Unreal development kit:

The last few weeks have been interesting!

Lately I have had allot of lessons in Unreal development kit (UDK), created by Epic games.
It is kinda similar to Source development kit which I had some prior experience with, still I find UDK challenging but allot of fun... there have been a few nightmares about Kismet (visual scripting) though, but I have learnt allot.

In about two weeks I will hand in a small map or game created by me with triggers using kismet to create some kind of puzzle.

Sjoerd De Jong (project lead and creative director at Teotl Studios) who have mapped since he was a kid and got experience from Epic Games and Starbreeze, is our UDK level design teacher.

The Ball:

Today Sjoerd showed us how he created his new game The Ball (a singleplayer action/puzzle game built in the UDK editor).
It was very educational and interesting to see how his levels was made, everything from design decisions and material editing to everything they did to create the actual ball and all its behaviours in the game.

Take a look at the trailer below! The Ball is available through Steam the 26th October and is yours for only 17,99€.

 

Meeting with Dave Sharp:

Last week I also got the chance to speak some with Dave Sharp (Binary Asylum) who have worked on amazing titles such as Baldurs Gate and Fallout! I have spent years in front of Baldurs gate so it was a great experience to meet him.

Find out more about The Ball here: www.theballthegame.com
Download Unreal development kit for free here: www.udk.com

Our first school project at Futuregames Academy is now complete!
The class was split into smaller groups, mine consisted of three graphic designers and four game designers working together to deliver a board game within one week.

The project was to create a the board game for 2-6 players, 30-45 minutes playtime and it should be inspired by the theme: suggestion, of course it also had to be a fully working game with an easy to understand game manual.

The goal of our game is to get from the start possitions at the edge of the game board to the center, there the player pick up a coordinate card that show to which of the eight exits the player have to escape through.
During all this time ghosts are constantly chasing the players, event cards are helping or slowing the progress and opponents are also able to block paths with doors that require specific colored key cards to be opened again. There is allot of tactics and tricks in the game and you could potentially give your opponents allot of trouble.

We had allot of fun creating this board game and spent something like 900-1000 SEK on materials, printing etc to make the project possible. Thankfully we got 500 SEK from the school as a budget for the game!
The money we spent really makes a difference though the game looks and feels really top quality.




This Friday our game was tested by the Swedish game industry:

• Almir Listo (Project leader at Bajoum Interactive / Teacher at Futuregames)

• Tove Enghed (Level Designer at Fatshark)

• Patrick Berglind (Lead game designer for a Microsoft touch surface game)

• Petter Sköld (3d Artist at Splash Damage)

• Åsa Roos (Lead game designer / Teacher at Futuregames) was leading the whole project as well as the game testing.

We students got allot of good feedback from them! A huge thanks to the game industry people for sharing their experience with us. To be able to talk to them, is always exciting and rewarding.



The winner of the board game competition had a brilliant game idea where you actually play on the outside of the game box and are able to use all sides with magnets as your player piece, at some points in the game the cube rotate.

The price for winning the challenge was a trip to the Swedish game developer DICE office and a lunch with one of there project managers. Huge congratulations and well deserved! :)

Thanks to my group for the wonderful teamwork!