Game Bowl 2

Thanks to the flood of comments, E-mails, and carrier pigeons, I know that you have all been waiting to hear about the outcome of the second Collins College Game Bowl. Well, I actually didn't get any such messages, but I'm sure I would have if I hadn't already called most of you to tell you about it. Nonetheless, here are all the vitamin-enriched details.

As before, the competition had three "secret ingredients" that had to be present somewhere in each game in order for the game to be eligible. This time the elements were: a 1980's boom box (you may know it as a "ghetto blaster"), rainbows, and an audio clip of the phrase "say hello to my little friend," (the clip did not necessarily have to be from Scarface, however). To my surprise, I was one of the first people drafted this time around instead of being one of the last as I was before. Like last time, however, I worked with a team that I had never met, with the exception of the instructor whom I actually have for my third class of the day. Being drafted early combined with a win from the previous Game Bowl made me feel pretty confident about the week ahead.

When we met for our pre-planning meeting after the draft, we had 8 people counting myself, but we only had about an hour to plan the entire game that we would spend the next week on. Looking back, I probably should have considered that a bad sign. We had a decently productive meeting and by the end of it I had volunteered for the Producer role, meaning that I recorded everyone's contributions and kept everyone on track. Originally I was not going to do any of the art. Keep that in mind.

One person had already quit the team by my third class the next day, but I had already planned for it so we weren't too worried. Most of the team members met on Skype that night and we had a fairly productive session, although two team members did not attend and one was two hours late. I began to worry at this point, but everyone promised to have assets turned in to me by Sunday night and so I settled for that.

By Monday morning nothing had come and I still had not heard from two of our team members; the one responsible for the bulk of our character design and the one who was solely responsible for our game's levels. At the end of the day I was legitimately stressed out; it was a very different experience from the team I had worked with before. During this time I sent out several E-mails trying to keep everyone together and explained that the majority of the assets had to be done by Wednesday so our programmer could program them into the game.

I had not heard anything by Wednesday afternoon so I panicked a bit and called Abigail to explain the situation and say that I would be staying late to do what I could while I was still at the school. I found some of the people from my team (including the main character artist) and most of them had done essentially nothing, so I persuaded a few artists from another team to come help us out. Don't frown, they were already done (at least for the moment) with the other team's work, and were a huge part in our finishing the game on time. The other important factor was the competence of our sole programmer who had essentially made the entire game using stick figures and squiggles in place of the art!


Once we had put the time into the art, I felt a lot better. I ended up doing the user interface (all of the screens and many of the icons in the game) and created the level that went into the final game. I also recorded the "say hello to my little friend" line, which we then distorted and played whenever the final boss came out. The final boss, by the way, looks like this:


I think one of my artists had a little fun with him. Incidentally, the boombox was used as a weapon by the main character, and rainbows are found in several places including "cassette tape" power-ups. Anyway, the game was due by noon on Saturday and after a long session Friday evening we finished and submitted it a full 13 hours early! Once again the scope was not nearly as much as we envisioned, but I was just happy to be able to turn something in!

A week went by, and we got to look at the other games submitted for the competition. While there were a couple that did not work or were unfinished, there were more quality games this time and I was definitely nervous about one of them. That one took home several awards, but our game, Boom Box Blast, still won the overall competition! I'm not sure if anyone has noticed yet, but I am the only student at the school to have been on the winning teams for both competitions.

Most of the students from Collins will never read this, but I do want to recognize Mike and Carl Potter, two of the artists I borrowed, for their invaluable contribution to our game's success, and a huge thanks to Josh Chilton for being an amazing, hard-working programmer. I know Carl reads this blog on occasion so I definitely wanted to put that out there. Future employers: if you read my blog, hire those guys too!

That's about it for now. We're in week 8 of 10 for the term and then I get a week off, yay!


Scott

So far, so good

Hello Internet, how's it going?

Looks like it's time for another update. Might as well record a few things about my life before the next megaquake knocks California into the ocean and leaves us wide open for Hurricane Griff; which would be the best name ever for a hurricane (for those of us who watched Red Vs Blue).

Since my last post I have completed a term of school and finished week 1 of the term I'm in now. Everything went very well and I managed A's in all of my classes, so that's not too bad. This term I have Drawing 2 (my last drawing class), Digital Imaging (I think it will be 10 weeks of Photoshop training), and Game Theory & Mechanics, where I will learn about creating a game's rules, mechanics, and other attributes and why some choices are more interesting than others. The third class actually belongs in Term 4 or 5, but I have holes in my schedule so I am taking some classes early that do not require prerequisites. If it gets me my degree (and a job) a few months early I'm sure no one will complain!

