Week Six - Its All Good Fun

Games design, well this seems like a really fuzzy topic now after reading some of the links, first of all I think I have concluded there is no definition of games design, there blog entry done…. If only.

Games design essentially means the whole game and all of it’s aspect (hmm maybe that’s the definition of games design), but it can be broken down into smaller chunks.

First of all we have gameplay, now gameplay many people say cannot be defined as it incorporates too much, from the way you move a character to physics engine to art style, well that seems like a good enough definition to me. Gameplay is the experience created by the designers that makes playing a game so damn good. But all the aspects have to come together well meaning all the people involved in making a game need to work together to create an overall experience in a game.

Two main factors in this is audio and visual stimulation, these are two things that are very important in games as the other sense’s can not really be created, well yet, such as smell, touch (although you could say the wii is addressing that) and taste. So it is important that the artists can create a visually stimulating game, and this does not mean amazing graphics. Now I’m going to use Zelda Ocarina Of Time as an example here as it will be easier.

Shigeru Miyamoto, Truly The Greatest Games Designer!

This game has an amazing gaming experience as anyone will tell you, you play the game and forget it’s a game and become the role and get really into the story, which brings me onto another point, Plot theme and background. The games story works so well, now this game is a very epic game (and I really do love the epic games), but games don’t necessarily need to be epic (arcade style games like racing games (burnout), side scrolling shooter (R-type)). But the story involves you in a game so someone down in the office has to design story lines, character story’s, scenes environments, list is probable endless, I think a good way of looking at it is it is like a film, if a film has no coherent plot line, badly thought up characters, and lack of detail, you will be left thinking what an awful film, same with games only you play the role.

But with all this there is also a growing demand for freedom in games, it all sparked off really with grand theft auto, although I’m sure there were a few games that had it before. But the ability to do what you want in the game lets you create your own experience, I’m sure anyone who has played GTA has spent hours just driving around aimlessly find new and exciting things to do.

Now as you can probable tell I’m making this up as I go along so I do apologise if it doesn’t read all that well, but don’t worry I am going somewhere with this, sort of.

Anyway back to some more random dribblings. Another thing I’ve got noted down to talk about it the growing in technology and how it’s implemented in games development. A lot of games developers are talking about how these days their physics engines are even more realistic that real physics, showing how when a character dies he falls at the exact speed he would in real life, this is all good and well, an in most case’s does add to the gaming experience (Wii sports has a very fancy physics engine), but without everything else in a game it can all fall apart and result in a very poor gaming experience. So yeah as I think I’ve said before its great and all technology is growing, but unless we can utilise it well and come up with good ideas, it will be become irrelevant, and a dot, chasing another dot, will continue to rule for all of time.

Wii Sports Tennis!

One last thing I’d like to address is two of the questions in the task “Do different genres require different design principles? What's important for you, when you play?” this isn’t set in stone, but my two favorite gaming styles are, the really big epic titles that encapsulate you and keep you wanting to just play and play, and arcade types of game where you can just pick it up and play for a while, try and beat high scores and keep you wanting to just play and play. So yes different genres of games do need different design principles, but it all comes down to you want to play the game and have a damn good time while doing so!(See I told you I was going somewhere with all of this)

Blogger's Rage

I’ve looked back at some of my post, and I have this tendency to rant on a moan about things, even if I don’t care too much about it, I’ve also noticed this with a lot other blogs I’ve started to read around, and have come to the conclusion that blogs bring out rage.

This is like road rage, everyone who drives also has stories about how they get really annoyed with the driver in front, or something along there traveling’s that has ticked them off, resulting in road rage. Now most of these people aren’t violent people in every day life but can really lash out given the chance, and blogging it seems has the same effect. Now maybe it is just a way of venting all the negative energy at the end of a day, or the inner dark side of a person trying to get out, but what ever I think blogs are bringing out the rage in people, just something I’ve noticed.

Week Five - Marks Out Of Ten

Right so New Games Journalism, this new(ish) fangled way of writing where it’s no typical review and your told pro’s and con’s, usually summed up into a “10/10” system. That’s what we’re mostly use to, and to some extent I think it works, ill come to this a bit later though, but this New Game Journalism completely throws that out the window.

