I was given a small Game design task by a prospective employer and this task has required my game design -eligible part of my brain. Fortunately I’ve now finished working out the idea I had and should soon return to the task at hand.
I was given a task to design a level to a game and given character around which the game revolves. I have a question for you hordes out there. Do you think a walk-through would be a good way to demonstrate my idea?
I have been thinking about more practical issues concerning my apprentice-project. I have always thought that something like this should be made in Java to allow as wide an availability as possible. I also think that something like this should be made as easy as possible to produce, even at the cost of efficiency. Especially since this project isn’t primarily meant to display my mad coding skillz. And there are plenty of computational resources on todays computers to squander.
Being as easy on me as possible means that I want to make use of existing components as far as possible. This means they have to be fitting licence-wise. Fortunately this doesn’t seem to be an issue for me, since most these components are released as Free software or at least Open source. I have been looking for a physics and a 3d-engine.
ODE (Open Dynamics Engine) sounds suitable for my needs, only it isn’t in Java. Versions of it do exist for the 3 major platforms, so I don’t consider this a major problem. It’s usability with Java is an issue, however. There exists a wrapper (ODEJava) for Java that provides a bridge to allow it’s use in Java. As this is a work-in-progress the price is unstability.
For the 3d-engine I’ve been considering jMonkeyEngine which seems more than capable for my needs and is Open source as well. And seems to have a interface for ODE as well. I’ll have to set-up these things and get experimenting.
I have added a short description of the Apprentice on the project page. My intention is to have a separate page for the project itself. At this point I take it given that unless I don’t post exact timetables, I don’t have to point out that “it’s coming soon” or use other temporal designates. My aim is to release to something on the 2nd of June this year. Whether it will be a subset of Nokkapokka or something else, I make no claims just yet.
I have been thinking about this for awhile. In order to get oneself lodged into the Game Industry one needs work experience, at least here in Finland. Master’s degree means dick. In order to crack this slight of circle of doom I am launching a project with the intent of:
Since my aspirations are on Game design the quality and practical usefulness of the Game design document is of outmost importance to me. Furthermore, the adherence of the Game with the document (as opposed to content of my mind) is important. Whatever is in the game should also appear in the document. I will open a separate page for this project, which will house the design document and general information. I will also document in detail all the problems, misgivings, misunderstandings and failures in this blog under the tag “Apprenticeship”.
Make no mistake, this is something I have to do, whatever the outcome. Can you dig it, bitches?
Bemmu was kind enough to let his inner photomanipulator surface and came up with a, I’m guessing, a signature picture for my blog, pictured below.
I appreciate the effort AND the connection to the 5th. but I have to admit I prefer my Blog looking as it is. But I’ll buy you a coffee for the effort.
I took it as my liberty to spend a day at a local amusement park. As usual, inspite of my minor efforts to hire people to join me in merriment, I was forced to enjoy by myself. It was smaller a hindrance to pleasure than I thought. Granted, it would have been probably a few ounces more enjoyably with a good friend with a similar outlook in enjoyment (it begins with a fear of death). I just have to admit I’m just not charming enough. The day was warm (borderline hot) and this being a weekday in June, the place only had short queues. The place was filled with happy, young people, and it all made me a bit nostalgic.
The rides didn’t make that much of a impression, but there was enough of gut-wrenching -sensation to feel pleased. The amusement park in question is located on a narrow cape, and all the rollercoasters are limited on a small space, in turn limiting the speed and g-forces of the rides. In fact, one of the new rides, where you lie down on your stomach, face down, was quite uncomfortable due to this restriction in space. It was all sharp turns after another.
It was exactly 5 years today that this Blog began its existence as a simple HTML-page on my University of Tampere pages. The idea of a “blog” was presented to me the previous fall at a New Media studies course by a prominent Finnish game researcher, Aki Järvinen. This proves nothing but that I’m slow.
The beginnings were more than humble and being first (or among the first) doesn’t mean a thing. My blog was left to the fringe when more controversal, better and more frequent writers took the stage. Pinseri hosted an official Finnish blog-list. I had some pleasure watching the relative position of my blog flactuate. Long term movement was firmly DOWN. I held to a belief that my chosen language was a reason for my poor numbers in readers. This belief was hamppered by a Finnish blog with a better standing that was written in Irish…
The bulk of my readers have been people who already know me from other venues of life, usually from academia. One interesting, yet small group of readers has been prospective employers. Now, I can’t prove anything, but I find it plausible that there’s at least one instance when the attitude of a prospective employer has gone several degrees colder after someone for her organisation had read my blog.
This blog has, in spite of everything, seen one self-proclaimed fan. For me there is no way to defend from this kind of attention, even taking in consideration all kinds of circumstancial matters, I have to admit, if I may, that, Katja, for this reason only, you hold a special place in my heart.
5 years is a short time for almost any kind of human project, for a blog it’s almost a lifetime. Technical, social and numeral matters in the blogosphere have changed immensely. I guess that the subsequent progress from now on will be something a lot different. I have felt somewhat priviledged to see the beginnings of this chaotic and influential and chaotically influential media.
This blog is getting close to being 5 years of age and I am in careful ponderance what kind of celebrations would be adequate for this occasion. Being in so long slumber has drained me from practically any human readers, so I am thinking I would get free with just getting drunk personally. On the other hand I did promise to bring about some kind of festivities e.g. a year ago.
So, I throw the proverbial ball to my potential human readers, would you like to see some kind of party arranged to celebrate the five years of this blog? And more so, would you attend that party? Let me know, there’s a comment ability to this blog you know!
Even the bots among you can answer, if you can motivate why you like me so much…
I was expending my time at the local Universitys cafeteria with some people who share my major. We were discussing on the subject one of their seminar papers that one of them had just finished.
The discussion concluded with the writer becoming, with one strike (as it appeared to me) of academic understanding, aware of that she really didn’t know anything about the subject she had written, about the reason why she chose to write about the subject and why she chose exactly those people whos ideas she wrote about. I felt priviledged and somewhat humbled to be in present with such happening. Some people leave the academia never to have experienced anything like she did. Hell, some people leave this life without that experience.
What she went through right there and then was, in my not-so-humble-opinion, the most solid offering the University can offer to you. In this case becoming aware of your own shortcummings as a knowledge-wielding creature. Doubt, self-reflection and mistakes are what keeps this boat going.
I am not a convincing person, at least, not in my on-line form. For the past few years I have tried to pull a manner of April fool tricketry with this blog with non-existant to miniscule success. It is possible that my April foolery has costed me an interest of a employing party. It is for these reasons why I’ve decided to give up on it.
There will be no more April foolery on this blog.