How does it work? Can I open it?

It’s time to update this place on how the project is coming along! So, from what I can gather from our forums the artists are getting along ok on the character concepts and the first level boss concept also. They’re wanting to get a move on as quickly as possible in order to start rendering and producing spritesheets. It’s good to know then that the ‘animation editor’ (sprite sheet animation tool) for our game is to be complete by next meeting (Saturday)…in fact it’s pretty much solid right now, just a few tests to do on it.

The main game executable is being worked on by me also, to ensure what the animation editor produces slots neatly into the engine. Progress on the Level Editor is also under way by another trusty programmer. If all goes to plan, we should have some sort of semi-playable demo concept and some art out the door in a couple of weeks. Saying that, there will still be a lot to work on and strengthen, I’ll need to start work on a combo management system and general collision detection between game entities; I don’t foresee any trouble with these, it’s just a matter of time commitment.

Well, I don’t have any pretty pictures to show of the game so I hope Azad doesn’t mind me showing a concept piece (it’s on his deviantArt page anyway).

So here I am. Out of University, and without a job – but not without an aim. However, an aim on its own is not good enough if you cannot prove you are serious enough to carry it though. This is were my group project comes in. Hopefully by proving I am a capable member of a team that creates a fun and polished game, then someone just may employ me.

These are the things I am doing, (or should be doing) they are not the things I have achieved, which is what I need to have to be employable. This is where writing my CV becomes a problem.

Enough with the more boring things and onto the project. Currently I’m not certain on how much people want me to say at this point, so I will only be commenting on the programming currently being done. As for the game idea, all I’m going to say is that it revolves around inventions. The basics: graphics, game world movement, and controller input are all done, if not needing a bit of a polish. We are now working on the camera and level structures, once this is done we should have a very basic program to show.

Blogging is all the rage with the cool kids nowadays, so I thought I would give it a shot. The whole point of a blog is to collect your thoughts and make them available to the public (or so I’m lead to believe), so here goes…

Web hosts! I just changed my web host, which is probably why I’m messing around with web development again. That and I need to update my portfolio desperately. By creating this blog I’ve given myself even more work to do, because I refuse to use the default theme for any decent amount of time (however for now it’ll have to do).

On to a more interesting topic. A few friends and I are planning on creating a game over the summer for a short(ish) project. The game will be similar to Streets of Rage and Castle Crashers, so a side scrolling beat ‘em up. A game design is yet to be drawn up, and a meeting is being held Wednesday to talk more about it. My initial thoughts are of creating the game in XNA and submitting it to the Xbox live arcade once it’s complete. This is good for two reasons: firstly it will be the first published game I will have accomplished (currently I’m unhappy that I haven’t managed to polish anything enough to distribute it publicly); and secondly it will give potential employers something pretty to look at! I’ll try to keep this blog up to date on the progress.