Okay I’ll admit it took me a while to grasp the whole idea of this style, and at first I really did not like it, and I can honestly say after reading through a few different articles, I still don’t like it. The main problem I think I have with it is I am so use to your typical review style, now maybe I’m missing the point of these as they are not reviews as such, but more just a story told from a gamers perspective.

Now I use to always read NGamer (right back to when it was called N64 Magazine), so I’ve always been fairly happy with the way these types of reviews/previews work. And yeah Mike was telling us the marks out of ten systems doesnt really tell use anything, which I do agree, I mean if one game gets 9/10 for graphics, and the other 9.5/10, but there two complete different styles, which is the better game. But I think that’s taking it too literally, I think it’s more of a guide line to what to expect a game to be like, I mean if a game gets 3/10, and another gets 9/10, chances are that game that got three isn’t going to have the greatest graphics in the world, same for the other types of scores (gameplay, Lifespan etc.). Just to add to that a bit I do still tend to read review on n-europe, but don’t let the review influence me to decide weather a game is good enough or not. Mostly reviews are written by someone who is getting paid, and so if they write a inaccurate review it doesn’t matter much to them as they still get pretty penny for it, but some reviews that are written by everyday sorts of people are more likely to more reliable, and I find forums are the best place to find out about a game as they are just talking about It for the sake of talking about it, not for the money or anything else.

Anyway back to these NGJ writings. One of the one’s I actually did enjoy a bit more is “Bow, Nigger”. Staring to read it I thought to myself I really don’t like this style, and I kind of did that thing where you read but think about something else thus not really taking in what you’re reading. But then it starting to get interesting, he started telling an epic like story that caught my interest (possible because it was about a star wars game I particularly like). But still while he was telling this it went off course a few times and didn’t read too well, but by the end of the article I was thinking that it was actually pretty good to read, had a good narrative that told the tale well, but as a review was awful. This is mainly because it didn’t explain any part of the game. Now while I’ve been writing this I’ve been thinking more and more I completely do not understanding this and will end up not getting to any point, so I looked up NGJ on wiki. It does say that NGJ is not necessarily a review but more of a narrative piece that describes an experience or journey of a game, now in that sense then “Bow, Nigger” is pretty good (if you cut out about half of it)

Now to do the typical top gear review style, as much I dislike this style of writing, and how it drags on sometimes, goes into some other random dribblings, has that style by where I will be reading it but also be thinking about something else so I don’t actually take in about what I’ve read, despite all of those things it’s actually not that bad. For the style that it uses to convey the experiences in games, like with the “Bow, Nigger” article even know that could of done with half of it cut out, it actually works pretty well sometimes, but I still highly doubt I will ever read one of these NGJ articles again, I think I’ll just stick to my useless “marks out of ten” style.

Games and the Future

So at current time we have the “next gen” of games, being fought out between Xbox 360, PS3, and the Wii. As I’ve said before I think this generation is hard to define, there is on the one side of the battle (Xbox 360 and PS3) where graphics and power are being fought out, and then the other side where innovation and game play are being put forward (Wii). Now this is an age old discussion about which consol and all that, and at this time of night I don’t feel like going into the argument again, you all know the story, Xbox 360 is great, Wii is great, but everyone and anyone hates the other one, but you mention the PS3 and Xbox 360 and Wii join together to down talk it (enter Wii60). But after this generation where are games and companies going to go.

In the literal future (as in the generation after this) it will be interesting to see where the big 3 go. I don’t think graphical power for Microsoft and Sony will be enough to make a big enough difference, plus as the graphics improve from machine to machine the leap between graphics is becoming less a less. If you look at Nintendo’s history the general trend is innovation – improvement (NES (d-pad, start of real home game platform) to the SNES),(N64 (3D, Analogue stick, shoulder buttons, analogue buttons) to the Gamecube). So maybe a graphically improved Wii will be enough to carry them on thought that battle, but I think they will actually do some thing a little more than that, who knows what though. A lot of people reckon if companies want to survive they will need to combine forces, but due to numerous reason this has a very slim chance of happening.

