Saturday, December 26, 2009

orion mod podcast 17 interview

Maybe three or four days ago, Podcast17 interviewed some of the members of the Orion mod team to discuss our feelings about the game postpartum. Praz (lead designer), Ezzy (lead level designer), and I (a guy they found passed out in the gutter) talked about upcoming changes to the mod with our Monday patch, various challenges with level design and design of the project as a whole, and our feelings about how things have been and where they might go.


The interview itself is roughly 45 minutes long, so listen in if you have either a lot of time or a lot of love for our project:



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Sunday, December 13, 2009

orion beta 1 is going live in less than 7 hours

The project that I've spent the last six months mapping for is releasing in just 1/3 of a day from now and I have a feeling it's going to be a pretty good show. Progress has been steady and I have to say that I'm proud to be part of a team that's able to get so much done in such a short period of time.

I'll be posting more on the game and my map after it's released tomorrow. In the meantime, here is some media from moddb:






And a video from our closed beta:



If you're interested, you can visit our website www.orion-project.net.

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Sunday, November 01, 2009

happy l4d halloween

This is by far the best duo costume I've seen yet. I say yet because if someone were to post a good boomer costume they would be the winner hands down.






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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

orion mod is drawing attention

I didn't want to say too much initially about the mod team I had joined, mostly because I didn't know right off the bat what kind of contribution I would be making and I didn't want to overstep my bounds as a new member. Now that I am making steady progress on my map and have been a part of the team for some months now I am confident and happy to say that I am a level designer for Orion Mod, which is a pretty slick sci-fi multiplayer mod if I do say so myself.



This mod looks like it's getting lots of really positive attention from the community and I am really looking forward to its impending release.

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Friday, September 11, 2009

of cosplay and swine flu

Four days now since PAX and I'm happy to say that I'm swine flu free. I wasn't exactly thrilled to hear that nearly 100 people got the disease while I was there, seeing as how I caught a cold the day I got back. I think my associates managed one synchronized eye-roll when I became that "I think I might have swine flu" guy for a day. I at least like to think I was acting cool and collected about it.


So, I mentioned the games that I played this last weekend but a nerd-con isn't anything without the army of costumed minions playing out their various characters. I didn't get as many pictures as I had hoped since my camera decided that it was actually a piece of crap. These are the pictures I happened to take while I was at PAX this year:








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Tuesday, September 08, 2009

pax 09 aftermath

Wow. This was without a doubt the greatest gaming venture I have ever participated in.


There's too much for me to talk about in one post without rambling, so I thought I would write about the experience in a few short bursts. This is easier for me since I have to get to work in an hour anyway.


I wanted to write about the games I played through first. I'll start with the bigger ones first:

Starcraft 2... Beautiful looking game! If Blizzard is good at one thing I'd say it's their ability to design a varied and fun RTS experience. I'm actually not as excited for this game because from what I saw and played, it was not really different from Starcraft in any significant way. That doesn't change the fact that it is a fun game that I will be buying the second it comes out.


Diablo 3... Again, same as with Starcraft. The one real change was in graphics (which I might add do not look like WoW graphics at all, if anyone was concerned about that). The graphics were PRETTY, and the gameplay was smooth and solid. I will grab this one when it comes out just because I know what a solid experience I will get from it.

Scribblenauts... Buy this game! It's a puzzle platformer for the DS where you must generate objects to overcome certain obstacles throughout the level. There are more than 10,000 objects available for the player to create, and almost all of them act intuitively with their surroundings. Just to explain how awesome this game is, I had a bear fighting a minotaur in shark infested waters. Yea.

Brink... The best looking shooter there in my opinion. It wasn't playable but we had a chance to watch a live demo and it was looking sharp! It gave you the option of playing one of two sides through the game, giving you two distinct views of the story. The gunplay was spot-on, considering it was made by the Enimy Territory team. They had implimented a novel feature that allows you to mitigate obstacles in your path in real time based on where you are looking as you are running. Say you want to jump over an obstacle, you just run at it while looking above it. I have high hopes.

Splinter Cell 2... Seeing as it's the fifth game in the series, you'd expect maybe a little stagnation. Not so. This game looks more intense than any other in the series and it seems that all of my complaints with the previous games have been taken care of. Again, this was only a viewable demo.

Avatar... I didn't have high hopes for it just because it is a movie game, and I'm sad to say it lived up to those expectations.

Borderlands... I didn't get a smooth play-through mostly because I had to jump in to a co-op game without getting a chance to learn the controls or the play mechanics. Once that was taken care of I got a pretty decent play through. I thought it was fun, but I'm hoping that it sweeps me off of my feet when I get a chance to sit down and play it in my own house.

God there are so many more games to talk about, not to mention the event itself. Check back soon for my next update!

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Thursday, September 03, 2009

heading to seattle tonight... pax tomorrow!

As I type this I am gathering up every last thing I'll need for PAX tomorrow and the two days after. This is harder work than I realized, what with all the hyping of this event that the internet and my brain are doing to me right now. At first I thought, "Okay, I've got clothes and a toothbrush. I'm set!"

Oh yea and I need my Magic cards too.
And my DS...
And the Gameboy Color just for the hell of it.

