy behind the counter gets talking with Liam about games. Obviously, being the intense addict that I am, I go to join in the conversation. BUT NO. NO. EMMA! DID YOU NOT KNOW THAT GIRLS AREN’T ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT GAMES EH?

NAY!

I go on to talk again, and he complete blanks me. I try to make a remark about Microsoft Kinect, and he gives me a look that says “Go back to where you belong, woman folk”. I purchase my game (He probably thinks I’m buying it for someone of the male agenda) and I stomp out. Liam’s oblivious, and it struck me that it is true, men don’t pick up on the way women actually have an interest in games.

It made me scared to be honest. What if it’s like this when I’m trying to find a job in the Games Industry? Will I be presenting my ideas, and the men will stare of blandly into space.

God, I hope not.

Updatessss! :D /If games characters were celebrities

You know, finishing St Anthony’s had left a lot of Scope for games design. I got a mention in an article on GAMASUTRA about women in the games industry, and INSOMNIAC GAMES are following me on twitter (RATCHET AND CLANK). I got put in a list for Games Students, and was one of two girl’s on there.

God damn it I’m so determined to get into this friggin’ industry!

I finished another crazy haired Lady. I’m kinda trying to edge towards making them look more like concept art, but failing. I’ll get there.

Here is her home: http://teenagephoenix.deviantart.com/art/Wrath-167612718

 

NOW TIME FOR SOME ACTION FUN BLOGGING!

If games characters were celebrities, Extract .1

1) Issac Clarke:

 Rejecting his parents ideal of joining the ishimura engineering cadets, he set out to pursue his dream of being an opera  singer. He gained 40 stone and ended up looking like pavarotti, dieing at a young age after choking on a deep fat fried croissant.

2) Lara croft:

Again, rejecting her parents influence of archeology Lara discovered a love for fine crafts such as knitting. Although keeping fit and active still, she went on to become the world’s most famous ‘Knitting while swinging through 6 hoops on fire while being gnawed by tigers’ star. 

3) Kratos

 Originally Kratos survived the challenge of becoming a spartan soldier at such a young age. In the celebrity greek version, Kratos fails, and goes on to train as a jester for the gods. Constantly taunted for his hideously misshapen bald head, he went bat shit crazy one day, stole the blades of sparta and killed every god around. All in all he became the man he was at the end of God of War 3, but with a certainly different beginning. 

Twinkling my toes into the waters of the games design city.

So I’m coming to the end of my A levels now, I can officially raised one very angry middle finger to the non-game understanding school St Anthony’s and say HELLLOOO GAMES INDUSTRY.

I joined GAMASUTRA, of course, because that’s what all these manly manly games developers say to do. I had one of my comments featured in an article about women in the games industry (YES, I WAS RANTING OK.)

I downloaded GAME MAKER 8 and shall update you if I get on with anything from that. But don’t expect anything. I’ll mostly just be weeping with rage that I probably won’t be able to do anything.

PHOTOSHOP is coming on well with my new Wacom Bamboo Pen Tablet, which I would bum if I had the aparatus. Here’s some of the outcomes.

To see more go to my lovely DEVIANTART page which I am now addicted to: http://teenagephoenix.deviantart.com/

I’ve realized, as I’m going further into this mostly unknown world, that I’m more inclined to the art side of things. Of course when you become a games designer I guess it’s best to be good at one particular thing cos there’s not many general jobs.

I also want to link you to this blog: http://www.mainlyaboutgames.co.uk/

It is insanely amazing if you’re wanting to get into the games industry. Mostly it just scared me with the interview information but, please, go look :)

Photoshopping my way to a games design career,

I’m sorry to disappoint kids but after a long while of not blogging (Exams) I am disappointing you FURTHER with a serious post.

So I got into UCLAN, to do Games Design, and its pretty scary.

I thought I should get prepared so bought a graphics tablet and BOUGHT (*wink, do you believe me?) Photoshop.

Here are the results so far!

Absolutely hideous, I know, but I’m getting somewhere at least, in defacing the art of Alphonse Mucha.   

The best imaginary game crossovers.

These games can entertain you, but mixed together they will make you feel like you’ve just swam in a pool of milky honey.

1. Dead Space/and Horse Fetish game.

Imagine it. You’re walking up expecting a necromorph to come tit rape you, and all of a sudden you hear a screeching NEY in the distance…And then you know you’re about to be impregnated with foals.

2. Resident Evil/Tetris.

A mixture of Leon, Sheva and tetris God would make my life complete. ‘WE’LL BE TOGETHER, TILL THE END, SQIGGLY!’

3. Grand Theft Auto/Generic Babycare DS game This could be wrong in so many ways. 1st rule of game design: NEVER MIX HOOKERS AND BABIES!

4. Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker/Generic Babycare DS game

Apart from Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker ALREADY being about saving little girl’s from closet’s, this also has the potential for a very interesting mixup.   

A girl in the games design industry.

I can safely say that this week I will be making my choice for which games design course I’m going for, and I think it’s pretty much set that it’s gonna be UCLAN!

Can’t wait.

But I just wanted to say that one of the main reasons for going is the way I felt there, because the leader of the course is a girl.

Anyway, I feel like shit so I’m gonna sleep now, so don’t expect any witty banter anytime soon.

Sidekicks: The best of.

I think sometimes these guys make games. Sometimes ruin them. *Glares at Sheva*

1. Dogmeat.

Ok, before I write anything, NEVER put dogmeat into google without putting Fallout afterward *Will never be the same again*

Anyway, this dog gives me the fuzzies :D I can’t stand it if he dies, which only led me to using the puppies perk.

2. Daxter

 I know loads of people find him irritating, but I think he makes the Jak and Daxter games :D PSP games shit though.

3. Companion Cube

You just can’t let that inanimate object go can you?

4. Clank   If he was human I’d do him.

Games that make me feel like HELL YEAH!!!!!!

Adrenalin, my favorite of all the hormones and neuro-transmitters.

1. Mirror’s Edge I can safely tell you I still get close to weeing myself killing that last BASTARDO in the shard, even though I’ve completed it well over 14 times and managed to get 2 platinum's for it.

2. BioshockYou’re going round in that biosphere and Andrew Ryan’s voice is melting in your ears, and there, suddenly, there it is, Rapture. Gets me every time.

3. Tomb Raider Last Revelations. – Coastal Ruins

I’m not joking when I say that this is the best level I remember playing from my childhood. You walk up and the camera spins with the sun setting. All in graphics that make you wanna puke, amazing.

4. Oasis – Fallout 3

You know that searching through those cliff faces to find that well hidden path with always be worth it when you see that fresh green against the squalid beige and bleach colours. 

5. Dead Space – Landing on the Ishimura.

 

My god, this game. I’ve never been quite so close to shitting myself in the first 5 minutes of a game before, But the adrenalin rush you get when you see your first necromorph…bloody hell. I played this game in a time in my life when I was particularly fucked up and it’s really stuck with me.

6. Paradise City – Crackdown

Oooh, to have all that possibility at your finger tips, so many nooks and crannies to explore and find new things and drive and jump and kill and kick its breath taking. 

7. Capitol Building – Fallout 3 It really sinks in how big the capital wasteland is when you see that for the first time. As with crackdown, you start to realize that you really never will ever COMPLETE this game. It’s like trying to see everything in the whole world

8. Mount Olympus – God of War

. Walking up those stairs at the end of God of War, you really feel like you’ve suceeded. 

My video game tea party, with enemies of the pixilated world.

So we all have these, they infuriate you but given the chance you’d invite them to your Sunday Tea Party to hear their life story. I will fill you in on what I heard about them all last week.

1. Mister Mirelurk: Fallout 3

Raised in the backstreets of Washington DC, Mister Mirelurk knows a hard life. Constantly teased for his resemblance to a gonorrhea ridden vagina and always being shot in the face when he tries to approach potential friends,  he ended up starring on Cilla Black’s 514th edition of Blind Date and ending up with a supermutant at the age of 102.

2. Master Head, Silent Hill Although hard to get to know at first through him constantly trying to rape you, Pyramid head is a darling. Not only does he know how to make a smashing Earl Grey, he can tell you the mystical sexual property of any household object.

3. Madame WitchShe really makes the party if you bring along a karaoke. Apart from that her warbling gets pretty alarming if you break out the digestives (Reminds her of a past life, supposedly) and she has really bad dress sense.

4. Super mutant BEHEMOTH I originally didn’t invite this lovely chap because he wouldn’t fit in our venue (Check below) but Mister Mirelurk greatly insisted that we should because he has rather good crack.

The venue of this years tea party. An extension had to be build to accommodate Mister Behemoth.

5. Such a laugh, can never keep himself in control and someone usually ends up losing a limb, but we all remember its just fun and games. 

Women who should have been men. (Not just in games mind you)

So I promised the polarized version of the last post. Here goes.

1. Samus Aran

It would have saved the developers time and money by not having to make a model of her without the costume. A stopped a million wanks.

2. Princess Zelda

Making Link gay would have attracted the homosexual audience and in general made me want to play the game more.

3. Bella.

Again, bring in homosexuality to a mainly Mormon book would have not only attracted both male and female readers, it would have made me giggle. Nyehehee.

4. Ashley Graham – Resi 4   

Imagine how wrong it would be, Leon being followed round by a small boy. There’s pedophilia in there somewhere.

5. Exactly the same, but men. In the same costume.