Well, I finally raided my camera and updated Flickr. So the pics from my birthday (some of them, at least) can be found here. A lot of the rave ones were blurry, so I posted the ones that were easiest to make out.

In other news, we have a promo poster for RagnaRokk, and it's pretty great:


Other than that, things are moving along at their usual crazy pace. Will try to post again soon. Night all!

So, by preordering Hellgate: London, I got myself a pass into the game's beta test, which is going on right now. I have to say, I am REALLY REALLY EXCITED to play the full game. I know some people have been complaining that it's too much like Diablo, but guys, DIABLO WAS AWESOME. There is nothing wrong with more Diablo. That said, this is TuathaKane:

Tuatha is a Templar Guardian. He is 7 feet tall. He carries a flaming sword, and he kills demons with it. He is without a doubt the best MMO character I have ever created.

So, long story short, those of you who are planning to join me for Hellgate: London, get excited. It is lots and lots of fun.

I know, I owe you guys a post about last weekend, and I'll get that up tomorrow night after my meetings are done. So, you know. Everyone who doesn't care about Hellgate will have a more interesting post soon ;-)

Stories (and more pictures) later, but for now: http://flickr.com/photos/dihughes/1465103555/

Hi there!

Just a quick update before I toddle off to bed:

-Ragnarokk (the viking game) is going rather well, though we had a bit of a setback this weekend. Turns out there's another student game out there that uses the guitar controller, and it's called Ragnarawk. Their game isn't really very much like ours, but just to be safe, we're going to have to change the name of our game. If anyone has any brilliant ideas, send 'em my way!

-My intermediate game class project has taken shape, finally. The game is called Polyphony, and it's...well, it's a bit odd. You have this plant, and depending on what fertilizers you put on it, different kinds of flowers will grow out of it. Now, different types of flowers correspond to different notes, so the idea is to get the plant to grow the right flowers in the right order such that they form a given melody. Sound trippy? Yeah, that's because it is. I was in a meeting the other day, thinking to myself "Okay, so if I were to add a square flower to a triangle flower, that would make...a star flower?" And at that moment, I realized I had lost my mind. Oh well. Shape/botany math aside, here are some of the images from the game (drawn by yours truly, unbelievable as that may be to anyone who's ever seen me try to draw):
This is roughly how our music/shape system works. Basically, if you've ever seen shape notation (used to be used in protestant hymnals back in the day), then you know where the concept for this comes from. We have our first playtest of this game on Wednesday, so my partner and I have furiously been churning out art and code for the past week. Here's hoping we're ready!

-I'm working on another presentation for the Game Deconstruction Group. This month's selection is Bioshock, which if you've spoken to me in the last month, you know is my current favorite game ever. I have until late October to build the presentation, so I'm taking my time in getting the research put together.

-My world building class is chugging along. This is the class where we spend a semester just coming up with a fictional world, and really getting into the details of how that world works. By the end of the semester, we've assembled something like an atlas, with maps, descriptions/pictures of the inhabitants, descriptions of the ecology, etc. My world is called Altepehua, and it's an alternate history story. The basic question that created Altepehua is, "What would happen if Europeans hadn't reached the New World until the late 19th century? How would the native civilizations have developed and spread, given an extra 400 uninterrupted years to do so?" In other words, how would the Incan, Mayan, and Aztec civilizations have grown and changed if Europeans hadn't basically annihilated them? I'm reading a lot about the history of these cultures, and trying to project how I think they would have changed (and interacted with each other) if left to their own devices. Those who are interested can read more as the story develops here: CTIN-532 Class Blog

Well, it's 3am, and I still have more Polyphony art to do, so I should probably stop procrastinating and get to it. Hope you all are doing well, and be sure to check back next week for pics of my birthday adventures. We're going to a pirate themed restaurant (like Medieval Times, but with pirates) and then to an all night techno festival in downtown LA. I am quite sure there will be massively entertaining stories and pictures from this little outing. Until then, hasta luego!