The Semester is Finally Over...

But we'll see you next semester. WE PASSED!!!

Whoo, was that a crazy weekend. Friday, sitting there in that auditorium with all of those people, was so nerve-wracking. It all of a sudden hit me how important the presentation was, and how formal it was.

All of the presentations, as well as the games, were stellar though. Some of them were surprisingly great. It was so awesome to see my friends that I've known for years stand up on stage and talk about something they love in front of hundreds of people. It finally made all of the tons of work we've done over the years come together and really mean something to all of us.

Alex was a wee nervous while we were in the auditorium. I don't know why, because he's very charming when he speaks. As he puts it -- and this makes sense -- the more it matters, the more nervous he gets. 

Our game really matters to us. I know, maybe you're like, "Duh, of course it matters." Sometimes it just doesn't work out like that. Sometimes the people working on a game just don't care about it from the start. Sometimes the game just doesn't head in the right direction and they end up not liking it. Sometimes it's just being forced to do work that makes them not like the game in the end.

When we got on stage, Alex did a great job. He got through all of the information smoothly and all around spoke well in front of everyone. When we got to the gameplay is when the crowd really got into it. Bryan spoke while during he gameplay to give everyone the run-through, so his screen was up on the projector. Chris and Bryan have this reputation of absolutely destroying any team they go up against... Which ended up being a good thing, because when they scored against Alex and I, the crowd went wild. 

Overall, it was one of those really validating and really inspiring nights. I was really proud of us and everyone else who presented. We made a lot of genuinely good games.

The faculty thought so too. Today our teachers made it very clear that this year's games and presentations blew them away...

Of course this was after a Friday night, Saturday and Sunday of sweating it out waiting for the results from the faculty. Who passed?! Do we get to go on to next semester?!

Then we all got the list Monday morning. Alex had gone to class and was checking his email before I got the chance to. He messaged me, "WE MADE IT! SAM WE MADE IT!!!" I was awestruck. 

I've made plenty of art that I'm proud of over the years. But this was different. It was a big moment for me, because I then knew that other people were proud too. And maybe if they're not proud, I know they liked my work at least.

And this is especially since when I checked my email, I had an email from one of my Production I teacher from sophomore year. It said:

"I just wanted to take a minute and say how much enjoyed the art in Mageball. I was really impressed." 

One of my teachers took the time to write me that? Oh jeez. I was floored. 

We showed up for production class today, and it was basically just a discussion day. We asked our teacher, "What went on during the deliberation?"

Her response was basically, "Well basically there were the two favourites..."

Team Mageball was thinking, "Okay, Quibly Ball and Eb and Flo."

She went on, "Quibly Ball and Mageball were both a unanimous yes."

Alex and I turned to each other and said, "Wait, what?"

All of the faculty liked our game? Wait, all of them? All of the faculty? No, that's unbelievable.

But apparently true.

She said the art was a big selling point, and everyone liked that. Again, wow. 


Then the scramble of trying to pick up all of the people without teams happened. After some deliberation, we ended up with four agreements with people: two artists, one designer, one programmer.

We've already gone to Longhorn (Shadowpuppet Studios's choice restaurant) and celebrated with a couple of our new (unofficial) teammates. 

I can't wait until next semester. I can't wait to see where this goes, because we're going to bring it somewhere awesome. And I can't wait to work with new people, because (as it is right now) our new team members are also passionate about what we're doing. We're all excited about Mageball. You should be too!

Don't worry, by the way. The semester may be over, but I'm not going to stop writing. First of all, it's required. Second of all, I like keeping this blog just because it's interesting to look back and see the path I took to get where I am. I also want this here because other people may find it interesting (hi, family and friends) and will want to follow this until the end.

Thanks for the support everyone. It means more to me than I can put into words. Next semester will be even better!

Until next time!

The Big Day

Tomorrow is presentation day... UGH! I do not like being the center of attention. But I am so extremely excited to show everyone our game. We've still been getting a lot of good reactions. Yesterday, an acquaintance stopped Alex and I to tell us how awesome our game looks from the trailer we posted on Facebook. 

We played a couple games while recording ourselves and Alex put it all  together. Thanks, Alex!

