The Magic Circle
Videogames culture.
As such, that's my everything.
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Video Game Pixel Art - by Loweak
(via:insanelygaming)
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Internet Story by Adam Butcher
Enough science for today, how about a little internet murder mystery? Real or fake? I’m intrigued … well worth...
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How can I get Siri for my house?
This sounds like a question for Siri.
#infiniteloop
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Another new trailer for Super Mario 3D Land — I wasn’t kidding about all the media coming out for this today.
One of our readers was just...
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Super Mario Kart Cake - by letthemeatcake
For flickr user M.A.L.’s wedding, this special gaming cake is 100% edible. The planet design is...
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A couple sprite stages from Hiku-Osu, or Pull-Push, which released in the Japanese eShop this week.
I don’t think I’ve seen this...
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mrs-spock asked: This isn't a question, but I thought I'd tell a nerd joke. So, So Schrodinger and Heisenberg were driving in a car. Eventually, a cop pulled them over and ask Heisenberg, "Sir, do you know how fast you were going?" Heisenberg replied, "No, but I can tell you exactly where I was." Thinking this was a weird response, the cop decided to check the vehicle. He come back up to Schrodinger and asks, "Sir, did you know you had a dead cat in your trunk?" Schrodinger replied, "I do now." xD
You should take a bow for this one. Well played!
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“Screens and interfaces for a webgame.”
Submitted by Rodrigo Cruz in São Paulo, Brazil.
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Level Design Hub - The Best Night of My Life
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Pitching iloworld.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
I, Sergio De Natale, regarding the realization of this blog, concede to myself the most extensive freedom of decision about the content presented and I hereby swear that I will not give complaints, arguments or sue against this work, no matter what the final product ends up to be.
iloworld handout
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Stra3gy
Stra3gy Game Design Document (PDF, 18 pages)
Why
Stra3gy is the videogame that I created for my dissertation. The thesis consisted in writing a design document, making a prototype and a self-evaluation about the work done. For this project I decided to use Unity as game engine because of its flexibility and the fact that is widely appreciated by the industry.
What
Stra3gy is a fast-paced real time strategy game that involves three players contending the territorial control through conquest, diplomacy and cultural expansion. Players collect resources which are used to purchase units, buildings and technologies.
The main difference between most of real time strategy games out on the market is that players do not have a direct control on the units: what they do, as commanders, is giving orders from their fort, then the units follow predetermined paths to reach the destination. For example, military units, after being built, automatically begin to march towards one of the two enemy forts.
In Stra3gy the player gets control of one of three factions over a “board-game environment”. Stra3gy is set in an abstract context that excludes any reference in space or time. As in a board game, the only narrative is provided by the series of choices that each player makes. The game allows the player to make alliances with the other factions or to declare them war by using diplomatic and military units. Diplomacy is usually implemented inside slow-paced strategy games because diplomatic players tend to take decisions that can influence the game in the long-term. Stra3gy breaks the rules of the genre by simplifying the diplomatic process in a series of binary or triangular decisions that affects the game instantaneously.
Features
- Strategy but fun!
- A fast-paced strategy game that combines the simplicity of its rules to a rich system of choices and outcomes, as in a classic board game.
- Making and breaking alliances in real time donate intensity and uncertainty to the frenetic gameplay action.
- The first game where streamline rts mechanics are amalgamated inside a full 3D environment.
- Stra3gy is a game designed to offer social interactions and customizations, play it inside your browser or downtown using your smartphone or your tablet. Find other players and share your progress on your favourites social networks, trade and achieve experience points to increase your factions treats.
- Intuitive controls for all the different platforms.
How
Stra3gy is a game playable anywhere at anytime, for gaming sessions that could last 10-15 minutes or more. It is the kind of game that players would like to play during the lunch break or during a travel by bus. For this reason the platforms chosen are the web browser and the most successful mobile devices as iPhone and iPad. The engine that allows a fast development process on these platforms is Unity. Unity allows the developer team to focus exclusively on the creation of the game without having to face logistic issues like the creation of a graphic engine, the portability of the code or testing the efficiency of the net-code.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
iloworld
Iloworld Design Document (PDF, 18 pages)
Why
Iloworld is the individual game design project for my Digital Games: Theory and Design Master degree at Brunel University. The assignment consisted in pitching a game idea in front of teachers and some industry experts and then creating a game design document and a prototype made in Multimedia Fusion 2. The industry experts valued the game with a score of 84/100.
What
- Iloworld is a side scrolling puzzle-adventure game set in a sci-fantasy environment where the player gets control of two characters and uses their physical properties to solve puzzles and overcome challenges.
