Running Gym Reading Game development Rule systems Presentations Math Software Engineering DirectX

Since Fortune favours the brave, its just over 8 weeks until I need to present my concept for a new game. Something that’s called a ‘game pitch’ in the industry.

We already hit the ground running in the first lecture by discussing an playing a board game designed by one of the course lecturers.

Basically, we had to assess what the game rules were and then play it, and then talk about what makes a game fun or challenging and then discuss how we could make it better.

It was actually quite empowering because right there you could decide to change the dynamics of the game, throw away stuff you didn’t like and add new stuff you thought was cool. And just to think, we’ve really always had the ability to define what we like or dislike if we take the plunge and take ownership and make the rules - that's the privilege of the creator, and that's something we can do in life too and not be subjected to. Sometimes we just don’t know that we can do anything, we look for permission when the choice is right there in front of you, and only you need permission from yourself. I think that’s what makes creating things so empowering – you’re the big boss dude.

The game was a strategy game like say, StarCraft or Age of Empires, where you have units and they give/take battle damage, gather resources etc. and though I've never been into turn-based games, board or virtual alike, it was fun to be doing something so radically different in a computer lab.

Mind you, at one stage they were talking about 'back in the day' playing dungeon keeper and I'm like thinking instead Doom, Quake, WarCraft etc... I ain't no dice-throwing hippie ok? I did that when I was like 4 and outgrew it, but ok, I can see how it maps to say real-time strategy games that I used to play, so that's fine by me. But dice is old school. 

I got to play in a group of four people (there were 18 of us in total so around 4 groups), three of the people I’d already met very briefly in the pre-course introduction a week earlier.

Although I don’t really know these people that well - what we all have in common is that we want to learn how to create computer games and so we’re not too hung up on ceremony or bureaucracy – we just want to talk about and engage in all things games and stuff that we like.

Ok, we're not yet talking about the physics, the AI, 3D  or even any programming at this stage and that's what I'm looking forward to but the ease of social integration felt great and social interaction is stimulating when everyone is interesting(and everyone's story about why they want to create games is interesting).

During the lecture, we were asked what was our favourite games and I said Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning and the guy next to be nodded in approval and it was awesome because at the break we and some others got talking in the corridor about our backgrounds. It was a good ice-breaker (not like corporate ice-breakers, those are the worst!).

So far, I’ve enjoyed the interaction with like-minded people, even the group work and the lab activities are stimulating. Usually, there is always a disconnect during peer-to-peer activities which I find boring and awkward but this hasn’t been like that at all.  People want and the same thing and are interested in the same thing. 

This one guy was a software engineer in electronics and automation (he had a mofo beard), another was already in the gaming industry making games, another had a Software Engineering background like me, another was a consultant for IBM and others were a mixed bag really. Some were looking to break into the gaming industry, others just fascinated with the tech.

From a practical course content point of view, It looks like there is going to be a lot of content in this course and this course is setup to not only design a game concept but also ‘pitch’ it in front of your peers and then create a game prototype in Unity. All within 10 weeks! Or at least that's only the first module. 

The game design and concept are more a theoretical and creative endeavour and as such will probably stretch me the most, I'm no debater, but maybe I am (sometimes a little variety and change is all your need!), however, there is a series of computer lab work using Unity which we’ll use to implement our ideas which I think will be interesting for those more technically motivated. I’ve not created a unity game, but the scripting engine is in C# so this will be interesting.

I’ve been revising my digital forensics course work each morning, and have therefore started revising for the upcoming exam which is nearly upon me. I got my last assessment back and am relatively happy with the feedback I got around my intelligence report and investigation. I’ve not yet got feedback about my interview but that went fine too.

I’ve definitely got forensics on the brain at the moment. For example, the other day, I was walking to lunch and one of the guys was talking about surveillance and my brain just flashed RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act)! I'm also quite relating various computer crimes I hear about in the media to the laws that surround it, mostly unauthorised access, DDOS and fraud, that sort of thing...

With respects to my game dev coding project, I’ve put the brakes on it for now (timing) however I’m at a good position in my knowledge from a technical point of view. I’ve got a solid theoretical viewpoint and understanding of the concepts and having talked to my course director, we’ll be focusing more on OpenGL instead of the DirectX that I've been learning but they are much of a muchness themselves and a lot of what I’ve learnt around DirectX will be transferable so that’s ok and I’ll continue forward with it in the future. My understanding of 3D vectors, affine transformations and Matrices will still apply. So I’m happy about that.

So, while I ease back on the game programming, I have been reading about Game Architecture and Design as this is now required reading for my course.

During the week I caught up on the highlights of the Rugby World cup and this weekend I watch some more.

I Watched a bit of Athletics(World champs) and Rugby (Wales vs Australia) on T.V and I read about the new 43-year-old world-champion walker which is inspiring and well I'm not dead yet! Then again, look at Rodger Federer and Serena Williams as cases in point. Anway, Christian Coleman blew away the competition in the 100 meters but South Africa made the top 4(not bad for a 3rd world country eh?).

South Africa's defending champion in the long jump, Manyonga bailed out, unfortunately, and I enjoyed watching the Netherlands' Sifan Hussain in the 10,000 meters employ a sound strategy, to overcome Kenya's Helen Obiry and Ethiopia's Gidey and become the world champion.

 

Did some more Digital Forensics, read more of Andrew Rollings and Dave morris's Game Architecture and design"...

Now that I'm thinking about it, I’m slightly apprehensive and nervous about coming up with all the elements necessary to design a game, including thinking about the gameplay, plot, settings, story, interactivity etc. I think a large part of game design is about creativity and artistry which I’m not that well practised in. But this can change.

As with my C/C++ course that I took earlier in the year, I tend to get home around 22:30 on lecture nights but that does give me some time to think about it all on the train back. The other bonus is I tend to get a seat but strangely enough its quite busy around 20:00 onwards. I figure its the people who stay after work for drinks because they are always slightly animated.

That's my gaming endeavours at the moment. I’ve also invested part of my time to learning and defining my knowledge of number theory which has been interesting. I’ve finished reading a brief but excellent survey of Mathematics by A.D Aleksandrovy way of the first part of the book, Mathematics: Its Contents and Methods and Meaning which I’ve found both insightful and interesting. This has sparked a newfound enthusiasm for describing generalities and properties of generalities in things. Obviously quantitative generalities and spatial generalities form the basis of arithmetic and geometry and generalities of functions and dependencies are the basis of analysis. 

I’ve also decided to take a course on Network Security, so that should kick off the month after my Exam and partway into my Games course which should provide an interesting contrast in the subject matter and provide some opportunity for creative time management!

I’m still not running but I’ve compensated by going to the gym before work, which is great and while it does tire me out and make my day that much longer, it does provide the necessary compromise I require.  I’ve been thinking of including a run during the week but so far the balance between being healthy and not getting sick is a fine one, managed only by my perception of sleep fatigue.