The votes are in and 8 (four member) teams have been formed. The team I have the pleasure of working on will be taking this pitch (here) and turn it into a prototype.
When our team met on Tuesday, we started to look for similar games to get ideas from. We found these games:
Marble-mania
rube-goldberg machines
Marble madness
Perplexus
Money Maze
Bllz Obstacle
Super Monkey Ball
Rock of Ages
Peggle
Crayon Physics
Decolord
CivBalls
Gravity Master
Katamari Damaci
Start here
Cube maze
Amazing Marble Maze 3D
Ballstix
Ion Charge
Echo Chrome
Mr Gravity
Grav-bot
Proun
Tetrisphere
This idea also reminded me of Screwball Scramble that I used to play as a kid:
Now the team will have to come up with a prototype that finds the fun in our game idea.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Fall 2012 - CS 4510 (EAE Senior Project I)
Now to the present...
The next two semesters I am going to be working on a team that eventually releasing a XBOX Live Indie game. Our first assignment was to come up with a game pitch.
The only thing I could come up with was a version of Mario Party or Fuzion Frenzy. I looked up the top 100 video game sales of all time, and three of the titles are Mario Party games, but I needed another hook, something else. After hearing from a fellow student that our Avatars can be used in our games, I have been looking into the possibilities. It seems like use of Avatar's is popular, and from the little I looked over the documentation on how to code them, it doesn't look all too difficult.
So last night I came up with this one page pitch and presented it in class today:
Every student will pitch an idea, and then we will all vote on them. We will narrow the list of game ideas down to 10 and then break up into 10 teams. Those teams will build another pitch with prototypes.
The next two semesters I am going to be working on a team that eventually releasing a XBOX Live Indie game. Our first assignment was to come up with a game pitch.
The only thing I could come up with was a version of Mario Party or Fuzion Frenzy. I looked up the top 100 video game sales of all time, and three of the titles are Mario Party games, but I needed another hook, something else. After hearing from a fellow student that our Avatars can be used in our games, I have been looking into the possibilities. It seems like use of Avatar's is popular, and from the little I looked over the documentation on how to code them, it doesn't look all too difficult.
So last night I came up with this one page pitch and presented it in class today:
Every student will pitch an idea, and then we will all vote on them. We will narrow the list of game ideas down to 10 and then break up into 10 teams. Those teams will build another pitch with prototypes.
Summer 2012 - HEML Research Project
This summer I had the pleasure of working in the Haptics & Embedded Mechatronics Laboratory as an independent study. I worked on the research project that focuses on Shear Feedback. Using XNA I created a game demo to show off the ability of this Shear Feedback built into a game controller.
Video Showing off the controller, not my game demo:
Video Showing off the controller, not my game demo:
Spring 2012 - Film 3720 (Game Development II)
This class was a second part to the previous game development class I took. This class followed the same format, with a different twist. Instead of making mobile games, we would be making web games, and instead of just working for our professor, our professor went out and got us real clients to work for.
I am not sure if I can show any videos, photos, or even talk about the game that we worked on. I have sent off an email to check on this, and will update this or another post with an update when I hear back from them.
I am not sure if I can show any videos, photos, or even talk about the game that we worked on. I have sent off an email to check on this, and will update this or another post with an update when I hear back from them.
Fall 2011 - Film 3710 (Game Development I)
This class was an introduction to the whole development cycle of game development. Starting with the IDEO design process (Umbrella Team), one page game pitches, prototyping, getting to the fun fast, having beta testers, and eventually locking all code and art content for a final mobile game product.
The class broke up into 3-4 teams and had to come up with three different game pitches based around a theme / category. I ended up being the lead programmer on the "Balloon Cargo" team.
Our first game pitch was a side scrolling, horizontal scrolling game where you would control a hot air balloon through different levels, avoid obstacles, picking up cargo, and landing on a platform to end the level.
Our second pitch was a water balloon toss game. You would play as a kid behind a fence tossing water balloons at people, cars, anything that you wanted. Whenever you hit something it would drop something (cargo), and you would collect them to earn higher scores.
Our third pitch was a puzzle / sorting game. You played as a balloon factory worker that had to sort balloons into the correct baskets. Obstacles would be in the way causing the balloons to pop, or be blown off in the wrong direction.
This ended up being the game that we made. The game had 5 themed worlds (City, Cave, Haunted House, Factory, and Forest). Each world had 6 levels that increased in difficulty. The game had a star scoring system similar to Angry Birds.
At the end of the semester we were the only team that successfully had our final product working on a mobile platform.
Some more screenshots can be found here.
Balloon Cargo
To see some of the production process check out these two blogs:
Balloon Cargo Blog
Thaddeus Beck Film 3710
The class broke up into 3-4 teams and had to come up with three different game pitches based around a theme / category. I ended up being the lead programmer on the "Balloon Cargo" team.
Our first game pitch was a side scrolling, horizontal scrolling game where you would control a hot air balloon through different levels, avoid obstacles, picking up cargo, and landing on a platform to end the level.
Our second pitch was a water balloon toss game. You would play as a kid behind a fence tossing water balloons at people, cars, anything that you wanted. Whenever you hit something it would drop something (cargo), and you would collect them to earn higher scores.
Our third pitch was a puzzle / sorting game. You played as a balloon factory worker that had to sort balloons into the correct baskets. Obstacles would be in the way causing the balloons to pop, or be blown off in the wrong direction.
This ended up being the game that we made. The game had 5 themed worlds (City, Cave, Haunted House, Factory, and Forest). Each world had 6 levels that increased in difficulty. The game had a star scoring system similar to Angry Birds.
At the end of the semester we were the only team that successfully had our final product working on a mobile platform.
Some more screenshots can be found here.
Balloon Cargo
To see some of the production process check out these two blogs:
Balloon Cargo Blog
Thaddeus Beck Film 3710
Fall 2011 - Film 3500 (Film Production I)
This class was an introduction to basic film production. With this class, on one hand I had the pleasure of making a fake bomb prop for my one scene "Pumpkin Patch Surprise". And on the other hand, the sheer terror of going nose to nose with a Carolina wolf spider for my narrative "Karma".
Pumpkin Patch Surprise (First Version)
Pumpkin Patch Surprise (Second Version)
Karma
You can also see all the footage I collected of the spider here:
Pumpkin Patch Surprise (First Version)
Pumpkin Patch Surprise (Second Version)
Karma
You can also see all the footage I collected of the spider here:
Summer 2011 - ART 1020 (Basic Drawing)
As part of my EAE (Entertainment Arts & Engineering) track I needed to take ART 1020. This was a studio class that focused on the fundamentals of drawing using pencil, pen, charcoal and ink.
Pencil
Pen
Ink
Charcoal
Powdered Graphite
Final (Pencil)
To see all my drawings from the class, and some progression through my final, it can be viewed here
Pencil
Pen
Ink
Charcoal
Powdered Graphite
Final (Pencil)
To see all my drawings from the class, and some progression through my final, it can be viewed here
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