Wrath of the lich king is here!

Wrath of the lich king is here!
This is my room right now.




Heres my box



My flat mate Dan with his collectors edition.
The queue at the midnight release.


The queue at the midnight release.
The queue at the midnight release.


I will review the game later but for the moment im busy playing!

Review: World Of Goo By 2D Boy

Well, being on a games programming course has changed my views somewhat of what makes a game good or bad. This review is written from the view of someone who does not want triple A titles like World of Warcraft to take over the gaming world (not that i don't enjoy playing WoW as u will most probably realise on the 13th of November as i go hyper over the release of wrath of the lich king).

World Of Goo was developed by "2D Boy" a company that consists of two guys. Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler make up the dream team. These guys have done an awesome job. This is on of the best games i have played in a long time and trust me i play allot of games!

Check them out at http://2dboy.com

The game basically consists of building structures out of "goo", a sort of cross between a creature and a flexible yet sturdy building material, to reach the goal which is a pipe that will suck up any goo that remains unused. The only game i can think of to compare this game to is the classic game Lemmings but with its crazy physics engine and the range of activities and puzzles in the game i believe it is far more than just a clone of an existing game like most modern titles seem to be.
The excellent cartoon graphics and the cleanness of the interface and interaction with the world make for an enjoyable gameplay experience. I have enjoyed every second i have been playing it and would highly recommend it to anyone.

I give this game 9/10 because it is so good. The only reason i would not give it 10 out of 10 is that it took me about 6 hours to complete and although there are elements within the game to keep you playing on after you have completed the story i did not feel compelled to play them. I will, on the other hand, pick this game up in about a years time and have fun playing the missions through again. I am sure of it.

World of Goo Trailer 2 Director's Cut
Uploaded by 2dboy

Ludology Assignment time!

So here we are on the 6th week of the course and my ludology assignment has has been set.
The assignment is cut into two sections. The first section is the "prototype" part of the assignment in which we must make a prototype remake of an old school game round the 8 bit or 16 bit era. This counts for 50% of the mark. The other 50% of the mark is based on the "pitch" section of the assignment. The is pitch is a "Dragons Den" style talk to the lectures as if they were publishers that you wanted to get to publish your game.
Games that are being remade by my class mates include Super Metriod, Megaman and Pacman.
I choose to remake the NES classic "Kirby's Adventure" since its such an awesome game.

Here is a screenshot of the original game.

My aim is to recreate it to the extent where the game feels the same to play and has all the features and retains the originals charm and to make the game as fun to play as humanly possible.
This is my first attempt in Photoshop of the art that i will use in my game.

I am currently busy at work creating character animations and all sorts of stuff that should be left to an artist. Eventually i will have all my art assets ready for use and i can concentrate on the programming.

While i do this assignment i must remember also that my Computer Architecture assignment must also be completed. A 1500 word report on the development of a technology of our choice over the last 30 years. I will post more about this once i have had more time to think about what i might do.

For now i must get on with my work. I'll post soon.

The Course

In this post I'm gonna run you through the course i am on. I realise that i should have started this blog a few weeks ago but in all honesty i have been out partying... I will fill you in on what i have been up to on my course from when i started till now in some later posts.

As i have said before a BSc (Hons) Computer Games Programming degree at Derby University. The course consists of 3 years at uni with a compulsory year out in industry between the 2nd and 3rd year. The modules you do each sumester run something like this.

I am sure that these modules hold many amazingly interesting and exciting things but for the moment i am only qualified to explain what the first semesters modules involve.

Ludology
Ludology literally means the study (ology) of games (Ludo being the Latin word of games). In this module we look at a wide range of subject with-in games, including information about the games industry, where it is going and where the money is. We learn about games as an art form, the indie games movement and i am such that I will learn much more in the weeks to come.

Software Development I
Software Development I is a module that is done by most of the school of computing. This module consists of learning to program in C# from the ground up. The idea of this module is that you need no prior knowledge of programming at the start in order to pick up programming in C# and become a programmer. That is not to say that prior knowledge does not help you in this module. I studied A level Computing at Brockenhurst Sixform College where i learnt to program in Visual Basic.NET. This has helped me in this module allot and i am currently finding the work very easy although still interesting.


Computer Architecture
Like Software Development I, Computer Architecture is a module that is done by most of the school of computing students. This module is all about the hardware of your computer from the perspective of a software engineer. Once again studying A Level Computing at Brockenhurst Six form College has helped me hugely in this module. I have already studied allot of the stuff this module covers, including number systems, microprocessors, and, Compilers, interpreters and virtual machines.


Basic Maths Technique
This module did worry me when i saw it at first but in all honest if you have any knowledge of basic calculus then this module is a breeze. If you don't know about calculus then all is not lost because the module leader does clam that you should have to know no more than GCSE mathematics to get into this module and learn from it. I on the other hand have been watching people struggle with the maths, these are the people who have not done maths at A Level. If you are dedicated enough and spend enough time at maths clinics and working through the tutorial work then it is possible to do well in this module though, do not be scared.

The Computing Environment
The Computing Environment is still somewhat of a mystery to me. Basically its a module with one semesters work spread over two semesters with lectures running once a fortnight for the whole year. The module itself in general to the school of computing and almost everyone has to do it. The good news however is that if you are on the CGP (computer games programming) then your tutorials will be lead by one of the games lecturers and they try their best to make the stuff in the general lecture relate to games. For instance studying research papers on AI programming in games rather than studying a paper on router technology that networking students may have to study. Apart from that i cant tell you much more other than that so far we have read papers and discussed the referencing systems in them learnt about the Harvard system of referencing. Luckly for me i studied this system of referencing in A Level Archeaology.


I will update you one work that i get for these modules and maybe i will be able to tell u exactly what you do in computing environment soon.

The start of all things blog like.

Hi, this is the start of my blog.

Ill start by telling you what is going to be include in this blog, why I'm going to bother polluting the web with my waffle and who i am.
I am AJ, full name Andrew Jones, i am currently at student at Derby University (England). The course i am studying is BSc (Hons) Computer Games Programming (http://www.derby.ac.uk/games). One of the most important things to me is to become a games programmer.
I'm not going to pretend that i am a good writer and i am dyslexic and so i apologise for the bad writing, grammer and spelling (although i do have a spellchecker here).
This blog is basicly going to contain some ramblings about:

• What i am doing on my course.
• Anything relvant to my course.
  
• Anything i am intresting in thats happening in the games industry.
• And basicly reviews of games and gadgets i may buy.

The reason i think this is worth blogging about is that people who want to learn how to program games and people intrested in the games industry may find my blog informative and find it relivant to thier intrests.

I hope this will intrest and entertain you.

¬
AJ