But for the matter of games in the distant future there is really no telling where it will go. But with technology growing and processing power increasing exponentially, it’s looking more likely that the way we play games will become a more interactive realistic experience (the Wii’s innovation and Xbox 360’s graphics are already sparking this off). And after watching the video’s that Chris showed us on technology and humans (human version 2.0, and the 3 part one), it looks as one, it could be very beneficial, but also a very scary world to live, and as excited as I am that I’ll see the this, you can’t help but feel a fear inside after watching them and thinking what could actually be. (Matrix, true this is a film and I don’t think would happen how it did, but it has a fair point about machines and A.I.) Anyway that last bit wasn’t really about games but is interesting to speculate about.

ASIMO, Honda's Human Robot!

So from here games could really go anywhere, we could even end up with another big games crash is we’re not careful, so I hope games stay as games and the creativity of the industry stays true, as I’m going to have to be working in it in the years to come, and I’m not going to be just making water coolers and other office furnishings because there ‘real objects’, I want fun in my games!

http://www.acm.org/crossroads/wikifiles/13-2-S/13-2-13-S.html - Has some interesting ideas

Personal Games History Part Two

Right so I’ve reminisced about the Atari, NES, and SNES which are all the first stage of gaming, then along came the world of 3D games.

Doom, The Real First 3D Game!

This generation started off well for me and my brother in gaming, as we had entered a competition to win a N64, I think the question was who is Mario’s brother? After not really expecting to win we got a glowing letter which had told us we were now the proud owners of brand new N64! It was an awesome day, but had a slight problem, we had only won the consol’s, so for a while we just had it set up and were just mesmerized by all it’s glory. Then one day another glowing package came through the door, Mario 64 had entered the building. I think when we got it we actually played the game non stop, it was just pure genius and still is today, I bet most people who enjoyed the days of it bought it again on the ds, I know I did.

The N64 Box, Isn't It Amazing!

The other legendary game on the N64 I think everyone will agree is Goldeneye. I know the week five task is about not giving games scores a stuff, but this game deserves 10 out 10, it just filled all the criteria of a game, I suppose one of the reasons it’s such a historical game is because it started off the whole first person shooting multi player fun filled mayhem of games. But the whole single player part of the game was so well built, with every level having objectives and being able to just achieve victory at the end of every level, and then do it again but really fast to unlock more fun filled stuff (Paintball mode!). And obviously there were many many a times where you have mass multi player games on it, we actually once did a 24 hour marathon of the game, didn’t play it for a long time after that, I wonder why. Then after this came perfect dark which was the same thing in essence, just a lot more shiny and the like.

Now don’t worry I’m not going to explain every game that was “legendary” on the N64, but I am going to list just few; Zelda oot, Zelda Majora’s Mask, Mario Kart 64, Blast Corps (now that game went on forever), Donkey Kong 64, Jet Force Gemini, Mario Party, and countless other great games.

So as the next generation of game arrived I obviously got a Gamecube, and I kind of explained my history and thoughts on this in one of my other posts, but I think it’s worth saying again it’s a lot better than people think, and I don’t know anyone who has owned one and been disappointed. And some really good games on this I think were Zelda (as always), I actually really liked Mario Sunshine as well, I agree it didn’t always feel like it had that Mario spark, but none the less it was good (Mario 2 I always thought didn’t feel like a Mario game). Also Burnout was great, played that to death, actually think too much, remember getting a chain of over 120 burnouts, good times. Time Splitters 2 and 3, they were really good games, 3 was a bit easier to complete 100% but it had a better storyline and feel to it. Also worth mentioning Metroid Primes, Eternal Darkness, Pikmin, Smash Bros. Melee, Luigi’s Mansion, Super Monkey Ball, and I could go on forever so ill stop now.

Right that seems enough for this post now, I think for my next one I’ll talk a bit about the Wii and then the future of games and directions it could end up going, should be fun stuff.

Personal Games History Part One

So my own personal games history, now a lot of this may not make sense as some of it was a long time ago, and it’s not like I ever kept a ‘gaming diary’, but I’m sure I can rustle up some kind of blog entry.

Atari 800 XL, And The Self Test Screen!

