Wednesday 1 May 2013

A Breath of Fresh Air and a Cup of Tea

So despite (and quite possibly because) it's just over 3 weeks until I finish our last project at university I've been thinking about other projects I want to get started on!

Not that I'm not enjoying Echoes, it's still a good project and continually teaching me new things as I work towards the deadline. However, the team is rounding a lot of things up now, and we've learnt a lot about the mistakes we've made and I'm really looking forward to making a project where I can take the things we've learnt and avoid them in the future. Also, it'd be lovely if I didn't have to see another creepy little devil girl this year.

At the moment the team I've been directing for Echoes are talking about what projects we want to work together on during the summer. 

Personally, I have in mind two things which I want to develop during the Summer.



I want to develop a mod in CryENGINE during the summer, after working in Unity I've built up a lot of confidence working in games engines and feel like CryEngine is the next place I want to develop my engine skills. I have very much enjoyed the level design aspect of my role within Echoes, and it's a skill I can really see myself developing and working in within the future. My first idea is unsurprisingly inspired by Crytek, though more specifically (and possibly embarrassingly) Fibble – Flick 'n' Roll. I know, I know, all that power and I want to do something cutesy that Crytek did with their mobile engine? True, however I like to believe that games don't have to be all gribbles and mundane realism. Also, while I'm thinking something colourful and light, I'm not necessarily thinking the simplicity of mobile games. One of the things I really admire about Crytek is the beauty of their games, and CryEngine has the reputation that goes with that, and I would like to work on something which I would hope has the potentional to look just as visually stunning as Crytek's games.




Another company which is influencing me at the moment is Blizzard. I've always been a great fan of their games (and trust me, once major project is over I will finally be getting Mists of Pandaria!). I love the art style, I love the cinematics  and I think they generally have a very high standard of tone and feel to their games. I would love to work on something similar as I feel the games have such a good environment and amospshere to them it's something I would love a chance to recreate.  I'm not entirely sure where I want to take this inspiration. I'm currently thinking I want to take this down a more Starcraft route than fanatsy, as I've worked a lot on fantasy settings while at university and want to grow more into different areas. I'm tempted to do something influenced by Kerrigan, but take it down a more techy route than an alien route and see where that goes. I'll most likely want to do some sci-fi environments to go along with, but it'l depending on what other people I know are interested in working on, as I'd prefer to work as part of a team and create something bigger together than just do a character and some environment sets and then have nothing more to do with them!

And so, on with Echoes! Just to get this project finished and then I can delve into the potentional of new projects once this one's over.

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