Epic Games Visit Uclan Games Design

WHO?
Only the Epic European Territory Manager, Mike Gamble, the CTO, Kim Libreri & the General Manager, Ray Davis of EPIC GAMES in our games design studio at UclanCF.
Such an awesome day for our students.

Read More

Limit Load, new arcade combat flight simulator

Stealth development might not be very "open-sourceish", but it sometimes makes for some nice surprises in our project showcase forum.

This time it was the completely new open-source game Limit Load, self described as:

A cockpit flight game that is more of an arcade than a sim. The game is built on the Panda3D game engine. It is similar to the ancient games like the classic Wings or the very good Strike Commander. The story and the atmosphere are important elements of the game, so a lot of focus is placed on that too.

Here is some in-game action and it seems quite polished already for such a new game:


Licensing of assets is still a bit of a grey area it seems, but they are fully aware of it:

The game code is licensed under GPL 3, and custom-made game assets under CC-by-SA 4.0. Some of the assets were taken from "free" (as in "not sure in which way") sources on the Internet, so their licensing situation is unclear. Eventually these should be cleared for use or replaced.

So where is my VR kit? :D

Read More

Hex grids: finishing up the code generator project

Last year while working on my new introduction to A*, I decided to try something different for me. Usually I focus on the math, algorithms, and techniques, and let the reader figure out the code. However, for the A* page, I wrote a companion guide that shows how to implement A*. It's simple and unoptimized but I hope it's easy to understand, and shows all the tricky bits that I sometimes gloss over on the main page. While going back through my guide to hexagonal grids, I was improving the pseudocode examples on the page and realized I should probably help people who want to write code.

What usually happens is I have an explosion of questions and possibilities. What languages should I use? What grid variants should I support? What display styles should I implement? Dan Cook writes about alternating brainstorming and culling. I was deep in the brainstorming phase, and came up a crazy idea, that I should procedurally generate code, so that I could generate sample code on the page that matched your choice of grid and programming language, and then I decided I'd learn Haxe macros to do this, and run the code generator both on the server and in the browser, and then also procedurally generate unit tests, and …

… a few months later, I realized I had gone down an unnecessarily long route.

What happened?

Implementing the code generator made me realize I could simplify the variants. That part was actually great. I learned a lot by thinking through all the different ways to structure the code, and found simpler ways of thinking about hex grids. As I simplified more and found a better class design, I realized I didn't need most of the code generator after all.

Once I realized this, it killed my motivation. I felt bad that I had spent so much time on something that didn't work out.

I had jumped right into the procedural code generator, because that part sounded like fun. And it was!! One mistake I often make with procedural generators is that I start with a cool process instead of starting with the end goal. I did that here. I should've started with the output I wanted to make, and then figured out how to get there.

The code generator project didn't really work out the way I wanted. I wasn't sure where to go from there. Should I add more languages? Should I add more grid variants? Should I add comments to the output? I realized that I was spiraling back into the brainstorming phase instead of culling. I switched to culling. No, I won't add Rust and Scheme and Haskell output. No, I won't add more grid variants. No, I won't add comments and modules and docstrings and instance methods. Instead, I'll write up what I have and share it.

Telling myself no to all the possible ways this project could go is what helped me get un-stuck. Based on what I learned from this project, I wrote up a guide to implementing hex grids and also made some improvements to the hex grid guide. I also linked to the output of the code generator, so that you can get started with some working, tested code in C++, Python, C#, Java, Haxe, or JavaScript. Time to move on to another project!

Update: [2015-05-14] I added a bit about why I wanted to generate code (to show sample code on the hex grid guide)

Read More

Old school 2D RTS Wyrmsun is looking to be greenlit

We were kindly made aware by the main developer of the 2D RTS Wyrmsun that he is currently looking for support to get this game on the Steam platform (link includes a game-play video).

Here is a description of the game we got from him:

In Wyrmsun, humans, elves and dwarves all seek to carve a place for themselves on their different homeworlds, with humans living on Earth, dwarves dwelling on Nidavellir, and elves inhabiting Alfheim. In the game's missions, each world follows separate storylines, but the various civilizations can be mixed and matched in custom games.

