Delivered

The post production project is over and done with, so is cinematography, and as I write, my printer is churning out the two pages of masterfully constructed literary criticism that are due in tomorrow. Which concludes this term, though that won't stop me carrying on work on The Last Trophy  through Easter, plus a couple of other things I have planned.

I feel I've said all I need to about this and its been a good combination of excuses, pride, and information so enjoy the full clip.



Though me and Hugh didn't win at our small award ceremony, I believe we still deserve recognition for our epic use of lens flare, radial blur, and chromatic aberration.



And in case you wanted a peak inside such brilliant and creative minds, here is the interview we had to record as part of the project for some reason.
   


For some reason I completely neglected to put my showreel in an actual blog post, though it now has its own page on the blog. Or maybe I did put it up and can't find it/remember where it is. Hello Games, the company behind Joe Danger on the Playstation Network, put up a job listing and it sounded so perfect that I scrambled a very thin CV together, along with some turntables I rendered out specially, and my most presentable animation clips for the showreel. It took about a week and made me realise that I have a nice range of work from the my time here in Falmouth, but only a few things that really make me proud, or really illustrate the best I can be. I plan to correct those over the course of everything I ever do from now onwards.




These literature reviews feel like they really snuck up on me, one moment we're all sitting there having tutorials and talking about potential research and then suddenly five hundred words a piece seems insurmountably lengthy on the deadline unbelievably soon. Luckily, I visited the library on a sunny afternoon and found to my joy a whole shelf dedicated to videogame theory, study, design, culture. Even two books which I'd been considered ordering were there, who knew that such a holy place of academia could shelter works whose subject was the bastard medium of this generation? So the last few days have been dedicated to pretending its not warm and sunny, and my fascination with videogames extends to the dullest areas of the medium, wherein dwell subjects like procedural rhetoric, and incoherent world fiction...okay I lied, that stuff fascinates me too.

 Speaking of which, must be time for...

Pixel Propaganda

What was probably weeks ago, I read this piece that examines the ways in which a games systems might relate a story or theme to the player, its never been more relevant with all this research, and its still something that very few games are literate enough in their own mode of expression to do.

I completed my play through of Amnesia: Dark Descent, and its everything I hoped it would be, the enigma  of the whole scenario really picks up towards the end of the game and the focus seems to shift away from horror, in order to emphasize other emotions, though that doesn't make the memories you uncover any less disturbing. I wont include this screenshot except by link in case people don't want to see it but there were some pretty f*cked up tortures in the 17th century. (All Amnesia's tortures draw from actual historical events.)

Agrippa, your jawless buddy with a favour to ask.

As you reach the final leg of the game you are introduced to Agrippa, whose character is impaired a number of supernatural ways, but as the first living character you meet who doesn't want to dismember you, the player instantly forms a connection with him, and Agrippa offers the only chance from redemption in the game. Once again Frictional Games prove that use of contrast in their games creates storytelling moments that resonate much more with the player than 90% of AAA titles, which is pretty impressive for five guys in Sweden. Here's a blog post from them about character creation.

Once again Michael Thomsen provides an interesting take on a current release, this time being Killzone 3.

Though I wasn't at GDC, it appears a lot of content from the talks, seminars and panels can be accessed in audio, slideshow, and video form! AMAZING!


A little indie game called Trine came out a year or two ago, didn't seem like anything special, but its getting a sequel, my god is the trailer pretty:



My brain is too frazzled to proof read, so apologies for retardedness in the way of grammar and spelling.