Feedback from Mark Sample

After the two day training experience, Mark Sample of Ubisoft Reflections kindly gave some feedback on how it went. He said:

"James would often step up during the sessions to get the ball rolling in our creative workshops. His attitude to challenge concepts and deliver new ideas really helped with the team dynamics. I found him articulate and convincing. He could well be a future design or producer in the games industry."

Mark Sample, games developer for Ubisoft Reflections.

Ubisoft Reflections Training Days

A group of us did 2 days of training with Mark Sample, a game director/producer with Ubisoft Reflections at the Tyneside Cinema. He showed us the basics of how the concept for a game is created, how the characters will develop, how the story will unfold.

During the training days we did brainstorming for a number of different game ideas whilst under a number of restraints and game specification. In the end we had ideas for both app based games and online purchase games.

Our app based game or “crisp packet treasure hunt” as we called it was based on the Google app Goggles which allows you to search the internet using pictures you have taken. The basic idea was to go on a treasure hunt to find generic objects from a list, such as a packet of Ready Salted Crisps and take a picture of it.

The online purchase game we decided to design was based around stealth as we thought that this would fill a gap in the market. We designed multiple levels for it and multiple characters. However after only a couple of hours we realised how much work would be required to develop a fully fledged AAA game. After about an hour we were told that we had to pitch our game to Mark. This helped us see what it was like to have a sudden deadline.

These training days were probably the most interesting experience so far of the Gold Arts Award. 

I'm Back...

So after a bit of a break I’m back working on my gold arts award. Trust me I know it’s been a long time but since my last post but a lot has happened in that time. Between university interviews, exams and school work I have volunteered at Berwick film festival, complete my training days with mark sample and organised and complete my event.

During this time away I have realised that my original time table did not take into account other work that I had to get done. This has resulted in me being drastically behind schedual.

Just a quick update on progress

Just making a quick update of the progress I have made in the past few weeks. Most stuff is mentioned in this cringe worthy presentation but since this has been done I have visited Woodhorn (a blog about that will be appearing soon), sent of questions to the organizers of the exhibition, collected a large amount of footage for my creative work which i am just starting to put together (I know I'm a bit behind in my schedule) and started to put together my discussion for unit 1. In addition the Ubisoft training days have been confirmed for this Sunday and next. i will post a blog on how that goes.

My thanks to Arts Award Leader Adam Graham for this footage.

Shut up you F#*!ing Noob

Although one of the so called advantages of online gaming is the ability to access a community, the majority of those gaming seem unable to interact with other players in a friendly way. This may be because of the competitive aspect of these games, but in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare especially there is a large number of verbal attacks on players. As a result I have been unable to ask the majority of people on these games for their opinion on online gaming. Instead I have been getting drawn into these arguments and took some inspiration from our weekly meetings (warning excessive swearing)

Timeline for Gold Arts Award

This is a rough time line for the completion of each unit of the Gold Arts Award with key events included. This will help me keep track of my progress and my overall work load.

Woodhorn exhibition                                                                                                     05/09/2011

Unit 1 part A completion                                                                                               07/09/2011

School restart                                                                                                                08/09/2011

Ubisoft training days                                                                                                    in September

Berwick Film Festival volunteering (Unit 1 part B)                                                                                                                                        25/09/2011

Unit 1 part D completion                                                                                               01/10/2011

Unit 1 part C completion                                                                                               15/11/2011

Project completion                                                                                                         end of 2011

Progress Update for Last Few Weeks.

Just a quick update on what I have been doing that past couple of weeks and how it is going overall.

Week 1

Began to look into possible games I could look at to investigate the appeal of online gaming.

Meeting 1

·         Finalised topic for Unit 1 Part A as investigating the appeal of online games.

·         Film quiz 1 score 4/8

·         Watched “Event Horizon” and played “Dead Space” comparing and contrasting the two.

·         Looked at blogs and other work produced by people doing Gold Arts Award.

Week 2

Unable to work as I was away.

Week 3

Set up Blog with confirmed title and a small description of what I would be doing.

Meeting 3

·         Played a series of demo games and dicussed the appeal of demos and whether they ever influenced the purchase of a game. The games played were Limbo, Outland and Swarm. Compared the differences of Limbo (scary) and Outland as they were both 2D games.

·         Setup an initial timeline for objectives (to be posted)

·         Film quiz 6/9

·         Watched “Blood Simple” by Coen Brothers.

Week 4

Started to attempt to contact people while playing online games such as Call Of Duty Modern Warfare. Complete failure blog to explain coming soon.

Meeting 4

·         Time line confirmed

·         First blog  rewritten up and posted.

·         Film quiz 3/10 (getting harder)

·         Applied for Berwick Film Festival

·         Debate idea chosen online gaming versus single player games

·         Watched “The Big Lebowski” by Coen Brothers as backup film.