Wyrmsun features:

• Retro-style graphics
• 2 playable civilizations, and a number of non-playable ones
• 18 quests to play, earning technology points which can be used to obtain new units, buildings and technologies
• 38 units, 30 buildings and 14 technologies
• Units that can earn experience, being able to upgrade to new unit types or acquire new abilities upon level-up
• Persistent heroes, who carry over their level and abilities throughout scenarios
• Personal names and traits for units
• Cave, Conifer Forest, Dungeon, Fairlimbed Forest and Swamp tilesets
• 33 maps of real and fictional locations to choose from, as well as random maps
• Living environment, with fauna reproduction and predation
• Very moddable game, with mod-loading capability built in
• Grand strategy mode, where production is resolved on the strategic (world map) level, while battles are resolved on the tactical level
• In-game encyclopedia, allowing players to learn more about the units, buildings and other elements of the game, as well as their historical and mythological sources of inspiration.

For those more inclined to help out with the code, there are two code repositories: one for the game and one for the modified Stratagus engine.

P.S.: Yes FOSS games can be on Steam as long as they don't integrate with closed source steam integration libraries; And it can be a great way to attract more users to your game and maybe even collect some donations or sell add-ons (preferably in a "release freely when sufficient funds are gathered" style). See this game for an successful example.

Read More

Uclan Groups present GAME JAM concepts

The first annual UCLan Game Jam is upon us! Students have 4 weeks to create any game of their choice. 1st year and 2nd year Game Design students work together on this project.
Students are free to pick their game platform of choice – whether it be a 3D engine such as Unreal Engine 4, Construct 2 or a paper game – it is up to them to decide what your strongest platform will be to present a game idea.
A committee of Industry professionals have agreed to judge the games and give out prizes to be won at the Finale where each group must submit a complete, playable game. The game will be judged on playability, accessibility, design, visuals and team collaboration.

Group 1 GAME JAM concept introduced by Sarah Akers and Alex Haddow-Mendes 2015 

  

Group 2 GAME JAM concept introduced by Catherine Clarke Drago and Mikey Stones

Group 3 GAME JAM concept introduced by Scott Swarbrick and Shannon Patterson

Group 4 GAME JAM concept introduced by Jack Tidy and Rob Thorne

Group 5 GAME JAM concept introduced by Gareth Hart and Chris Leatham

Group 6 GAME JAM concept introduced by Rashel Miah and Sean Boardman

Group 7 GAME JAM concept introduced by Adam Mattis and Robin Williams

Group 8 GAME JAM concept introduced by Josh Healey and Anthony Winbrow

Read More

UCLan games design groups present Lego game ideas.

UCLan first year games design groups present their Lego game ideas to 
Arthur Parsons, Game Director at TT-Games - UCLAN GAMES 2015. 

Arthur Parsons has been working with TT Games since 1997. Back then, they were called Traveller’s Tales Ltd. and were working on games for Disney, like A Bug’s Life, Toy Story, and Finding Nemo. 
Arthur started work with Travellers Tales as a QA tester and through his passion for games, ability to promote and present ideas and his great work as a team player, Arthur is now a Game Director often managing teams up to 150 people strong. 
Arthur is great advocate of games for young people and is particularly renowned for his leadership in games design on family friendly game titles including a host of Lego games such as Lego Harry Potter and Lego Marvel Heroes. Arthur is extremely generous with his time and shares his enthusiasm for the world of family orientated gaming.  

Arthur is well respected for his work in games and is interviewed and appears in the press globally, particularly talking about his work on Lego games. He travels the world speaking at highly prestigious entertainment and gaming events and is also a blogger on a variety of gaming topics, including,

• LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
• Busy times at TT Towers
• HULK Smash!!!!
• LEGO Marvel Team, Assemble
• LEGO® Batman™ 3: Beyond Gotham blog.

For the brief students were challenged to create game concepts, level game mechanics and character orientated game mechanics for the topic of Fairy Tales or Myths and Legends.
The students worked in groups and presented their ideas to Arthur and their peers for feedback.

Click below to see a movie of presentation samples

Read More