Edugames; My Involvement.

Hi all,

As part of assignment 4 in our industry perspectives class we had to think up a business idea. We then had to write up an executive summary and next week we’ll have to present it in front of our classmates and our lecturer. The members of my group other than myself were; Martin Moran, Kristopher Harte and Trina Casey.

The Idea we came up with at our first meeting was to create a company called Edugames that would develop and sell educational games. These games would be of a much higher quality than the educational games you see on the shelves at the moment. We propose to have games developed for many subjects. These include; Math, English, Irish, Computer basics, history etc.

The games will be created so that they appeal to teachers, so that teachers will be able to use them to teach there pupils. As we discussed as a group we think that being shown in  an interactive way how to do something is much better than a teacher droning on at the top of the classroom. At our second group meeting we decided to run through the financial side of our idea and how we were going to make money from it.

Our idea; the Irish government i currently giving free computers to every primary school in the country, that’s about 3,300 schools. If we could make a pitch to the government and try convince them to supply our software with these computers it would be tremendous. We could also put our software into shops where thoughtful parents could buy it for their children to give them a head start in life.

We will be required to give a 10 minute presentation next week, we hope our peers will think our idea is a good one. Hopefully we can think of something else after this project is done and start to make some real money in the real world!

Thanks,

Mark

Adventure Game Studio

Hi all,

As part of my FYP project, I have to create a point and click adventure game. One of the first decisions I had to make regarding my FYP was what development tools to use to make the game. I had a couple of choices;

• Build from scratch using C++, Java, etc..
• XNA game development suite.
• SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion).
• AGS (Adventure Games Studio)

I ended up choosing AGS.  Adventure Game Studio is a freeware tool designed to create adventure games. It is aimed at game designers with a little bit of knowledge in scripting and coding. The downloaded package contains an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) along with it’s own scripting language.

I signed up to the official AGS site so that I could get access to the forums and contribute on the site. It has been very useful for myself, a beginner user of this software. From this site you can download the software. It also contains a lot of tutorials to aid you when you are making your game.

As a way of giving back to the community for all the help I’ve been given, I decided to set up an Adventure Game Studio Facebook group. I hope to attract people who would never have heard of AGS and try and get them interested in the process of creating adventure games. You never know, the next Will Wright or Hideo Kojima could stumble across it.

It will also be an area where people you are already involved in the AGS community could promote games they have built or games that they have liked.

Hopefully it kicks off!

Regards,

Mark

My Linkedin Profile

Zork Project

In the first semester of 2nd year in college we were given a project where we had to create a small text-adventure game like Zork.

Zork was a 1980’s text based game where you had no graphical idea of what your character was doing at anytime. To move your character you would simply type “go North” or something like that and then the screen would display “character has moved north”, you would then be given a list of items and/or people that were in that room. You could interact with people and use and combine the items to solve puzzles and defeat your enemies.

We were given a template in C++ and we had to fill out all the functions to pick up items, move room to room, interact with characters and even combine items. We also had to come up with an original  storyline for the game, I came up with a story based around a young detectives efforts to stop a bomb plot against London’s high society during the early 1800’s (I was reading some random books at the time)

The project was quite difficult and It took me a long time to get on top of the work and get going with it, but once I did I got on pretty well with it. It gave me a real chance to improve my C++ skills along with helping me to create a proper narrative driven storyline which I think will go a long way towards helping me with my final year project this year.

’till next time,

Mark

 

UL: The Game

As part of my final year in Multimedia and Computer Games Development in the University of Limerick, I am required to do a Final Year Project (FYP).  Your FYP can be on any topic that is somewhat relevant to your course, as long as you get a lecturer in your department to sign off on it and agree to be your FYP supervisor.

My FYP, UL: The Game, was a proposal by Malachy Eaton that I was more than happy to take up as it suited my interests down to the ground. The game will be a point and click adventure set around the campus of the university of limerick. You will have to solve a murder by getting all your clues together and finding out who the murderer is.

