LCC Games Design: Recent Episodes
noreply@blogger.com (S E Barker)
A blog and podcast by Game Design students at the London College of Communiation, University of the Arts London.
We've slightly updated the format of the show to make it snappier, hipper and more productive! Please tell us what you think of the new format by leaving a comment.
Omar quizzes us on ESRB ratings, Tarik greenlights a discussion about Steam's efforts to help indie developers and Sam reveals he doesn't want any more shaders. After all of which, they talk about Contre Jour.
Remember to subscribe in iTunes and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
<p>Gadget Google - Lecteur multimédia de Google - http://www.liens-du-vin.ch/google-audio\_player-script.htm</p>
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Omar Bobat, Tarik Bensaria, Dominic Aldridge.
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
We've been far too busy doing interesting and constructive things, so this overdue podcast will have to suffice. We talk about emotional games, crunch (not the chocolate bar, unfortunately) and whether we've all achieved our summer goals. Omar tells us about Shogun 2, Peter talks Guild Wars 2 and Sam has technical difficulties. Enjoy!
Remember to subscribe in iTunes and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
<p>Gadget Google - Lecteur multimédia de Google - http://www.liens-du-vin.ch/google-audio\_player-script.htm</p>
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Omar Bobat, Peter Holley.
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
It's officially Slow News Month here on the LCC Games Podcast! Sam and Dom are joined by new girl Supreet to talk about what makes an excellent game, Mass Effect 2, Steam sales and that feeling of nostalgia not being quite right.
Remember to subscribe in iTunes and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
<p>Gadget Google - Lecteur multimédia de Google - http://www.liens-du-vin.ch/google-audio\_player-script.htm</p>
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Dominic Aldridge, Supreet Kaur.
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
New kid on the block Tarik joins a few regulars this week to thank you for your support at the end of year show! We also talk about bringing in architects and economists to work on games and the latest Kickstarter craze Ouya as well as Oh My Game, Batman and Peter's secret desire to be a dictator.
Remember to subscribe in iTunes and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Dominic Aldridge, Peter Holley, Tarik Bensaria
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
We've finally recovered from our roaringly successful end of year show! Thank you to everyone who came and played our games, we hope you enjoyed playing them as much as we enjoyed making them. For those of you who couldn't make it, we've put together a short recap video so you can pretend you were there all along.
Now that we have completely finished for the summer, the podcast frequency might drop a little but we'll continue posting them occasionally and come back in full force next academic year. See you then!
Welcome to our Games at the Show feature in which we will be talking to the creators of some of the games being shown at the End of Year Show. Today we have Balance of Control by Saiful Islam and Matthew Hoong.
What's your game called and what is it about?Our game is called Balance of Control and it is about keeping the peace in the city streets from the two rival gangs.
What inspired you while designing it?
What inspired us for this game was the cartoon series Avatar the Last Airbender where the main character Ang must be this peacekeeper. That is where our inspiration came from in terms of the theme peacekeeping/peacekeeper.
Welcome to our Games at the Show feature in which we will be talking to the creators of some of the games being shown at the End of Year Show. Today we have Aurora, created by Samuel Barker and Shan Blackwood, with sound by Sam Conran.
What's your game called and what is it about?
Aurora is a romantic experiential game for two people. The particpants must coordinate to generate and ignite solar winds to compose a unique aurora.
What inspired you while designing it?
Auroras have been admired by humans for centuries for their ethereal, romantic qualities, so naturally we did not want to create a game that causes conflict, but one which encourages communication and produces an audio-visual display that affects the mood of the participants.
Sam Conran's mysterious sound design allows the participants to create a unique aural composition. Games with dynamic soundtracks, like flOw and Osmos, laid the foundations for the audio but Sam pushed for more interaction. His sound design allows Aurora to be played as an instrument, not just as a game.
Is there any cool, unexpected stuff you can do in the game?
Some participants feel uncomfortable sharing a controller with another person, but this sparks conversations we never expected to hear after playing a computer game. There are a number of 'tricks' that can be used to quickly generate solar winds which were unplanned but not removed because they can look particularly spectacular.Sell it to me in one sentence.Get lost in the most ancient wonder of the atmosphere as you compose your own unique aurora.