And food! The most important part. After all, I've got money for merch or food and frankly the merch is more important to me right now. So I threw all the food I could find into a bag. I think I have more Redbull than any one item. Sacrifices must be made since the damned thing is going from 10am til 3am the first two days. No time to worry about sleep now!

To top things off I decided to see if I could find any badass articles of clothing, since I'm going to be around thousands of my gaming brothers and sisters. First thing I found:


WIN!

I'll try to update throughout the weekend with pictures made of pure joy!

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Sunday, August 30, 2009

pax 2009 anticipations

This year I'm heading to PAX. If you're unfamiliar, PAX is a weekend long gaming expo that takes place in Seattle every year. They cover consoles, PCs, board games, card games, the list goes on. It's my first year driving down to Seattle to participate and I'm utterly blown away by how much is going to be going on down there. A few snippets from the various panels they'll be showcasing (at least the ones I'm going to try to hit up):

Hey Ash, Whatcha Filmin: How to make a moderately successful viral video series that confuses the hell out of people.

Game Design 101

Working with Fans to Create Better Video Games

How can we make online gaming communities suck less?

LIVE ON-STAGE DEMO – Assassins Creed®II and Splinter Cell Conviction

Penny Arcade Makes a Strip!

Star Wars: The Old Republic live demonstration


...the list goes on. And on. I mean, really, they are packing as much gaming into one convention center as I think physically possible. More than anything I want to go see those game demos. I've never had a chance to actually see something like that in person. The event map promises a slew of A-list game companies setting up shop in the convention center as well. I am completely amiss as to how I'm going to even come close to seeing and doing everything I want to there. I mean you might as well take a six year old and put them in a candy store the size of Walmart with a ten minute time limit.

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Thursday, July 30, 2009

the internet is back on!

Things tend to go awfully bizarrely when you move into a new place. Specifically the internet connection goes completely insane!



Okay... not that bad. But not fun either. I just went and bought myself a new 75' LAN cable to make sure I don't have any more problems with a slow connection with a love of disconnecting itself.

/rant

Soooo... now that I'm connected again, I'm working on some serious projects and working on some fun side-projects at the same time. If I can iron out a few wrinkles, I just might be able to add new pictures. I know it's the pictures that actually count for anything in these damn internets!

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Thursday, July 09, 2009

things that i want badly

L4D Sackboys! They fill me with glee and terror at the same time!



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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

dm_villa_b3 released 6/30/09

dm_villa_b3, the third beta version of my map is finished and is available for download.

dm_villa is a deathmatch map for HL2 that spans three levels vertically and spreads across a diverse playing field. Players will fight both in tight hallways and in open arenas, with interesting variations in texturing and lighting to make it more interesting. The bulk of the gameplay will take place in and around the villa which has been built into the side of a mountain. Underneath the villa itself is a network of caves and passages, leading players to various extremities of the villa itself.
This is a map best suited for anywhere up to 10 players.

Thanks again to everyone from interlopers, fpsbanana, and hl2dmu for play testing my map and giving my useful, constructive feedback! Updated pictures after the jump.












It feels like I've worked on this for the last three years. I'm done! The third beta is ready for review and play testing, and not a moment too soon! I'm going to have to start devoting my time and effort into moving into a new apartment now, which is why I'm extremely glad to have this off of my back.

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Tuesday, June 16, 2009

the tedium of perfectionism

So now that I'm 95% finished with my map, I've discovered that I'm willing to spend 95% percent of my effort on the finishing touches. The villa looks exactly like I want it to visually, and the graphics aren't taking up too much memory. I've been testing it and retesting it, and so far, it looks like it should run much more efficiently than the last version. In terms of file size, the map is one quarter the size of the last version, even though it's quite a bit bigger. I'm smoothing out the gameplay, but it's looking like it's on track too.

The hard part now is knowing when to stop. I keep making to-do lists, and every time I finish one I make a new one with five or six new tasks to complete. This is new to me, since I normally crap out after a few months. Maybe I'm just old enough now to make a task for myself and see it through to fruition. Whatever it is, I'm spending the bulk of my time just ironing out wrinkles, but I'm loving every second of it.

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Thursday, June 04, 2009

dm_villa beta 3 is nearing completion... again

It looks like my latest version of the villa is almost finished! Visually, it is close to what I want it to look like. I went through yesterday, taking all of my nice pristine architecture, and I covered it all with trash, graffiti, and wear and tear. It was quite satisfying!
As far as work needed, I need to optimize weapon and item placement, and I need to play through with different groups of players. I think I want to get some outside opinions on the visuals as well. Most importantly, the area portals need to be optimized to take it easy on older computers.
Yep, almost done!





















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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

just messing around

I've got a couple more pictures that I took just playing around with different lighting settings. If only this weren't too dark, I actually like this level of ambient lighting. The dark foreground with the brighter background produces quite the strange effect.



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Monday, May 25, 2009

new project, with pics



So now it looks like I'm stretching my poor self even farther! Ah well, I asked for it. I've gotten myself involved with another project, and it looks promising so far. I'm making a map for a HL2 mod, which shall remain nameless until further notice, but I can say that so far this project looks like it will be giving me plenty of opportunities to flex my creative muscle. I'm still working on the first project, so that means it's only a matter of time before I go completely insane. I'll make sure to update when that happens!







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