Carlton Reeve: Play with Learning

Carlton Reeve talked to us about how you can learn using games such as the ones you get on children sites but i personally think most of them are dull especially if there is only one correct answer since that limits the amount that as a designer you can do but also feel like it will bore the kids.

Not all learning games are for kids though since you have ones like flight simulators and bike simulators which are for learning but a different type of learning and a different age range.

Adrian Hon, Six to Start: New Stories for New Platform

Adrian Hon had quite a different presentation compared to the others since unlike when the ones i have posted spoke they spoke about technology in their own games but i liked this guy since he spoke about how stories can still be pleasant in new platforms such as Android phones and iPhones and when you look at angry birds what he says make some sense. The one that he used as an example which i liked was a zombie one which was used as a motivator for jogging and the further you went the more in game money you got for the game, now jogging you don't expect to have a story behind it but he showed how times are changing and we can no longer limit our creativity to just consoles.

I am not sure about a narrative in simple games that you play when waiting for a train or sitting at a cafe having a coffee but just like the zombie game you just have to find an angle you can work on.

Brendan McNamara, Team Bondi: Bringing Humanity to Games

L.A Noire One of the biggest games of the year and the main part that got people's attention was the amazing motion capturing for facial recognition which as Brendan mentioned was a program they had to make so they were able to capture changes in facial expression.

This amazes me i really look forward to watch them trying to push the boundaries with this tech. I would love to explain what technology they use but to be honest i would not be able to explain this like the video can.

Eurocom: Motion Capture in Goldeneye 007 Reloaded

Goldeneye was a game that was originally on N64 but with the remake of the original movies with a new james bond they decided to remake the game with the new james bond being face captured which gives a better feel to the overall gameplay since you feel like you are being talked to by a real person which increases the immersion even if you don't realise it.



The motion capture they did was a lot of face and movement capturing such as being shot and falling which i think as a gamer looks nicer but also feels like they put the effort in for the fans. The actual levels in the games are all remakes of the first game which though it means there isn't as much creativity as there is if you are making something from scratch but still has as much work.

Nick Adams, Blitz Games: Designing for a Radical Control Method

Blitz Games showed more Puss in Boots that uses kinect that unlike the first one had more action tagged on the game rather than puzzle or family oriented but the person raised a point that i'm glad they thought about and that is when i swing a sword the angle or height or speed will change depending on the person which i think is the problem with this style of game controls, the same impacts Wii Play and kinect since unlike a handheld controller it isn't a button push instead it is movement.

I think this shows the movement thing quite well when you look at the cat but though this shows a different point than what i was making. how Blitz games said they got around it trying to follow your arms they make it respond to the first bit of movement so when you finish coming though with the slash the game finishes with you which was really well done since it feels like you have done it and not that it is partially scripted to do it at a certain arm position.

Cat & Mouse: Animating the animal kingdom and the Magic Kingdom

On the first day we had members of Frontier Developments to talk about creating a game that was mainly kinect based, the two games they spoke of was Kinectimals & Disneyland Adventures which thought they are both are child friendly games they are impressive to see when you look at all the intereaction that is present to the person who is playing the game.

Kinectimals was a game that was released when the kinect came out and it bought a new way of playing games to the xbox and it's fans with a fully interactive puzzle game with cats and bears as your avatar.
The feeling this way of playing gives you i think is pleasant but not for someone like me who is a serious gamer but as we advance in technology the closer it feels that we are getting to a way of immersing yourself in a rpg.

Disney Adventures though it is childish it has shown that this can be used for more than games since it is in scale to the actual park. The way they created could be used to rebuild the Colosseum or the Titanic so people who might not be able to see it with their imagination can witness it as it might of been. which would be good in museums, on site or even at home. Now i don't know about you but i would love to walk across the deck of the titanic using the kinect or even go to stone henge and see it in away that makes you believe you can touch it.

The actual games don't interest me overall but it is what the games suggest and show which really got my attention with the presentation, I look forward to seeing what more can be done with the tech over the next couple of years.

Bradford Animation Festival

The class all went on a trip to Bradford Animation Festival for two days while the event lasted for a week. I wanted to go see an event that was done by Ray Harryhausen but due to me not doing my research i couldn't go to see it. I didn't stay for any of the mixing events due to trying to get home but i would of gone if i was able to.