My gaming life all started way back with my dad’s Atari 800XL. It was actually such an amazing machine, and we even still own it, but if you set it up you cant walk across the floor what so ever because any vibrations seem to make it crash, and this is a pain seeing as it took about an hour to load a game, ah and gamers of this day moan about 10 second loading times! I remember the games were all on tapes, and you usually had to turn the tape over halfway through, but it had some amazing games on it like Ghostbusters, you even got to customize your car on that, jimmy whites snooker, probable better than most snooker games around now, there was a submarine game as well I remember being very good, oh and Powerdown, that game you could just play forever, and we had loads of others including one dad programmed on it, actually now thinking about it I want to set it up again and relive the awesomeness that it was (I can see me actually wanting to do this with every old game I talk about now, maybe this is the point of the task?).

Powerdown!

So that was where my life of gaming all started, but after that good old Nintendo came into business and brought out the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). I actually had this set up over the summer and it still is to this day an amazing machine. Obviously we had Mario Bros. 1 and 2 on it, but our Mario Bros. 1 was a 3 in one cartridge with Tetris and world cup football on it, now there’s a good football game, you could knock out the other players on the team and just dribble the ball into the goal! RC Pro-Am was a great game and I remember my dad always playing it trying to get as far as possible, I don’t think my dad, brother or me ever completed it. Actually that’s a thing with most old games, they were really difficult and actually challenged you to get better and better at the game, most games these days aren’t hard enough (Gamers these day’s…). Anyway I realise this is probably boring to read but I’m having fun remember all my old memories of games.

The Original Super Mario Bros.!

Anyway before I list all my games for NES I’ll go onto the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and it really was Super). Again there were tons of great games on this, Mario Karts (possible the best version), I remember playing Super Mario World in the arcade before we had the game, but only ever had enough money for the first level. The main game on the SNES though was Super Mario Bros. 3, possible the greatest Mario game ever made. It just had so much content in it with the entire racoon suit frog suit, and probably some more, and the level design was just outstanding in terms of artwork and layout. This is one thing that I think will make Mario galaxy so damn good, for a start it’s got loads of classic references from old Mario games like the ships out of 3 and the colour blocks from 3 the castle styles and just so much, and it does look amazing graphically from what I seen purely because of the artistic style and the effort the designers have put in to make the game have that Mario ‘essence’. This is one thing that makes a good game, having visuals that create an atmosphere in the game and give it character that draws you into the game, and this doesn’t just mean realistic graphics, I mean Mario Galaxy is hardy realistic and from what I’ve heard it just immerses you into the game, in fact Mario 64 and Zelda Ocarina Of Time don’t have ‘real’ graphics, and there like two of the greatest games ever made. Also the problem with all this realistic malarkey is it’s more obvious in the mistakes because we all know how it probable should look, so if something isn’t right you notice and it spoils the game play, whereas with Zelda ocarina of time the graphics allowed your imagination to run wild and fill the blanks.

Mario 64!

Zelda Ocarina Of Time!

Anyway I kind of went away from gaming history there and ranted about graphics again, it’s starting to sound like I’m a real graphics whoer, but I think it’s just because I was sick of random PS2 owners who don’t really know anything about games and just side with the PS3 because they know no better. Anyway I’m going to stop now this topic always starts arguments.

Week Four - Fun And Games

Okay so I last left you with the N64, Playstation, and Saga Saturn. This was the fifth generation of games and was all about 3D games. Mario 64 will always be know as the first true original 3D platform game, and it was truly an amazing game full of life and colour, and yeah if people of this generation (makes me sound old) played it now would say it’s full of faults and impurities, but the fact is this game defined an era, and was truly an amazing game. So the N64 ran strong throughout its life, but it was coming apparent that the Playsation was rolling through the market.

Mario 64, brings back good memories!

All around 2000 the sixth generation of games started to come to life, starting with the Saga Saturn, which lasted two years before production stopped, but by then we had the Gamecube and the Playstions 2 out. Now we all know how this went, and being a Nintendo fan isn’t the easiest thing for me to write, but the PS2 did, well let’s just say it happy few years. Now obviously I had a Gamecube and I think it was amazing, tons of great games, loads of fun with mates and despite what anyone says had damn good single player games, so I stuck with Nintendo throughout it.

