the online ramblings of a generally confused game designer

Friday, May 26, 2006

more details

so, development is started on the game proper... and I'm gonna start giving more detailed info. Here's a rundown of what the game is right now. (sorry if it's written in a slightly dry way.. this doc is actually written for a PR guy).

Title
Visiting Day

System
PSP (initially) and then hopefully a PC & Mac port

Synopsis of Plot
A small Welsh primary school is invaded by evil aliens, halfway between assembly and reading time. The children must fight off the aliens using whatever skills they have in order to save their beloved school, and by extension the whole of Gwent.

Gameplay
Play the parts of the school's inhabitants. Help the football team to keep bombs out of the school field or help the dinnerladies ward off the aliens with a particularly strong brand of custard fueled justice. Play on your own or compete with friends to see who is best prepared for the terrible future which awaits us. Visiting Day is al about fun, fast gameplay. Oh, and no loading times.

The people behind it
The game will be designed and created by Mike Bithell. The music in the game will be played by indie band Kittyhawk Drive. Mike will also collaborate with other students to bring the best available talent to bear on the game.

So there it is.. I'm currently building rough playable tests for each gameplay mode. I will be honest and say I'm withholding some stuff, as I don't want other developers to see what I'm up to, plus I want to keep some surprises up my sleaves. Oh, and if you don't own a PSP then rest assured a PC & Mac version will be made.. no doubt with a few little multiplayer extras for you to dig into. So yeah, if you want to support the game then tell everyone you know, comment about it on your blogs.. get the word out. This game could be really cool.

Oh... and here's a little screen grab for you (test image only)


Wednesday, May 24, 2006

long time no see

the last couple of weeks have probably been the least productive of my life, I have had a great time with friends, as the uni year is drawing to a close. As a result there's not really been much to post work wise... I have however had a bit of a break through today, with the help of some of the incredibly talented people at the university. Here's a clue as to what I've been up to...


That's right. Today I've finally managed to get gameplay running on an unmodded, un-hacked psp. Thanks to the nifty 2.70 upgrade to the system I can now put flash content up for people to download and play on the move. This test marks the start of a 2 month dev time i've set myself to make a fun, fast paced game for the system. The first legal freeware title for PSP. You read it here first. This is now my priority, although other work for clients remains on-going.. here's some actual gameplay screengrabs


watch this space, updates are about to get a hell of a lot more frequent.

Saturday, May 06, 2006

a busy week

So.. a week has passed since my last post, this has been caused by a large pile of work. I'm going to do one of my round-up style posts to explain where all my projects are right now

TV Project
Sent off a first draft of the intro sequence to the client, who likes it. We will be meeting to discuss the soundtrack and incorporate it into the cartoon. It's already looking pretty polished, and just the right mix of cuteness and nastiness which is needed. The character is kind of a Tazmanian Devil formed of goo.. lots of fun to animate.

Colour Grading
As mentioned before on this blog, my girlfriend is a stop motion animator. She is currently working on a short film, and was in need of some colour correction work. So I've been batch proccessing in photoshop to get everything bright and stable.

Mikebithell.com
Lots of sketches and plans, going to begin this one very soon. Lots of really cool interface elements and ideas for interaction. I've decided to supplement the flash gamespace with a traditional html page, as many people may not like what I have in mind as per the interaction models.

UWN Animation Graduate Website 2006
Having made a little site for them last year (link on the right) I've been asked to come back and do this year's. The advertising for the show should be using old fashioned printing press styles, so the website could be really interesting to build. Starting on this in the comming week.

Websites for two local businessman, plus update on Votehughes.co.uk
To pay the bills, I have a couple of paid jobs comming up, just waiting on info from the clients. Not the most exciting tasks in the world, but they put money in my pocket.