Level Up!

Going to Level up!

Introduction

Last Wednesday (April 3, 2013) took a step forward in our game development carrier and “Leveled up” in our first game convention. Here we went with only 4 member, with 2 dropping out of the program, we were confident when taking a ride to the Go station. Despite the 1 hour ride and early morning, we  were just excited to go to an event such as this. After getting lost, and going in a circle, we finally arrived at the event itself.

Like a roller coaster ride, the setup of the event was a long climb up the hill, for the fast and furious night of level up. Once we were setup, and the event began, we were exposed to a vivid trip of awesomeness. There were games from the colorful wired shooter, to the amazing game using the CryEngine 3, to the base of other musical games. At 5, there was just so much energy in the air as all the games were up and running to be played, or were they...

The good

There was one unity project which surprised me, Rain forest defense, a game which felt truly developed and ready to be sold. This was a tower defense, featuring a defense again robots using plants. Having played many Tower defense games, I noticed their unique selling right away, the game wasn’t 2D but fully 3D. Also with this came interesting game concepts like line of sight, Despite the fact it was made in unity, it still showed great development, though and effort, if anything what I expected of all unity games. 

Most respectful were most of the teams from Humber college, they were the only other university which made a game from scratch. If anything they were the other university which understood our process and pain, while other universities turned a blind eye. Of the 3 games I visited, they had 2 very interesting premade games, both of which being shooters. One was a top down shooter of the old school kind, literally made with sprites and similar animations/ attack patterns. Amazingly this was a side project, one made with XNA, and done in at the same time as their unity game. Another amazing game was one which was made in from XNA but this time was a third person shooter. From a blind eye it’s a generic shooter, but from a game development project, it was a great working project. Even more amazing the project had Retracing used for hit detection against a wave of 50’s zombies. If anything these 2 games put hope back in for the rest of the games.

The unity

There were half built games, lacking core functionality, all made in unity. There were games which needed jumping, but lacked a jumping function. Some games involved filling some sort of meter, which was non-existent in the HUD. Finally some games weren’t play tested correctly as most of them had some way of breaking. For example one game involved throwing paint at a colour less room to find where u were. Even worse, all these games were made in unity, so they had no excuse other laziness to make a properly fleshed out game.

At George brown, I talked to a student who was part of a program called “game design” which was a 1 year program branching off of game development. They had a bunch of interesting I Pad games ready to be played, some of them 1 player, some 2, so I played one while conversing with a developer. I ask him what many questions about his program, and he said they learn all there was to know about making a game. So I asked if they knew about shaders, he couldn’t comprehend what I just asked him. I just thanked him and left after that.   

The bad

 

There was one Cryengine 3 game, which looked very pretty, but that was all that was good about it. The game attracted much people I gave it shot, being immersed in this beautiful world. Giving us a first person view, it was communicating to me I would get a gun, or a weapons or sort, but I didn’t. Unless they were hiding something, like how they were hiding their objectives in the mist, something felt off here. Sure they used an industry standard engine, which looks pretty as hell, but there was a general lack of gameplay present. This made me question how much work they spent on the game, or was it a result of someone just playing around the Cry engine for about an hour. If anything this felt more like a simulation of walking around a mysterious island, rather than an actual game.  

Conclusion

                As a first time, the event was most defiantly an interesting one, if anything an eye opener. It show how few groups truly knew the concept of “game development”, and how luck the few that do are. Next year I hope to see a larger and better event, if anything I want to ask the students more about their games :P.