And then we get the current generation, which is a little more interesting, but difficult subject as well. We have the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and the much talked about Wii. Now the other generations tend to have a sort of defining factor about them, side scrollers, 3D games, but Wii kind of changed that a bit.

Seventh Genoration war!

Microsoft and Sony have gone for pure power this time round, making games look more and more real and trying to get games as accurate to life as possible. Now this is all great, and some of the games look breathtaking, but if games are heading for pure realism then part of the fun in games will be lost. At the end of the day games have always been there to bring entertainment to the table, and I’ve always said playing games lets you do things you cant do in real life, like flying a space ship across the galaxy or racing go-karts down the motorway, and even more out of this world things like jumping around planets dressed as a plumber saving the princess, so I think game designers need to be careful not to make games so real there’s no imagination involved. Now don’t get me wrong realistic graphics are good and make games like Project Gotham Racing an Halo play a lot more better, but give me a game like Mario Galaxy which has a such an amazing artistic style and I’ll be more than happy for years to come. So the Wii for me has kept the true entertainment and fun value of games. (I actually remember Sony said in a press conference, ‘yes unlike the PS3 the Wii is fun’, don’t think he quiet meant to put it like that but he made a good point). I suppose it all comes down to personal opinion sometimes as both the Wii and Xbox 360 are doing really well, and you can have a great time on both really, but where are games going from here.

Week Three - Rise Of the Machines

So Computer games had effectively been invented, but now it was time for the home video games to have a shot at the market. This started with Ralph Bear’s ‘Magnavox Odyssey’. This had a few games playable on it around the ideas of dots and lines and the like, but due to a number of reason didn’t sell all that well, but all was not lost.

Atari came into the picture and in 1972 release there ping pong influenced game, Pong. When this game was first released on arcade machines it did phenomenally well taking over the world at lunch time. It too was then released into the homes of civilians’, but because it did so well, so many company’s wanted a bit of the action, and there ended up being that many different incarnations no one could keep track. Towards the end of the 70’s the whole video game idea seemed to be declining with the novelty wearing off, the only reason I can see this happening is because everyone one was sick of all this super pong and ultra pong (do you ever think this will happen to Mario party…).

Pong in all is glory!

But the in the early 80’s there seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel as home console’s were given another serious go at. Atari made the Atari 2600 which was the home for space invaders, and all time classic, which introduced the whole concept of high scores which I do actually love and find games don’t have them enough these days, I mean especially with online stuff, the Wii should utilize high score boards for every game, it is suppose to connected to the inter net 24/7. Anyway back to the light at the end of the tunnel, a couple of other company’s released home console’s such as Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum, which was British, and the market leader, just thought I’d say they were British… anyway this light at the end of the tunnel was suddenly closed off in 1983 with the big video games crash.

Apparently this crash is really famous, first I’ve heard of it, and as far as I can tell it’s all ET’s fault, which I think is a little harsh, he only wanted to phone home, not inevitable cause most game company’s to go into bankruptcy because they made more game cartridges’ than consoles and had to put a load in a landfill, apparently.

Anyway I was pleased to find out it was good old Nintendo that brought games out of the dark ages with NES (or famicon as it was also known as). Nintendo had now set the standard for games companies, and were bringing out games that’s are still going strong today, to name a few, Mario Bros., Zelda, Metroid, Metal Gear, and countless other classics. And then also there was Sega (with the Mastersystem) in the running which sparked off possible one the greatest rivalries ever, between Mario and Sonic, of which to this day is still going on, but now there on the same games, madness I tell you. Nintendo also in 1989 stormed the handheld market with the game boy, which was a huge success and always has been with it’s many incarnations. This third generation of 8-bit machines end in about 1992 with the launch of new consol’s such as the super Nintendo and the Sega mega drive. To be honest not too much happened over the next few years, one thing worth mentioning is that Sony would not be around if it had not been for Nintendo. Nintendo approach sony in order to make a console using cd-roms, but the very night before the revealing of the work they had done (which was a snes with cd’s) Nintendo pulled out and all was right with the world again. Then after the snes and mega drive, there was the N64, Sega Saturn, and the Playstation.

