1337 1 Posted February 24, 2009 Share Posted February 24, 2009 Recently, I've been working as part of a small team of people who are working on a simple (presumably FPS) game. I've been doing some art, and I must say, the whole processes involved are so different compared to the usual stuff that I do ("art" for games and "art" for a hobby is very much different, especially when I go from just using photoshop to doing full on 3D stuff etc). This got me thinking about how other game developers have done things. It doesn't matter how big or small your part or project, or even if your project got completed (let's face it, it happens sadly), but I'd like to hear some other peoples experiences in making games, whether it be music/sound, programming, art/graphic design or anything else. What was it like? For me, its been so vastly different to any other project. Before this, its been taking a piece of artwork, and it just stands on its own. Now its thinking about how my creations actually serve a function. It also means I do so many different things I've never had to do before. I've learned how to do textures and stacks of 3D stuff I'd never have bothered or thought to learn. Its been a great learning curve. (sidenote: I am aware that I haven't said anything really specific about what I'm working on. This is mainly because its kinda under wraps atm, and so I can't give the specific details yet. I can say however, that making maps for it will be really easy and fun ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strike911 Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 I'm in the middle of a competition right now at my university for game development. We have to develop a demo, and the winner gets cash to develop the title into an actual product. There are about ten teams competing, and we've been having critiques from people in the industry, and most notably a few people from Gearbox software. We've had a few benchmark presentations where we have to show a panel of game industry people what we've got, and they've been really grueling, but completely educational! I signed on to provide music for my team, but over the 5 months of development I've somehow become involved in the general game design, writing for the dialogue, sound design for sound effects, voice acting, as well as logo and title design (general graphic design stuff). That leaves the artists working on their in-game assets, the programmer can program like he does best, and our business major can continue to work on market research and all that jazz. I guess I'm a catch all for everything we miss. lol. I've really learned a lot. A damn lot. We're developing a simple, old school (yet HD) comedic-detective adventure game and things are running pretty well. Developed in XNA. It's due at the end of march, we've been working on it since last September/October. So yeah, we're just about ready to turn it in. 1st place gets $10,000 + $25,000 development funding for a commercial product, 2nd place $7500, 3rd place $3000.... and I think there's a $1000 dollar innovation prize going out too. It's university sponsored, so it's kind of cool. Wish us luck! haha. I've grown a lot as a musician. I made like 10 tracks, but we're only going to use about 4, since the demo we're making is pretty short. The style we're going for is jazz for the audio, as the game is about private investigation. Plus we were trying to bring up feelings of nostalgia in the way eveything is presented so we've intentionally gone a long way to emulate a SNES type of look, yet still modern (and in HD) and this is also true of the music as well. Everything is trying to give old school games a nod, and evoke a feeling of nostalgia. I've learned a lot about the whole process... ... and we have one month left now! So hopefully everything will work out for us! Wish us luck! Maybe I can get some of the tracks online. They're simple little jazz loops, but they're fun and they fit the style. ... there will definitely be videos of it on YouTube or something pretty soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m68030 Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 One of my first jobs was doing sound design/coding for an upstart game company. We were working on an RTS. It was an interesting experience. Unfortunately a few months into the process, the head of the company found his assests frozen after something happened with his father, a shared bank account, and some kind of drug arrest. I never got the full details. I did end up with a slew of sounds that I was given the rights to (The 'crickets' at the start of my 'Dreams in Red' remix, for example, originated from that project). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Pezman Posted February 26, 2009 Share Posted February 26, 2009 I did educational game design as part of an REU last summer. What we developed wasn't amazing, but it was pretty good considering our resources. One thing for sure is that development takes a long time and it's difficult as hell to debug. It did get accepted to an ACM conference, though, so I've got to be pretty happy about that. It's good to know people are interested in researching on how games can be used to teach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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