I hope to give the game a film noir detective feel. I will be altering photos of the campus to give a more stylised  look.

example:

Main Building

and altered

Main Building in Pencil

 

I think I will learn a lot from this project. There will be soon nice coding to get the game work smoothly and I will hopefully have good interesting storyline to hold the whole thing together.

’till next time,

Mark

 

 

Fundamental Behaviour of the D-Type Latch

During my second year in college we had a module called Digital Video Fundamentals. The major project for this class was to create a 5 minute short film on any topic you wanted as long as it showed of your skill in the procedures of film making.

These procedures included:

• Visual Style
• Editing
• Camera work
• Three point lighting
• Story boarding

Brian Fitz, Phil McGrath and myself were put into a group together, we started by getting used to the software we would be using to edit the film, Final Cut Express. Once we had figured out how to work the editing software we went on to create a storyline and an original idea for a film. We decided to make the film about “deciding to what to make the film about”!! Breaking the fourth wall and all that! We then decided it would be a silent black and white film with speech bubbles coming from the actors mouths rather than subtitles running across the screen.

We had some success with the film. It was featured on Youtube.ie and to date has over 6,500 views. I believe we learned a lot from this project. From the software we used, to creating storyboards, to the actual shooting of the the film. I had great fun with it and the other lads did too.

Anyway, here it is for you in all its glory,

Enjoy!

’till next time,

Mark

Art and computer games

In 2000, a Newsweek article by Jack Kroll stated the following;

“games can be fun and rewarding in many ways, but they can’t transmit the emotional complexity that is the root of art”

Kroll was criticised for this viewpoint but still a significant number of his journalistic peers stood beside his viewpoint, one of which was Roger Ebert, who I’m sure many of you will know as one of the best known film critics in the world. Ebert stated;

“There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.”

Ebert says that computer games can’t b considered art because the experience is given to the player and the player can do what he  wants (to a certain extent). Art, in his opinion, has too be told like a story, with the viewer sitting and watching  but never interfering with the story in any way.

In my opinion computer games are art. this view is held by basically everyone in the computer game industry. From programmers to artists to graphic designers to the story writers and voice actors themselves, a lot of artistic work goes into the making of a computer game. Good games, like a good movie or a good book, illicit a emotional response from the viewer/player and like Hitchcock said;

“I don’t give a damn about what the film’s about. I’m more interested in how to handle the material to create an emotion in an audience.”

So as long as you can through storyline, artwork or design evoke an emotional response from a player then games should be considered art.

’till next time,

Mark

Violence in computer games. Right or Wrong?

Hey guys,

In my opinion violence is a accepted part of any art form. Violence is accepted in movies and books by the critical masses but computer games sometimes get a hard time, Is it because computer games are excessively violent today or is it because the user is actually causing the death and destruction that we see on screen?

One of the main proponents of the theory that games have too much sex and violence these days, and that we should head back to hitting a blob around a screen between two paddles, is Jack Thompson. Thompson is a lawyer from Florida, who has taken the role of moral crusader on all things pop culture, this includes rap, t.v, Facebook and computer games. Thompson, in 2003, sought $246 million in damages from take-two interactive after he tried to convince a jury that Grand theft Auto 3 had caused two teenagers to murder another teenager. The case was quickly thrown out.

I think violence is an important part of computer games. Games are a way to let off steam, to be a different person, be able to do whatever you want, be it scoring a goal in the champions league final to saving the Earth from rampaging hordes of aliens.

Most importantly however is the fact that it is fun, up to a certain point. Children won’t ever be seen in the grand theft auto universe. You won’t be able to hit a child with a car or shoot or blow up a child. This in my opinion is only right.

Anyway ’till next time,

Mark

Learning in Games.

Hey everyone,

Today’s topic; Do people learn while playing video games?

In my opinion learning in video games can be split into two groups. The first group is where the player is explicitly thought how to do something through the medium of games. The second group is where you are thought something while you are playing the game,but you don’t realise it because the actual playing of the game is the important part, not the learning.

Examples of the former included many learn to type games such as this. Games like this can be fun, but the main focus is for you to learn to type. The only difference between this and your bog-standard learn to type program is the way it is presented.