Much more interesting to me, however, was my participation in the first ever Collins College Game Bowl around week 3-4 of the previous term. During this department-wide competition all students who participated were "drafted" to instructor-led teams and we had 1 week to submit a complete, playable game. Over the next week (it ended up being nearly 2 due to delays), the student body (all departments) had the opportunity to log into our school extranet and play all of the teams' games, then vote for the one they liked best. The teams were also judged by our department head, Joe Ybarra, who awarded additional prizes such as Best Production Value. If that name means nothing to you, go ahead and Google "Joe Ybarra, Madden football." I'll wait.

(doo doo doo...waiting...)

That's right: one of the 2 guys who started Electronic Arts (a gigantic game company) and particularly the Madden football franchise, as well as numerous other accomplishments, was judging my first project. Try to think of someone high up in your company or chosen field who has been highly successful. Now imagine if they were the one conducting your next review at work. It was kind of like that. To be fair, however, Mr. Ybarra is actually very approachable and a pretty nice guy, but the man created arguably the most successful video game franchise of all time. It gave me pause.

The experience of the Game Bowl started off a little bittersweet for me. When we signed up for the competition I listed my skills as "Producer" and "Content," which essentially means I know how to lead/manage a team and I know how to write well. There were many options out there such as 3D art and Programming, but I did not feel skilled enough to apply for anything else. So when I showed up for the draft, I was not surprised that I was one of only 3 people who were only beginning their program, whereas most of the students there were at least halfway through and had some experience. Furthermore, the other 2 beginner students are amazing artists, and as such were drafted in the first round. I was drafted in the very last round and was only picked ahead of 2 people, which was less than fun

After the draft, we were informed of the three rules of the competition: 1) We could not actively sabotage any of the other teams, 2) We had to complete the game and turn it in within 7 days, and 3) We had to include three "mystery ingredients" in every game; although the method used was at our discretion. The mystery ingredients (as chosen by Joe Ybarra) were: a hummingbird, hexagons, and a six-sided die. With the rules explained, we were released to get to work.

The instructor who drafted me (Dave Bell) was excited about the competition because that term would be his last at Collins. Everyone on the team with the exception of myself was someone with whom Dave had already worked or at least had had in his class. We decided to do a side-scrolling shooter where the player controlled the hummingbird and fought bees, wasps, and a hawk. The hexagons were used as power-ups as well as in the user interface, and the dice were used as health power-ups. My role in the project was to type up all of the game literature and to design all of the menu screens (title, credits, options, and instructions) for someone else to put into Photoshop and into the game. It really doesn't sound like much (and it probably wasn't), but it got my name in the credits. Due to time constraints we had to cut our idea from 3+ levels to only one, but the finished product looked and worked very well. After about a week and a half, we finally had an awards ceremony. For most of the people in attendance I'm sure that the highlight was the free ice cream sundaes, but it was memorable for me because not only did my team win the Best Production Value award (the game looked and played the best), but we also won the student vote and thus the overall competition! Our awards were stickers and a badge, but I think the most important takeaway is being able to put it on my resume and in my portfolio.

I definitely learned a lot from my classes and wound up enjoying Environmental Science much more than I thought I would, but being part of a competition and then actually being on the winning team was pretty sweet. That being said, the next Game Bowl starts next week, and I will post the results just as soon as I can!

Scott

Yay for President's Day!

Sooo, time flies when you're (mostly) having fun! Monday was great first and foremost because I got to sleep in for a change (first day since Saturday the 7th I'd gotten to do that for various reasons). Abigail and I had breakfast together, then my dad and Susan came to my place. At that point the girls went shopping and to a movie and my dad and I hung out for a while, eventually to be joined by Andrew, then Travis. We had originally planned on going to the driving range that day, but I was sore from sledding the day before and Andrew was tired from being up all morning waiting to get a seat to see President Obama speak on Wednesday (today).

So instead, we got Weinerschnitzel for lunch (one of my favorites!) and played Rock Band. We briefly played Halo, then played Ghost Recon for the remaining time until the girls returned, and my dad and Susan left soon after that. We then ordered Pizza Hut and Travis' wife Kim joined us while we played Rock band again.

I made the mistake at that point of confessing that I had started a new band at the beginning of the day to protect the score of my own band (which is pretty decently high since Rock Band 2 allows you to play through Tour mode by yourself). I think I half offended half amused everyone, but since I did have some amatuers with me (especially my dad) I felt justified. I didn't want to worry about my score; I just wanted to have fun! It turned out to be a good thing as I got at least three Achievements that day. Go me!

I had hoped to write on Monday but alas (or not), there was no time! This weekend was a great stress reliever and a whole lot of fun. Thanks go out to all of my friends who spent time with me as well as my parents, Abigail's parents, and of course Abigail herself. Special shout out to Susan for going to the movies with Abigail, she needed a break!