Quest for the Holy Grail

This is a quick board game based off of Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail. It required that there be branching paths and that the players have a taboo of some kind. To achieve these design objectives, I had the first section of the game to be linear, and then players had to choose a trial from the movie as their final path (the beast, the chasm, or the bridge). Each space on the board had a silly task for the player who landed on them to perform (singing or discribing the sound of a landing cow). Each player started the ame with 3 Chances. If they refused to perform a task, or landed on a Chance losing space, then they lost a chance. If a player said 'it', then they would lose their next turn for each time they said 'it'.

The rules for the game are as follows;

Ye are upon a quest for the Holy Grail. Thou shalt begin thine quest by placing thy playing piece upon the Castle space. Thy comrads and thyself shall determine turn order by rolling a die of 6 side, with the highest number rolled going first, and the others following in a clockwise fashion. Each player has 3 Chances. Ye shall not have 4 Chances, and 5 is right out. Ye shall lose a Chance by failing to perform a task, or by simply being terrible at rolling die of 6 sides. Once all ye Chances are lost, thou must return your piece to the start of the game, or to the last Cross you crossed. A word of caution; 'it' is a forbidden word, and will cost ye thy next turn to speak this word. By the way, who was reading these rules to everyone? Anyway, whosoever lands upon the Holy Grail wins. Now get to it. (Did ye fall for that?)

Below is an image of the board. Anything can be used for pieces.

Review: Soul Calibur IV

Soul Calibur IV is one of the latest additions to the series of the popular weapon-based fighter games. It was produced by Namco, and released on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

Players face off against a single opponent in one-on-one, free-roaming combat. There are a wide variety of arenas, weapons, and characters to choose from, and almost every one has a unique set of moves. This allows for a greatly varied set of play sessions with only the basic components of the game.

The primary modes of gameplay are story(a few scenario battles tied to a common plot, not a good one either), arcade(fight through a series of progressivly tougher opponents), and versus(player vs player). Secondary modes include 'extra' versions of arcade and versus where the different weapons have different attributes (nullify ring out, auto-counter, etc), a tower with an endurance section (never ending opponents, no health recovery) and a challenge section to unlock equipment. However, equipment can be unlocked by playing arcade, story, and versus repeatedly, so some may find that more appealing than most of the 'very' difficult challenges.

It's the difficulty of the game that may turn some away if it's their first time with a game like this.while most of the characters are not difficult to find a few moves that work in most situations once the basic mechanics are understood, there is no 'easy' setting for the game, and the AI can range anywhere from average to merciless, even on standard modes like arcade. At that point, a person would need to put some serious practice into a favorite character or hope one of the cheap moves they learned will get them through.

The difficulty can be ofset by creating a custom character. Players can make up to 50 characters of their own design ased of of the fighting styles of pre-existant characters. This includes skills the character has. More skills are available to a fighting style that's been used more, and different clothing and gear allocate points towards different types of skills. Stuck on a challange that requires countering? Build someone who automatically counters instead of blocks everytime. The opponent blocks everything and breaks your grapples? Make some of your stronger moves randomly unblockable, or make it so you do some damage even with a blocked attack. It's also fun to just try building yourself or a favorite character. However, I find that the options for creation are fewer than when the idea was introduced in Soul Calibur III.

Anyway, it's a fun game, and is easy to pick and play with friends. Patience and practice will get you through most of the challenges, but fortunatly you don't need to be hardcore to get everything out of it. 8/10

Getting into the Video Game Industry as an Artist

Article answering some questions on entering into the videogame industry. Original article at www.animationarena.com/getting-into-video-game-industry.html by 'Arenamaster'.

Many artists are interested in getting into the video game industry. However, many of them are unsure as to how they get into this industry.

A mistake some make is trying to start their own business from scratch. That really isn’t a viable option anymore as video games have become a major business. Quality is important, and if you don’t have the skills, experience, or resources, a fledgling company will just drown in debt. Joining a mod team is a good way to get your feet wet as far as building games go, and they are always looking for new talent. However, modding is more for hobbyists and people interested in the coding aspect of games.

To get in with an existing developer you should have a good knowledge of traditional and digital art. ‘Game Artist’ is a general term for a wide range of jobs. These include texture artists, character modelers, and concept artists to name a few. What you choose to specialize in should determine what tools you should focus on honing your skills with.

For being a traditional artist, anatomy is probably the most important thing you can study. This will help you greatly when drawing not only people, but creatures real and fictitious, and even objects. Daily practice is important too. If you want your 2D work to be digital, Photoshop is the standard and is used just about everywhere. On the side, many up-and-coming artists have adopted an anime-based style in their artwork. Unless you have a unique, bold style, avoid this as it won’t help you stand out from the saturation of rivals when it come to showing off your portfolio.

With 3D, it’s not important to know the ins and outs of the various programs out there, but to understand how they are similar. Most 3D programs work in the same way. 3D Studio Max was the traditional choice for learning game modeling, but the company has recently shifted their attention to film. Alias however, has gone the other way; moving from film into video games. Nonetheless, choose whatever you feel like.

For animators, while it’s true a lot more movement is handled with motion capture or physics engines, there are still many things that simply can’t be generated by a machine. A good grounding in animation is still required to make a dragon fly or a robot transform.

Finally, there are many schools now that offer courses in the field of video games. Talent and hard work will get you a degree, but with art, what you can do is just as important, if not more so, as your diploma. Make sure your demo reel that goes with your application shows only the best of what you can do because that is what the businesses are looking for. Most places want at least a couple of years of experience out of their applicants, but if you can show you have the skill, your inexperience can be overlooked, you’ll get the job, and inexperience won’t be an issue in the future.