Examples of the latter include the Metal Gear Solid series which in my own personal experience thought me a lot about nuclear weapons and their destructive nature. It also gave me a thirst for knowledge on this subject and so I began reading into it outside of the game.

Also for the games writing module I’m doing in college right now, every game I have played has thought me something useful.

’till next time,

Mark

The Didgery Do’s and the Didgery Don’ts of Writing a CV!!

Good evening ladies and gentlemen,

Today I will speak to you on the do’s and don’ts of writing a  CV.

Right we’ll get the Don’ts out of the way first;

1. Don’t over fill your CV with useless information. Just titles and a brief summary would do grand.
2. Don’t include things that are not necessary. These include age, political views, photos and your height, weight or health.
3. Don’t do it all by yourself. Ask for help from people in the know i.e. lecturers or people working in HR.
4. Don’t be humorous. CV’s aren’t a place to be funny.
5. Don’t attach any homemade sex tapes.

And now a couple of Do’s;

1. Do make you CV look appealing.
2. Do take ideas from other peoples CV’s.
3. Do include your contact details (Important one lads!)
4. Do spell check.
5. Do big yourself up a bit.
6. Do use big important sounding words.
7. Do change and update your CV regularly.

Right so, think thats about it.

Again don’t worry if your’s looks a little sparse, it’ll fill up over time (hopefully)!

Short and sweet, don’t worry about the length, just the content!

Oh and here’s some funny quotes from CV’s

Anyway ’till next time,

Mark

My Role Models and Dream Job!!!!!!!

Hello Everybody,

Right, honestly I do not have a clue what my dream job is. I think that, hopefully, I will fall into something that I really like. But maybe I’m not that lucky, maybe I don’t get that dream job that I always wanted. Maybe I get a terrible job that I thought was my dream job! How bad would that be!

Right now my dream job would be in the area of software engineering. I would like to have  a 9 to 5 job with some multi-national company in the future, where I would be the lead of a team,developing some next-gen technologies and/or games. I also have a creative streak, so I probably wouldn’t like to be kept in a dark room in the back of the building writing C++!! I would like to be allowed to develop and create an original game or interactive multimedia experience that would be based on an idea that I had or conceived. I love writing scripts and story lines and I have done since I was very young. During transition year in secondary school, when we had to take work placement in a variety of company’s. I picked to work in a company in Kilkenny called the Young Irish Film Makers. This company helped young people create a film every summer. I love films, but I love more the idea of people playing my films… If that makes any sense. An Interactive film that is all my Idea! I know this sounds very narcissistic, but in the end I want to create a game that is all my Idea. With maybe a bit of help from other people 😉

A role model I really admire is Dave Perry. This guy is a little known developer but he has looked for bigger and greater things ever since he started developing computer games. David is an Irish video game developer who has created dozens of computer games, the best known of which include Earthworm Jim, MDK, Messiah, Wild 9 and Enter the Matrix. He also founded Shiny Entertainment, where he worked from 1993 to 2006.

He began writing computer game programs in 1982 at the age of 15, creating his own games for the Sinclair ZX81. According to an interview with the BBC, Perry stated that his first game was a driving game, “a black blob avoiding other black blobs”, which he wrote and sent to a magazine, which printed it. He sent them more games and they sent him a check for GBP£450, a bit of a problem for a teenager who did not yet have a bank account. His work continued though, until he was offered a job making just £3,500 a year.

At the age of 17, he moved to London, where he developed games for publishers such as Elite Systems, Mirrorsoft, and Virgin Games, working on titles such as The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Terminator.

I get an inkling that I am not as great as Mr. Perry. He was obviously a very smart man who actually put his head into his books when he was very young. I, on the other hand, did not realise what programming was until I came to college. It was a complete revelation to me! I hated it at first,but then I grew to like it. But I see a couple of parallels with myself and Mr. Perry. We both seem to have absolutely crazy ideas that you would not think would turn into games, but Dave Perry proves that if you have an idea than you can turn that into a game, if your smart enough.

On a last note these are my current dreams and role models, they will probably change tomorrow. These changes just reflect the differing opinions of a guy growing up! We actually cannot decide what we like!

’till next time,

Mark

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