Welcome to our Games at the Show feature in which we will be talking to the creators of some of the games being shown at the End of Year Show. Today we have Apocalypse, created by Jonathan English, Kin Chan and Jenny Rowe.
What's your game called and what is it about?Apocalypse, it's a collapsing city with obstacles crashing down blocking your path to escaping.
What inspired you while designing it?
What inspired us was thinking of how exciting it could be if we were avoiding objects but while they were terraforming the platform, so we always had this image of crashing buildings changing the landscape to make it more difficult to get past.
Is there any cool, unexpected stuff you can do in the game?
The more cool stuff is more like seeing what is being thrown because it's quite a surprising and thrilling factor because you won't know what's actually going to happen whether you're gonna be hit by a rock or fall off a platform.
Welcome to our Games at the Show feature in which we will be talking to the creators of some of the games being shown at the End of Year Show. Today we have Fun Guy, created by Supreet Kaur, Sam Aldridge, TzePing Tung and Pedro Guera.
What's your game called and what is it about?
Our game is aptly called Fun Guy, our main character is a mushroom with a mission. The dastardly rockers have stolen the entire colour from 1960’s London, leaving it lifeless and drab, a shell of its former dashing self, and Fun-Guy is going to inject colour using his trusty guitar and hippiness.
What inspired you while designing it?
The team’s inspiration bloomed with music, from any time, genre or theme. There was always a jam session in our little corner of the room. The beat, feeling and lyrics of the music energised us and kept spirits up as deadlines loomed! Other inspirations included participating in traditional art work. Initially we used leaflets and newsletters from around the uni to block out our city scape, so the tactile process was definitely a nice change of scenery and helped when digitising. Maybe it was also the fumes from the glue, but we felt it was quite therapeutic and hippy to be doing hand-drawn art.
Other inspirations were classic side scroller games we played back in our glory days like Super Mario Brothers and Streets of Rage I, II and III, while Little Big Planet made going sideways fresh and exciting in an era when first person shooter and realistic looking stubble is all the rage.
Is there any cool, unexpected stuff you can do in the game?Cool stuff in our game would be contextual changes in scenery, black and white TV shops become colour TV emporiums, this was especially appropriate since the colour TV was introduce in the 60s. The project brief had an emphasis on narrative and using Henry Jenkins’ four Es in Game Design as Narrative Architecture (2002) – Embedded, enacted, evocative and emergent narrative, conveyed our story in 600 by 800 pixels.Some of the rockers pace atop of the rooftops, some smoke cigarettes, some lounge on cranes, awaiting Fun-Guy’s wrath. Cool stuff may or may not include the following:• Knocking out rockers with music• Knocking out rockers with music who steal colour• Knocking out rockers with music who steal colour from the 1960s• Knocking out rockers with music who steal colour from the 1960s in London• Knocking out rockers with music who steal colour from the 1960s in London while standing on rooftopsWe do not condone violence against rockers.The rockers modus operandi include; flick knife slicing and dicing, using their motorbikes as battering rams trying to run you over, hanging from cranes to attack you, using bike chains to beat the mushroom stuffing from you and throwing knives. Why? Because they’ll do anything to keep London monotone.Sell it to me in one sentence.**Change doom-and-gloom-rocker-occupied-London to hippy-loving-colourful-joyful-London with just Fun Guy and his guitar, peace out!
First thing's first: come to our End of Year Show! Check out our post about it here!
Shan and Omar join Sam to talk about Peter Molyneux's 22Cans, financial morality and ultraviolence in games, scary! But it's not all heavy stuff as we give a shout out to all the gaming dads for Father's Day, talk about Tropico 4 and recommend Botanicula.
Remember to subscribe in iTunes and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Omar Bobat, Shan Blackwood
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
E3 is upon us, so we talk about that for far too long. We also recommend a few games we played at the Indie Games Expo, including hand-sketched puzzler The Bridge and one-button addictiveness Swift*Switch.
We also tell you about our end of year show, at which you'll be able to play all of our delightful games we've discussed on the show and many more! Check out our post about it here.
