It's time to muse! This was a surprisingly hot week... if you know what I mean. For 2 days the heat in Ireland sky-rocketed and we we truly burning bright.( I apologize for any cheesy jokes). We had an amazing week in the studio and massive progression has taken place. First of all we have designed the first temple. In temples we are using a lighter version of the castlevania map design for players to explore and complete the temples giving them some what of choice in what they want to do and when to complete the temple. As many of you probably know now the first temple is based of the element fire. This gave us many choices on what to do puzzle and enemy wise. Lets just say surprises and secrets are to be had for players and get ready for a good retro hardness game. We do not believe in the major hand-holding of players that many games generally do now yet we are not about to leave our players in impossible odds to watch them die and get frustrated. We are aiming at a nice balance that if you die while playing you wont feel cheated and feel that whoops mistakes were made. So what did we do as individuals this week. Adrian was busy modelling scenes and rigging characters including our first mini boss fight. He created the screen shot of the bedroom in a day and it is currently waiting for the rest of the house to be modelled before texturing. As texturing the house in one go will help keep the same style and make it easier to reference textures for all items in scenes rather then doing it bit by bit. This also allows freedom to change scenes with out the worry of unwrapping and removing textures. The character that the mini boss fight is a little imp like demon who will have very unique fights compared to the rest of the bosses. Dan was crazily busy with a lot with PLATFORMS. A swinging platforms for the fire temple. Platforms that the player will be able to jump through the bottom ala old school platformer games, this platform can also be dropped down through when the player holds down and jump. This opened up a multitude of design options. Dan also came up with a way of exporting the white-boxed levels from Unity into blender. This will allow Adrian to create unique looking scenes and create a more varied world for the players to be able to recognize the exact scene they are in. This was the technique that allowed us to develop the bedroom scene in under a day. Week in Gaming-Magicka:Wizard WarsThis week we have been playing Magicka : Wizard Wars. A F2P game from the creators of the original Magicka game. Game play takes place between 2 opposing teams that need to capture points to stop the enemy team spawning. Matches usually consist of a mad run to first bases then a battle in mid ground until one or more players either sneak across to the enemy base and capture it or just dominate the way there. A great return to the series although the small changes to the controls gave us a bit of weird feeling as it feels slippery now . The major issue we have found is the balancing. People can spam out shields and healing to become almost invincible. The game also uses micro transactions that in our opinion are unfair advantage as the things you buy give you advantages with magic that people using the basic kit cannot compare to. This leaves us feeling that its a pay to win game more then a play to win model. If these issues get sorted this will be a 5/5 addition to the magicka series until then we are going to give it a solid 3.5/5Finally Our Sunday Soundtrack clichéDan's pick of the week is a good little ditty from Less then Jake with the good song Rest of my life. Take it away Jake me boy. Adrian's pick of the week is Monty python's classic from the ministry of silly walks. This is for the last show in the O2 last Sunday <3 python
Well that's all folks See you all next week have a good one. Another Sunday arrives which, of course, means it's time for us to dish out some musings of the Sunday variety. This week has been nicely productive for us. Adrian spent the week being sick and complaining and then also modelling out a new NPC character for the new game and also the first mini-boss. The former being the subject of this weeks ScreenShot Saturday... If Adrian could marry Blender he probably would, he even has little lovers tiffs with it. Hopefully there's no make up sex though. He also did the new banner which looks lovely, we look like a pair of those bobblehead things which to be honest is incredibly accurate. I on the other hand spent the week programming puzzles. Great fun was had with rotations. -_- Oh, Unity loves messing with my head. So in the end, we've now got a button puzzle where you've to press the buttons in the right order or the puzzle resets. And then we've got a pipe puzzle where you've to adjust the pipes to make the water flow. That water one isn't quite finished yet but it's getting there. So with that, it's time for some music. Adiran's gone with Paul Simon's "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" which he insists is pronounced with a hard "J" despite evidence to the contrary... I've gone with Thin Lizzy's "Dedication". Adrian says that my dedication to finding a song that is heavy rock every week is inspiring. Adrian's: Paul Simon - Me and Julio Down by the SchoolyardDan's: Thin Lizzy - DedicationThe End is Nigh... And here it is...told you!
We'll be back next week. Be sure to check out Screenshot Saturday and possibly our personal blogs...if either of us remember to do one... |
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