Defining MISS Glasscock

At the time of writing. two weeks have passed since I regaled you of the challenges inherent in designing a character despite not really knowing the first thing about drawing,
Last week we discussed perspectives and the less you know about my performance in that regard the better. Suffice to say I drew a 10 meter car that cruised down the grid from Tron being chased by a WWI biplane with wings that took a huge dump on the laws of […]

Prototyping the sounds of Bandolier River

The last group assignment for the course introduction to game design and analysis entailed creating a concept for a 2D-shooter for PC.
The students were randomly split into 16 groups with 6 members each. My group consisted of 2 would be programmers and 4 fledgling artists.
I demanded being QA since having previously worked with TQM, Kaizen and Six Sigma I am religiously devoted to the concept of quality management. The sound designer role was thrust upon me since I was the […]

Designing Mr. and Ms. Glasscock

The first assignment of 2D-art class was to design a character from a set series of criteria. All students got spec sheets detailing two fictional games and were tasked with creating one of those game’s main protagonist.
I picked ”Clash of Gods”. The game in question was your generic run of the mill 3rd person action game where an ordinary person is thrust into a conflict between mythological deities. The story’s been done to death in games, books and film (Percy […]

Starting from the very beginning so far down the road you can’t see where you’re coming from

So last week was the first week of art-class for me and my fellow game design students.
Ours is an eclectic and diverse bunch of people with very varying degrees of skill when it comes to drawing.
Now I feel that I’m a pretty resourceful person with a lot to offer the games industry. I have many marketable capabilities that would be applicable on a development team.
Apart from being a game designer (In a few years time I’ll have a phd to […]

The Markham Chronicles

So two weeks ago me and four others got together to answer a challenge.
Create a game through a random plot generator and draw up a sales document.
Our result was a point and click adventure for tablets that we’re really sad wont be made into a real game anytime soon. Because despite being made by rolling some virtual dice and interpreting some random images on said dice, the concept turned out really awesome.
What did we learn?
The sales document should have been […]

Soffan som blev ett fort

Som en man med ett livslångt spelande bakom sig känner jag mig ofta priviligierad. Jag har upplevt så många milstolpar i spelbranschen sedan den där dagen 1991 då jag köpte mitt första Nintendo för hårt förvärvade sparpengar. Alla de gånger hjärtat slog hårdare av febrig förväntan då något nytt och revolutionerande briserade på marknaden.
Alla dessa spel ägnade jag mig åt med hjärtans fröjd, ofta med vänner i släptåg. I mina föräldrars tv-soffa fanns alltid plats för en till. Vi lekte […]

Män har aldrig haft ensamrätt på TV-och datorspel

Under september månad skedde en häxjakt på speldesignern Zoe Quinn. Quinns expojkvän hade skrivit blogg om sitt havererade förhållande med den uppmärksammade skaparen av indiespelet Depression Quest. Quinn hade enligt honom varit otrogen med en känd speljournalist. Under kommande vecka skulle en mobb av kvinnohatare på internet använda Zoe Quinn som ofrivilligt bevismaterial i en länge framhärdande konspirationsteori om att spelrecensenter går att köpa. Zoe Quinn hade förstås ”tagit sängvägen till framgång” menade de. Det faktum att den recension på […]

I challenge YOU

So after having been away from blogging a fortnight due to a combination of school projects and work I sat down to think.
What am I doing here?
Why am I not designing?
I should be designing.
Master Mayes told me I’m a designer now and that I should go forth and design.
I’m but one man child in a class of a hundred, hungry, talented young people, the very cream of the proverbial harvest-moon-crop. Just one balding Alec Baldwin in a school of Abigail […]

Semantics and semiotics

Ok, so let’s talk about design.
C.S. Peirce, American philosopher and founder of pragmatism, defines the semiotic sign as ”something that stands for something, to someone in some capacity”
This concept is straight forward enough, if I play Batman Arkham Origins and I want to continue the story I look for the sign on the map that tells me where to go next. It is a sign, that stands for ”story continues here”, to me in the capacity of player.
But wait, then […]

Affordances as tropes and why they’re a creative gold mine

Lately we’ve been talking a lot about affordances in games. For those who doesn’t know affordances are what a player perceives as an opportunity to play. Affordances are present in all design, like how a door might have a handle on one end and a bar on the other. It simply makes the act of pulling or pushing the door more intuitive.
Some affordances are actually a real opportunity to play, like when you’re exploring a game and you see a […]

Genius is effort

”Be better”
That is the mantra of our chief lecturer, the esteemed Mr. Adam Mayes. And indeed, isn’t that the very essence of being a human being, to strive towards bettering ourselves in any way we can?
Being a better game designer is about being professional and keeping a player-centric mindset all throughout the design process. To have a vision, daring to be unique, never compromise on quality and above all always keeping these elements grounded in the players experience.
All my life […]

Owls, saurids and Supēsu Inbēdās

So first week at GAME is over and there was a lot of ground covered.
It’s going to be a challenge to study full time and simultaneously run the business but as a musician I’m used to working long hours. After mulling the idea of my company name around a bit I came up with something even better. Owls are totally awesome, but you know what else is awesome? DINOSAURS!
Therefore I am proud to announce my game and sound design enterprise: […]