Remember to subscribe in iTunes and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Dominic Aldridge, Peter Holley
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
As the university year has come to an end, we begin working towards the end of year show, and we are inviting all the fans of the LCC Games Podcast to join us! We will be showing some of our best games to the public and we can't wait for you to play them. We might even persuade you with beer!
We'll be showing:
- Aurora, a romantic experiential game for two people.
- Apocalypse, a collapsing city with obstacles crashing down blocking your path to escaping.
- Fun Guy, a retro, rockin' platformer with mushrooms and music.
- Balance of Control, a game about keeping the peace in the city streets from the two rival gangs.
- Also: Blox - a dynamic platformer, Test-a-Ball - a challenging ball game, Fuzz - a cute strategy game and many more!
The private viewing is on Thursday June 28th from 6 - 9pm and the exhibition will continue until the 5th July. It will also include students' work from the Animation, Graphic & Media Design and Media Practice courses and many more! Let us know you're coming using the event on Facebook!
All of the details about the show can be found on the LCC website. We look forward to seeing you there!
We have officially finished this year of university, so now we talk about our plans for making games in the summer and beyond. Keith has a big announcement, we look at the 38 Studios collapse and talk about the UK industry compared with Hideo Kojima's descriptions of the Japanese industry.
Remember to subscribe in iTunes and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Keith Soomal, Omar Bobat
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
After a week of silence we're back in full force to bring you all the games insight you'll ever need. We look back at Andy Lemon's audio talk, we look forward to finishing our games and we gaze adoringly at Max Payne 3. We also talk about Sony's troubles and Activision's activities.
Remember to subscribe in iTunes and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Keith Soomal, Omar Bobat
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
Peter rejoins the line-up this week to talk about a whole bunch of things, from sound to depression. We talk about game exhibitions, how John Cleese thinks we can be productive, another new adventure game and a MMORPG that treats depression. Omar also has his weekly Trials gush, which is simply unmissable.
Remember to subscribe in iTunes and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Keith Soomal, Omar Bobat, Peter Holley
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
We are very lucky to have an interview with Col Rodgers on this week's show! Col is Chief Game Designer at Codemasters and is also working on an awesome car-wrecking game for iOS called Carnage. We chat about our new buddy Frazer Nash and talk about the latest game announcement to (not) shake the world: Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Don't miss this one!
Remember to subscribe in iTunes and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Keith Soomal, Omar Bobat, Dominic Aldridge
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
For a very special number 10, we've got a very special episode. It might not sound special, but it is! We spill the beans about the games we're working on this term, we discuss the visit from Codemasters and we become more nerdy than you could ever imagine when we talk about our New Star Soccer stats.
Remember to subscribe and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Keith Soomal, Omar Bobat
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
There's talk about the future, paranoia and Terminator this week so it was totally deliberate when Omar started turning into a robot. Totally deliberate. We also talk about Valve's eyewear solutions, Notch's new space programming game and governments playing the latest fighting/war game mash-up Age of Empires X Tekken.
Remember to subscribe and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Keith Soomal, Omar Bobat
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
There's a gaggle of game design students on the show this week talking about EA's latest controversy, Capcom's latest controversy and Keith conjures up 2013's GOTY in Wine Drinking Simulator.
Here are the links for some of the things mentioned on the show: Caine's Arcade, Jenova Chen interview and Limbo.
Remember to subscribe and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Keith Soomal, Shan Blackwood, Peter Holley, Dominic Aldridge
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
Keith and Shan join Sam around his virtual fireplace to talk about university, games and lots more. They leap from game jams to retail economics and from consoles to cats in no time at all, can you keep up?
Remember to subscribe and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Keith Soomal, Shan Blackwood
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
It's an intimate pod with only three hosts, but don't let that fool you, it was as triffic as it ever was! Dom cracks open a brew and elaborates upon his views about the Mass Effect 3 ending debacle, Sam shows his distaste for both hardcore and casual games and Keith holds it all together like several rolls of sticky tape.