Mario and Sonic in there new game, wars will be fought!

So there we go a glimpse look at the history of games, yes I know glimpse, but there really is stacks and stacks of stuff, and the main problem is that it’s not all documented properly, especially in early times. I actually reckon even if someone spent an entire year trying to write a good history of games, there would be countless oddities, and it would be really boring, I mean I’ve just read mine back, and I applaud you if your still reading, anyway not too sure where I’m going with this, so ill stop and leave you awaiting my next post….well I’m sure one person will be looking forward to it, surely.

Casual and Core Gamers

Okay I'm sure we all know the argument that Nintendo is neglecting the core gamer, but have Microsoft and Sony neglected the wider audience of gamers. The following extract if off a forum that I regularly visit and I think is an interesting read.

Whilst the few deem Nintendo have forgot about core gamers it seems to me like Sony and MS have forgot about new/casual gamers.
Take this little story for instance...

I recently had the 'pleasure' of attending a RARE/MS party which included a set up of 360 games and booze. The party was a complete failure in many peoples eyes...Why?

Because of the software available to play.

Many pods were full of gamers crowded around Gears of War/Viva Pinata/Kameo and Project Gotham Racing 4. After a few hours it was the same people playing these games over and over again. I asked various people playing them what they liked about it. The response was unanimous: They all owned the game or had previously played the game at home. I then spoke to some people sat down not playing games and asked them if they had liked any games. Again the response was unanimous: No. Some had played Viva Pinata yet found they had to invest too much time learning all of the buttons/menus to play it. It was apparent - Many of these people had an interest in gaming yet were not even playing because the games were alien to them.

Some people were even sat playing pictochat on their DS's. A bold statement for sure.

After discussions with many people it became apparent to me that MS are probably clamouring for a "friendly" game? Something akin to a party game accessible for all. There was one XBOX Arcade pod sitting primarily empty for long periods of time offering jetpac. Simple enough for non-gamers? Perhaps. Accessible? Hmmm. I was spotting a trend.

And so I figured RARE are possibly the closest MS will get to appealing to a different audience. (Especially with a new Viva Pinata party game in the works). And yet RARE seemed a different company now. A marketting exec talked to his companion for 10mins about if HALO3 was really a "ten" game. (Out of interest they said the single player wasn't, multiplayer was). They then discussed BIOSHOCK and said it was great and never mentioned anyother form of game. (Only FPS fans?? You decide).

And yet I feel with the PS3 Sony could have been on top form pushing a new kind of Singstar and eyetoy ... yet this has also been shunned for raw power. Even with their motion controller nothing simple,accessible has been produced yet.

So it apears Nintendo have the party/casual market sewn up. Yet with their IP's being considerably viewed as "core" games (Zelda, Metroid, Mario) and with developers like Capcom, Sega, Rockstar, Konami backing Nintendo with traditional games (Resi,NiGHTS,Bully,Pro Evo to name but a few) I think rather than us focusing on Nintendo's console ignoring CORE gamers. Maybe we should be applauding them and looking at MS and SONY as the ones ignoring gamers.

Without new gamers our hobby will never be appreciated nor seen as a viable form of entertainment. We should want as many people as possible to enjoy what we are already a part of.

Personally I don't think with games coming out like Metroid, Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros., that Nintendo are forgetting about core gamers, there just creating a new market and in turn getting gaming to become more accepted in the eyes of the world/media. But I had never thought about Microsoft and Sony and the casual market.

Please leave any thoughts you've got, and here's a link to the original thread - http://www.n-europe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17602

Week Two - A dot, chasing another dot

Well usually when ever I think of the first games made, I just think of pong, and space invaders, oh how wrong I was. The obvious thing about early games was graphics were not what was important, how things seemed to have drastically changed, and when I read that the first concept was done on an oscilloscope I almost wet myself....almost. Although saying that in science at school when we got the oscilloscope we had tons of fun moving that dot around the screen. So this “first game” involved 8 crt's and allowed the user to change the trajectory of a missile by adjusting the dials, sounds fun. But after this people did start to play with the idea of games on computers, but these were only things such as tic-tac-toe and checkers and so not much new in a way of games. It wasn’t till 1958 that William Higinbotham created another game on the oscilloscope called "tennis for two" (sounds like the start of pong to me).

