I almost could not believe it. The pitch went amazingly. Our demo looked fantastic. The Q&A section was enlightening and well-fielded. I felt like all of our hard work paid off. Then, the other teams presented and it seems we were not the only ones with good games on our hands. I'm not going to lie, I was very nervous coming out of the conference room where we all pitched. Each team had an original idea that would do fantastic with three more months of development. Want to hear how it all went down? Read on!
We're IN! UBISOFT HERE WE COME!
Level Design, We Meet Again!
The meeting last night went great. The team seemed to be in great spirits about our game and are working on tweaking a few minor aspects to the experience. Most of them deal with enemy A.I and adjusting our character's walk animation with their walk speed. Seeing how much my teammates have built in what has been essentially a 2 1/2 week development cycle (including the holidays!), I volunteered to complete the construction of our tutorial. I have had the most experience with level design in past projects, and I recently completed an entire class in level design taught by EA Salt Lake's, Joe Bourrie. I just seemed like the right man for the job. Then I sat down and began crafting it...Read on to see what it looks like!
Back in SLC, Back to Work
I just landed in SLC and I'm already working hard on my Ubisoft pitch with the rest of my team. In fact, I have a meeting with them in a few hours to go over the final adjustments of the 3 minute demo will be shown alongside the pitch. The majority of the environment should be built by now as Jason K did a version of it over the course of this week. The two final things that need to come together between tonight and tomorrow is populating the level with the flora and fauna of the jungle that Isaac created and then placing the tutorial triggers within Unity for our audience to grasp the progression of our game.
If all goes well, then on Monday we should be giving one hell of a presentation to our panel. Although I'm excited to see what other students in the program have created, I am also nervous as well. My team and I worked hard on what we believe is a truly original idea that we can win the competition with. If most of the other teams have been as motivated as us, it should prove to be an interesting few hours of pitches.
Now, off to the meeting I go!
Holidays are Over! Relax Time
Finally! All of the presents are bought, 2013 is here, the apocalypse didn't happen yet, and I'm hanging out on the couch playing some Portal 2 - not a bad way to relax for the next few days before heading back to SLC. I'm truly relaxing too! I've taken the next couple of days off to hang with friends and family before I return to working on my Ubisoft project. Not too much to update on that either. We may have a few bugs where the main character ends up flying in the air when they walk backwards but I'm confident we can tune our demo and finish our level design before I give the pitch to the panel on January 7th (so soon!).
In the meantime, I'm going to chillax with some GladOS potatoes and a side of Wheatley.
-Andrew
We've Got Concept Art!
Isaac just sent this concept art of our game for the Ubisoft project. Looks pretty amazing!
Vacation? Nope. Ubisoft Game Lab Begins!
It's winter break and you'd think I'd be kicking back, drinking out juice out of exotic fruits in the harsh cold of Boston but NO! Instead I am working on a prototype for the Ubisoft Game Lab competition that the EAE program was invited to participate in. My team is one of four competing to represent the UofU in the final competition at Ubisoft Montreal. There are about 17 other schools also entering into the competition but we are the only participant from the United States! What is my team's idea you ask? Read on to find out!
Last Week of the Semester and Beyond!
The end of this week marks the official end to my first semester as a master's student within the EAE program. What a crazy four months it has been!