Remember to subscribe and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Keith Soomal, Dominic Aldridge
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
Earlier this month millions of players saw the N7 chest plate leave the Normandy’s bridge for the last time; her engines are quiet now, and the stories of those she carried to war finished... WRONG! Unless you were perhaps stranded on a planet somewhere, you’ll probably have heard of the outpouring of displeasure by fans, at both the way in which the Mass Effect 3 endings were laid out and the endings themselves. In responce to this Bioware (the developers of the game) released a statement saying that they were looking at altering the end game sequences and cut scenes. This phenomenon brings up the idea of authorship and the question; even if the Bioware can change the ending, should they?
Let’s not forget fans have poured hundreds of hours into the Mass Effect canon, investing time in a game that promised the idea of player defined narrative. Surely then, from a moral and fiscal perspective it pays for the developers to tailor their game to make the most players happy; and not be too precious about maintaining the original content. Let’s not forget game development today is an iterative process with DLC and patches being a common occurrence either adjusting mechanics or adding new features, this plays to the malleable nature of game design. Chris Avellone, Obsidian’s Creative Director, writes “Our goal is to entertain our players. No one knows more about what they consider “fun” than the player themselves. While you can’t please everyone, there are iterations that make sense to do in DLC content and sequels… we designed a good chunk of Old World Blues to specifically revolve on you making a new homebase in New Vegas with all the improvements people were pointing out.”The problem with Mr Avellone’s example is that the changes made in the New Vegas DLC were used to help during the development process prior to publishing, not after the fact. Whilst I personally see gaming as more as a craft rather than a solely artistic process, I can’t deny that one of the places where artistry is strongest is in the creation of narrative and cut scenes. Unlike most gameplay these cinematics are pre-scripted and designed by the developers; so does this become a question of artistic licence and authorship? For example, it’s quite unlikely that people would reasonably expect a director to change the way he ended a film because they didn’t like it. Steve Gaynor, Level Designer on BioShock 2, comments“things like “cutscenes” and “endings” are completely authored by the developers, and the developers altering the authored content of a game after the fact has nothing to do with the systemic player-developer collaboration described above… It’s not unique to games; it is unique to a certain type of entertainment media that attracts fans who feel entitled to dictate exactly how the product should bend to their desires, instead of standing as a unique experience to be enjoyed, or not, on its own merits.”So is this just the self-entitled cries of the vocal minority? Well anyone looking for resolution from me will be disappointed when I say, I don’t know. Financially it makes sense for Bioware to modify their game to appeal to the most people possible; and given the nature of game development not be overly sensitive about their original creative vision. But when it comes to narrative I feel this negates the idea of creative expertise and may prevent storytelling at its’ most poignant, trying to please everyone may make no one happy. The design issue I have is this: one of the tenets of Mass Effect is living with the reality of your actions; changing the consequences robs the user of that reality. Fans could be depriving themselves of what the so crave, a solid resolution. Perhaps the most relatable thing players can take from Shepard’s life is that we don’t always get the story we want.So, what do you guys think post comments below…3, 2, 1….Thunderdome!Quotes were taken from an article in http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/23/mass-effect-3-ending-what-do-game-writers-think/
We've had a break from podcasting so we're back! Fresh-faced and raring to go or even more drowsy than usual, you decide! We talk about our productive Easter break, we give you good news and bad news about the UK games industry and Omar talks about his friend Jack Daniels.
Remember to subscribe and please leave a comment or e-mail us letting us know what you think.
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Keith Soomal, Omar Bobat, Peter Holley
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
Leap week means it's an action-packed, fast-paced podcast for you! We talk about cash grabbing mobile games, Keith gets SSXy, Sam gets his geography wrong and new podder Shan is as wise as he ever was.
Remember to subscribe and comment or e-mail letting us know what you think.
Download the MP3 directly.
Add the Podcast feed to your RSS reader.
Subscribe using iTunes.
Hosts: Sam Barker, Keith Soomal, Omar Bobat, Shan Blackwood
Music: http://www.purple-planet.com/
Against the Wall is a puzzle-platformer that looks very promising. Partly funded by a Kickstarter campaign, the game has a playable alpha version on it's website. Go check it out!