New Year, new projects!

So I've just arrived back from London and was going to jump straight into finishing blocking out my Gears level when I noticed the the World of Level Design are having another contest.  I feel compelled to enter this one too as its going to stretch me again to not only working to a deadline but this is split into two parts so that I focus firstly on the gameplay mechanics and then the visuals.  And, by February I should have a fully complete game level.  I guess I'll have to see if the amount of time I can put in will be enough to participate.

So over the latter part of last year I did manage to play more games.  Not as much as I'd liked to as I still have over 25 360 games to play but I did finish Fable 3, have played quite a bit of Mass Effect 2 and have nearly finished the co-op campaign of Splinter Cell Conviction (I have to say I am quite enjoying even though it has been irritating at times).  This year I want to get through a good number of my 25 games that are catching dust.


I created two Unreal projects last year which was great but this year I want to create 6 games, levels or maps using either UDK, Gears' Editor or UT3's Editor. 

Hopefully I haven't set my targets too high.  Should be an eventful year.

New UDK Beta with iOS support is released!

I've been anxiously waiting for UDK to release this version of their engine so that I can start churning out loads of iPhone game ideas and prototypes. 

Available to download now at www.udk.com.

I'll hopefully be sharing some of my own UDK iPhone ideas in the future.  Let me know what wonderful ideas and playable games you come up with too. 

Gears Level Design Document

It's been a while since I posted anything so here's a quick catch up. 

I've been completing the first draft of my Gears of War level design document which I'm naming Save All Souls (or S.A.S at least for the time being).   It will be a short level, part one of my complete idea for the level.  Hopefully it will be a good addition to the Gears universe.  The doc can be read here.

Other than that I've been looking at another small project in UnrealEd to keep me entertained at lunch.  I've also been adding some additional gameplay features to The Epidemic, polishing the existing ones, trying to revamp the graphics and creating additional levels to make this a good little portfolio piece.  Hopefully these changes will make a great improvement so hopefully by the end of January I'll have another UnrealEd project and my SAS level blocked out.

I'll be posting some WIP images of my Gears level as and when I have them.

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.