I was given a small Game design task by a prospective employer and this task has required my game design -eligible part of my brain. Fortunately I’ve now finished working out the idea I had and should soon return to the task at hand.
I was given a task to design a level to a game and given character around which the game revolves. I have a question for you hordes out there. Do you think a walk-through would be a good way to demonstrate my idea?
I have been thinking about more practical issues concerning my apprentice-project. I have always thought that something like this should be made in Java to allow as wide an availability as possible. I also think that something like this should be made as easy as possible to produce, even at the cost of efficiency. Especially since this project isn’t primarily meant to display my mad coding skillz. And there are plenty of computational resources on todays computers to squander.
Being as easy on me as possible means that I want to make use of existing components as far as possible. This means they have to be fitting licence-wise. Fortunately this doesn’t seem to be an issue for me, since most these components are released as Free software or at least Open source. I have been looking for a physics and a 3d-engine.
ODE (Open Dynamics Engine) sounds suitable for my needs, only it isn’t in Java. Versions of it do exist for the 3 major platforms, so I don’t consider this a major problem. It’s usability with Java is an issue, however. There exists a wrapper (ODEJava) for Java that provides a bridge to allow it’s use in Java. As this is a work-in-progress the price is unstability.
For the 3d-engine I’ve been considering jMonkeyEngine which seems more than capable for my needs and is Open source as well. And seems to have a interface for ODE as well. I’ll have to set-up these things and get experimenting.
I have added a short description of the Apprentice on the project page. My intention is to have a separate page for the project itself. At this point I take it given that unless I don’t post exact timetables, I don’t have to point out that “it’s coming soon” or use other temporal designates. My aim is to release to something on the 2nd of June this year. Whether it will be a subset of Nokkapokka or something else, I make no claims just yet.
I have been thinking about this for awhile. In order to get oneself lodged into the Game Industry one needs work experience, at least here in Finland. Master’s degree means dick. In order to crack this slight of circle of doom I am launching a project with the intent of:
Since my aspirations are on Game design the quality and practical usefulness of the Game design document is of outmost importance to me. Furthermore, the adherence of the Game with the document (as opposed to content of my mind) is important. Whatever is in the game should also appear in the document. I will open a separate page for this project, which will house the design document and general information. I will also document in detail all the problems, misgivings, misunderstandings and failures in this blog under the tag “Apprenticeship”.
Make no mistake, this is something I have to do, whatever the outcome. Can you dig it, bitches?
Bemmu was kind enough to let his inner photomanipulator surface and came up with a, I’m guessing, a signature picture for my blog, pictured below.
I appreciate the effort AND the connection to the 5th. but I have to admit I prefer my Blog looking as it is. But I’ll buy you a coffee for the effort.