Tennis for Two on an oscilloscope!

So that's technically the birth of the video games, but then came the use of really using a computer for video games, and in 1962 Steve Russell created, "Spacewar!” a game to go down in history. Steve Russell was a computer programmer/computer scientist many argue he actually gave birth to the industry of computer games, and it wasn’t just the fact he made one of the first games, he made such a great game to set it off that it’s no surprise the market is as big as it is now.

The Orininal Spacewar!

Then along came Ralph Bear, who some say pioneered the video game industry. Ralph actually first hypothesized playing games around 1950, but it wasn’t till 1966 that he actually managed to start making his idea a reality. With a Bachelor of Science degree under his belt and working for Sanders Associates, him and a small team set work on making a game playable on a TV set, and then completed it in 1967. The game again was fairly simple, involving a dot, chasing another dot, around a maze, (hmm this sounds like where Pacman may have came from). This then evolved into the first home consol, but lets save that for another random dribbling.

http://spacewar.oversigma.com/ - a link to a java game that is pretty faithful to the original game.

Week One - Whats with all this blog malarkey

Blogging, I’m starting to see a general trend within peoples opinions of blogs, nobody actually likes them, but yet it’s fairly easy to rant on about random stuff, I mean that’s all I’m doing right now, and I’m sure I’m suppose to have some sort of task, of something, of a kind…

Honestly I don’t like this week one task, how the hell am I meant to randomly surf the net and find a blog I like and then write about it, it’s not going to happen I’m telling you. And that’s because I don’t like to read about peoples randoms in there life, and yeah okay there are lots of different types of blogs, not all of them are about how some guy woke up and had 3 pieces of toast instead of his usual 2, but how am I meant to stumble across something really good that’s going to interest me by random lurking.

So anyway it sounds as if my opinion isn’t far from most peoples then, and now I’m going to do the typical top gear thing where I start saying how bad it is, but then actually it’s a good thing all these things happen. The fact you can rant on about something is pretty good, even if no one reads it, normally you would have all these thoughts flying around inside your head with no order, I suppose putting them down sorts them, and also makes you think, I mean I’ve always had 2 pieces of toast at a time, why not have 3, I mean do 2 pieces really fill you up. Anyway I’m not going to dribble on as I would imagine this is probable getting boring now, but I can see my self using this blog from time to time to dribble on, and if not, well it’s not the end of the world now is it.

So blogging, yeah randomness at it’s peak. And I’ve just read back what I’ve wrote, and damn it’s awful lol, but I’ll keep it there to remind me what not to do in my future blogs, (and the fact I don’t want to start again lol), so yeah I bet your all looking forward to my next blog now lol,

Jason.

First Impressions of Game Art

So it's the start of the third week of the course and it looks like it's shaping up to be a damn good 3 years. I like the idea of doing a blog assignment every week instead of a thousand word essays as I’m useless at them, so thought I'd just give my first blog a go now, do enjoy!

There is a lot more of the artistic side to the course such as observational drawings and concept art on Photoshop, which I wasn’t actually expecting but I’m really happy it's there as I was staring to miss 'proper art' lol. But saying that as much as I enjoy doing drawing and the like, I can see it being a lot of work, Chris has already emplaced his fear lol, but as he said it's all work worth doing to develop further in the course and the industry.

I think the first things the second years told us was "3DS Max, you will probably hate it right away, but learn to love it over time", lol I can already seeing this becoming very true. The water cooler project showed us this, as last lesson we were all shouting at our pc's for it not doing what we said, but I think we all came out with something we were proud of.

So yeah it's all shaping up nicely and I look forward to some more game art mayhem in the coming weeks, Jason.

P.S. I thought you'd all just like to know (especially Mike) it's my cats birthday on the 5th of November, she's called Nala and she'll be about 14 years old, enjoy the picture!!

Nala's the ginger one on the right, the other one is keema.