We're also excited to be in Stage 4 (we found out during Thanksgiving break)! We have one or two minor things to do before we can challenge to get out of it next week, and we should be good to go.

But in the meantime, we'll be sweating over whether or not our game will be chosen to go forward. The faculty will be deliberating on Monday. We'll know later that night (hopefully), and then we'll get our new team members (hopefullyyy) on Thursday next week.

Our confidence was definitely boosted this week after we did a mock presentation in front of our class again. Our teachers seem to really enjoy our game. They said it was "very compelling," and that we were "good to go." Another teacher actually played our game during QA last night and Chris and Bryan got great videos of it. 

While some things need a little tweaking, overall people genuinely have a lot of fun playing Mageball. They yell at each other, get mad at each other when they're losing, and shout when they score a goal. That's exactly what I'm looking for. I want that real game experience, like what I get when I'm playing a triple A game with my friends. I want our game to be the game that people keep wanting to go back to, because it's a fun game as well as a fun social experience. And people have gone back to it! QA testers sometimes ask to play again!

This is definitely the most fun I've had on any project, and the most passionate I've felt about any project. I truly think Mageball is a good game, and I truly think it's fun. When the developers of a game still find it appealing, I think it's a big deal. A lot of the time developers get so sick of their games -- sometimes to the point when they don't want to work on it anymore. It's not the case with this game. We all love playing it, and we all love working on it. And I hope we can keep doing so next semester!

I'll be sure to let you know ASAP how the presentations go. I can't wait to see the other games! Wish us luck!

 

I Was Wrong!

It turns out presentations were not this week. They're the week after Thanksgiving.

Also, no teams were guaranteed a spot to present because no teams made it into Stage 4 (as far as I know). However, the teams that proved they were ready were given permission by their teachers to present.

Guess which team is presenting! This ooone! :)

We did challenge Stage 4 on Tuesday with a system-complete and bug-free game. Alex forgot to turn the sound on for the presentation so the teachers put us down for having little audio. But right after class he got the rest of the sounds in and sent a video off to our teachers. We still don't know if we passed though.

12 teams total are presenting. If I had to guess, I'd say half are going to be able to go through to next semester. Wish us luck, everybody...

Other news: Shadowpuppet Studios talked in front of 300 families on a game-major-specific open house for Champlain. Then we had our game up in the game labs. Tons and tons of people saw it, and a lot of people played. We got a lot of praise for all of our hard work. I think we may have convinced some parents that this major is not a waste of time, and it does not mean their kid is going to sit around playing games all day (unless they want to fail out). 

Most importantly to me, I got a lot of compliments on the art. Specifically the UI and the "Borderlands" style of the game. I was so excited! 

So what have I been up to the past couple of weeks? I've mostly been finishing up UI assets, which includes the menu screen. I also finished up the first draft of the Art Bible.

The only new UI in the game I did was a "spellbook" to remind the player what spells they selected.

The menu screen went through a couple of iterations. The first one I sketched out just had a Fire and Ice mage in battle. I thought, "That doesn't really show that it's a sport." 

Went it comes down to it, I want the art to emphasize a few things: 
1.) This is a sport...
2.) It's a high school league...
3.) Made up of mages...
4.) Who are Fire and Ice...  

So I took all of that and came up with the final product you see. I put the ball in the very front, so right away you know it's a sport. The next thing I hope the player notices is that these are mages -- not only from their outfits, but because they're casting spells. Next, I hope they realize that they're, specifically, Fire and Ice mages -- from their outfits and the spells they're casting.

Unfortunately, I didn't know how to capture the high school aspect in the menu screen. The only thing I could think of was to make the UI elements parchment paper, which is what they would write on as students. It doesn't really come through, though, so I may have to rethink it.

I thought of a spellbook to emphasize that the mages are still learning.

As for the Art Bible, this is what it ended up looking like:

I know that this is impossible to read, but you don't need to read it.

I'm pretty happy with it, but it may be too wordy. Some teachers really emphasize to use pictures -- not words -- to explain ourselves. But I find that pictures just can't explain everything. I hopefully provided enough images and words so that a new artist would understand what we're going for.

Now that it's all done, it's Friday, and I'm going home tomorrow morning to get some rest and homecooked meals.

Happy Thanksgiving!