- In iloworld you assume the role of a robot called V3 and you also take control of a little blob creature called Ilo, you will find yourself in a planet where the technology is slowly taking place of the nature. These two characters have the skill to interact within each other and modify the environment to solve the puzzles. V3 is a robot who is able to throw Ilo in order to defeat enemies or to take advantage of the environment to complete the levels. In fact, the real protagonist of the game is Ilo and his powerful transformations.
- Each one of his transformation grants a different power or ability, depending on the element they are made of. For example, the ilo’s standard form is nothing more than a resilient solid ball but there are also fire, ice, magnetic and many other transformation forms available. The transformations are not intended only to exist only for the purpose of destroying the enemies or the environment but also and especially to change the level morphology in a way that allows the two characters two accomplish the overcoming challenges.
How
The game is structured as a 2D adventure game, that implies the skills required are not only reactions-based like in most of the platform games but also they involves problem-solving and backtracking. As in other adventure games, several zones of the game are not reachable until a particular ability has been acquired.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
The Best Night Of My Life
The Best Night Of My Life Design Document (PDF, 30 pages)
Why
The Best Night Of My Life is a game concept created by me and other three coursemates for our Master degree group project. Basically, the assignment was to pitch a game idea to a determined company/publisher of our choice and to write the complete design document starting from that idea.
What
The Best Night of My Life is a persuasive, social impact game about the use of drugs. It’s set within the mind of a teenager in drug overdose. As his physical body lies unconscious, his mind is entrapped in a state of limbo. Players freely explore this limbo and interact with several NPC that inhabit the area, each one of them represents a side effect or a risk of a specific drug. As players journey through the minds of these characters, the difficulty scales with the potency and danger of the drug. In order to complete the game, players must collect all of the puzzle pieces that reside within each level to finally unlock the avatar’s mind.
How
In terms of gameplay, The Best Night Of My Life doesn’t fit into a well-defined genre. Although the interaction modes change between each of the levels, each level maintains fundamental side-scrolling features such as jumping, running, avoiding obstacles or solving reflexed based puzzles. The player controls a single avatar (the adventure’s protagonist) and he leads him through the levels to get collectible objects.
Who
My role in the team was technical designer / director. I was in charge of defining platform, target audience, and genre of the game. I created some of the mock-ups, flow charts and the pseudo code. Moreover, I worked on the camera behaviours, controls configuration, the game flow and so on…
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Game Design Documents
Here, in chronological order, some of the design documents that I have written during the last year.
About Me
As stated in my twitter biography: A ludological entity that aspires to become GameDesigner and Master of the World.
I am currently working and improving the game prototype for my final design thesis. The Digital Games: Theory & Design master course allowed me to have a comprehensive understanding of the principles used in the design process of digital games. I learned how to write design documents and how to convert a game idea into a refined design. I learned how to make game prototypes from zero (and with the help of some assets) and I had the occasion to learn more about design directly from renowned guest lectures such as Peter Molyneux from Lionhead Studios.
This master, together with my knowledge in the field of HCI, software
usability, and programming skills gained during my undergraduate studies in Digital Communications gives to me a good set of knowledges to create solid and meaningful mechanics for the games that I am interested to design.
The goal that I am intentioned to achieve is to use my skills in order to innovate or improve the core mechanics of games, I am interested in an analytical and practical approach more than just working on the creative side of game design.
Specialties
# Working with game engines as Unity, Ogre3D, Multimedia Fusion 2
# Coding in Java, Javascript, C++, Objective C, C#
# Interaction Design, Flow Charts, Usability
Experiences
- Junior Developer - Trainee
Mixed Scarl - Privately Held; Entertainment Industry
April 2010 - September 2010
Design and coding of multimedia iPhone applications.
Certifications
- International English Language Testing System
- Driving Licence: A1, B
Education
Brunel University
MA Digital Games: Theory and Design, Game Design, Game Studies, Arts
2010 – 2011
It gave me the foundations how to right think during a design process, most of what I learned come from the teamwork, the project experiences that I made and from the guest lecturers (Peter Molyneux, Steve Gross, Ian Livingstone and so on)
Università degli Studi di Milano
Bsc Digital Communications, Computer Science, IT, New Media
2006 – 2009
The course combine two different areas as computer science and communication science and provides the knowledge of the information technologies applied to the new medias, teaching how to realise interaction-oriented systems. During this undergraduate course I worked on a couple of projects related to video games. The most important was the creation of a third person on-rail shooter using the open-source graphic engine Ogre and C++.
