Rome-ing All Over Your iPad

It's been a while since I've updated this blog, as I've been rather busy on a project at work which has finally been revealed - Rome: Total War on iPad. It's been a fun and challenging experience getting the full uncut version of the game onto a tablet, and one we hope people will enjoy. If you like Rome: Total War and you like iPads, this is probably the game for you!

You can see the best bits of the design team (i.e. myself and Edwin) live-streaming a sneak-peek of the game below:



You may notice the best bits are sadly bereft of terrible Rome-based puns, but this might be rectified on the Total War official Twitch channel tomorrow. We're going to be showing the game ahead of release, and we'll try not to wilfully murder our general this time.

A Grimm Journey: Narrative

December's Ludum Dare may be over, but we're still working hard on A Grimm Journey, albeit in dribs and drabs due to our other commitments. While both the Robs have been making loads of improvements (see Rob de Jager's blog post here*), I have been looking into the narrative of our game.

So far, the story has largely been confined to an introduction screen with a rhyming explanation, to fit with the fairy tale feel of the shadow puppetry art design.

Shadow puppet art for 'A Grimm journey'

Ludum Dare: A Grimm Journey - Results

The results for the Game Jam I participated in last month have been released, and here is how our game 'A Grimm Journey' ranked out of 2,640 total entries:

400 Graphics(Jam) 3.48

406 Mood(Jam) 3.17

449 Audio(Jam) 2.85

746 Overall(Jam) 2.92

785  Innovation(Jam)  2.57

866 Fun(Jam) 2.52

890 Theme(Jam) 2.96

That means we made the top 16% to 36% across all the above categories, which isn't bad going. Well done to everyone involved!

Ludum Dare: A Grimm Journey - Post-Mortem

Last week saw me participate in my first ever game jam! Ludum Dare organise one monthly, and teams or solo participants have to make a game in 72 hours. What could possibly go wrong?

The team we had comprised of:

Rob de Jager - Programming (team lead)
Rob Best - Programming
Stacy Lovage - Art
Laura Mitchell (Me!) - Design 

At the start of the jam, we were given the following theme: 

Everything on One Screen

You can see the fruits of our labour here.

Shadow puppets trapped on a single projector screen...

I will largely go through the project from a design point of view; needless to say, the game artwork was amazing and what got coded in 72 hours would have taken me weeks.

IF Competition: Building the Right Stuff

Back in October, I entered the Interactive Fiction competition. The voting results came through in November, and I managed tied 33rd place out of 42. Not great, but not the worst. If you want to take a peek at my entry, the link is here.

Here's what I learned from the experience.

Marvel at the high quality graphics...

Game Jammin'

I'm currently 26 hours away from the deadline for the Ludum Dare 31 game jam!

Rob de Jager kindly asked me to join his small team in a design capacity, and it's been great fun. 72 hours to make a game; what could possibly go wrong?

I posted an update on our progress on Rob's Ludum Dare blog here, so go check it out. We have just under 26 hours to go.

I'll do a more detailed review after the event (along with a piece about another game competition I entered a while ago, in a moment of madness).

My First Computer Build

As my old computer has pretty much been powered by a tired hamster in a wheel for the past eighteen months, I decided it was time to empty my piggy bank and purchase a new one that could cope with games made in the past four years. After looking at the specs I wanted and the cost of pre-built machines, I decided to build my own. How hard can it be, I thought?

Posing this very question to my friends and colleagues resulted in polarised opinions that fell into one of two camps:

1) Get a professional to do it; you'll fry every component just by looking at it, so leave it alone.
2) It's just like expensive Lego; so long as you don't try to build it in the bath, you'll be fine.

I always liked Lego, so I decided to give it a punt.

It is generally not recommended to add soft furnishings to a computer build.