Portfolio direction...at least for now

So it's been a few weeks since I completed my Halloween house project in UDK and I've been busy writing posts for Take Initiative and putting together a level design document for a Gears of War level that should hopefully show that I am capable of creating a single player level with interesting cinematics and a beautiful environment.  However, after having a think about my current direction in design I have decided to put this level on hold as it will be a lot of work and as I haven't finished playing Gears Of War yet it may be a bit early for me to assume that I could put together a level that would fall into place seamlessly within the storyline that I haven't discovered yet.  So until I have finished my level design document and completed Gears of War, I'll be concentrating on developing smaller game ideas that show my interests. 

I really enjoyed using UDK and Unreal tech so I'll definitely be returning to it within the new year.  Hopefully playing more shooter, open-world, single player campaign games will help me gain a better understanding of the genre so that I can apply this knowledge to my own levels next year.

My idea at the moment in order to produce a number of small projects within a short length of time is to create simple Game Maker games or Flash movies demostrating the core mechanics and major features of the game ideas.  As someone is more likely to sit a watch a short 1 - 2 minute video of a game than sit and play through 30 levels of a game I think that this is the best way to go. This decision also appeals to me because of my limited time at home due to work and making time to play games.

It's been a while since I played around with Game Maker and years since I've put together something in Flash so hopefully within a few weeks (Christmas willing) I'll have something new to put in my portfolio.

Halloween Postmortem

So last week Thursday I decided to draw a line under my halloween house and upload my final images for entry into the World Of Level Design challenge.  I can honestly say that every time I use Unreal tech I learn alot more.