Back on the blog.
Some 3d doodle guys from the DADIU projects I did have started a small game company called Sapling.
Another programmer and I are going to help them create some code that make their great graphics come to life.
For now we are doing a pilot project called Zumbi-e: a zombie shooter with some RTS/Puzzle elements in it.
nicolaj.schweitz@gmail.com if you would like to read my thesis. Otherwise, read on and get an overview of my thoughts behind.
With a vantage point in the term Game Polish, I have proposed a simple method for designing games independently from any specific production methodologies.
The study was made in the spring of 2009 through correspondences with members of the International IGDA Game Design SIG and other forums dedicated to game design.
The main cornerstones of the study is Polish, Appeal, and Measures – all elaborated in the report.
The conclusion of the thesis proposes a simple methodology of designing games that is independent of software production methodologies.
While doing my MSc in Medialogy, I took part in two productions at DADIU (Danish Academy for Digital Interactive Entertainment).
My second production was called Exodroid and was made in Unity3D using C# and Visual Studio Express. This production took place in March 2009 while I was writing my essay and master thesis , so these are somewhat interconnected.
As game programmer on this project, I gained experience using C# with Unity3D. Furthermore, I took an active part in developing the design and the production itself.
I participated in the project while writing my master thesis, therefore much of the discussion and conclusion is somewhat related to this project.
Simple C# script to trigger theme music at certain points in the game:
A little C# helper for some tedious tasks:
In January 2009 I attended Global Game Jam with the game Dusk of Ninja And Brush.
The game was made in Unity3D using C#. My contribution was a little programming, part in the game design and virtually most of the sound design and implementation.
Go check out the game at the Global Game Jam website. There are tons of other experimental games there as well.
Check out Computerworld’s report on Global Game Jam (Danish).
See you next year!
Well, ain”t that a rant…
I”m writing this post because I recently read a paper seeking to define the term casual in relation to video games (check the presentation slides that comes with it). Then I found a post on indiegamer.com discussing this very question.
My approach is grounded in the academia but moving towards the real deal, the practical implementation, or you might say, the geeky know-a-lot-but-haven”t-really-tried-it-properly-yet approach. That is except for my experimenting in my spare time and at the university not to mention my recent internship in a game company called Titoonic in Copenhagen.
In short the paper categorizes terms of “casual” in relation to games into the following:
In my humble oppinion it is nice to have a clear definition eventhough some people think it is waste of time and goes “no speak – make game”. I wonder where the cultural and technical evolution would be if everyone thought like that when they discovered the wheel.
Anyway… I want to give my support to the guys in Tampere that like to explain the buzz. Kudos!
9th Semester/Internship
Spending time in “the real world” was a great lesson for me. Besides the academic work, described below, I gained first hand experience in what it takes to deliver production quality flash games. Go see the cases Jul i Sonofonhuset and Tron – Light Cycles.
This was a project where I took part as game design and programming intern in Titoonic a/s in late 2008. The production time was one month. My main tasks on the project was game design, sound design, and sound programming (where the sound engine was added to the company’s codebase).
The sound manager class which is an adaptation of Matt Przybylski’s code found here.
(8th Semester)
In the early days of computer games the sound was created using simple synthesis techniques, but as the development of better processors and larger storage media, the development lead towards the use of wave-table synthesis, which has become the most used technique in current computer games. Since the introduction of the wave-table synthesis the development in audio creation and playback in games has stagnated.
One of the latest fields within sound synthesis is physically modelled, which holds great potential, within games and interactive environments, because of its more dynamic nature. An area in which very sparse research has been done is measuring the impact of physically modelled sound in computer game environments. This has lead to the following problem statement to be formulated: To which degree does physically modelled sound enhance physical immersion in first person computer games?
This project has analysed theories proposed by several authors within the fields: immersion, narrative and gameplay in computer games, audio in computer games. These fields and their different theories have formed an ontology for the project, upon which an application has been build. The application consists of a Half Life 2 modification, which makes use of the Nintendo Wii controllers, together with a modal sound synthesis.
There is no such thing as human computer interaction (HCI) as there is a human, in the role of a designer, behind all computer systems. The concept of HCI is therefore a way to describe interesting ways* for humans to interact through computer systems. Hereby I propose that there is no such thing as HCI because computers do not provide information in any form. Computers are tools to mediate information between humans. What is being discussed here is the interaction between a human and a machine concerning the information that is being exchanged. One might argue that the interaction between a human and a machine is possible, however, this is without meaning because an interaction is an exchange of information and only living things can provide information. (more…)
Having done my bachelor on games, it is time to move on to something more specific, namely how head-related transfer functions can be used in real time – or actually we have found research on efficient algorithms that simulates HRTF but does not directly use HRTF-databases.
Anyway, as 7th semester medialogy master student at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, I take part in creating an audiovisual augmented reality (AR) installation that uses visual tracking and simulates HRTFs. My interest lies in how 3D-audio can become more vivid without using too much system resources and how important it is (i.e. to what extend people notice differences of off-location spatial audio).
From my part, and my associate mr. Anders Fredslund, we will create an external for Max/MSP that handles HRTF and hopefully it can be used to other than testing our theses.