Hello again! The Pawns-team is now back from Gamex! We managed to get a lot of good players to try our game and get attention to our school. I forgot my new camera, so these are taken with my cellphone, sorry for the bad lighting...
Some friends playing Pawns
The booth
..with the lights on
I even had some time to play, this is my work of art using the new wii-drawboard.
And mikael got some freestuff!
We were intervjued by several media, like gameplayer and GT. Gamex is a great place for trying games and meeting people, so if you live in sweden, you can't miss it!
Here are some pictures from germany, from our booth!
before we left, trying to get everything into a nice box
Ruben is using ducttape...
Our booth without visitors...
Posing in front of the booth
And here's a booth with visitors!
A lot of people played Pawns, and we got a lot of nice comments from people who liked our graphic style! We went to represent our school aswell, and a journalist from dealspawn, Jonathan Lester, wrote a very nice and charming article about us here.
We are currently writing a post-mortem (where you state what went right/wrong), but otherwise Pawns is on a stand still. We will most likely have representatives on this years Gamex, Swedens first gameshow!
Hello everyone! Are you having a hot summer? Gotland has had an very hot july with many hours of sun =)
Speaking of july, Pawns was displayed at almedalsveckan this year. Almedalsveckan is a big political forum where many important people (followed by journalists) come to Gotland to share their political views and interests. We had a little booth at our schools' motion capture studio where you could drop-in and play the "best of GGA".
Our school also gave us the opportunity to go to GamesCom 2010! If you're there, make sure you find the giant "G" and come try out Pawns! If you're at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) Europe in Cologne, come have a chat!
If not, don't worry, I'll update with lots of nice pictures for you!
We have had our exhibition at GGA (Gotland Game Awards) 2010 and it was spectacular! Everyone pushed as much as possible during those last days (weeks, actually), and we got it all working. Here, Micke even had to get his "thinking cap" on (it was later decorated with a "unicorn horn" on the top). Esteban and Ruben did exellent jobs while cosplaying, in the suit that I, my girlfriend, Ruben and Esteban built. This one is very early stage..
Here's Ruben in his mask, painting on the soldiers weapon.
Not painted, but assembled suit of armor!
Newly painted and left to dry in the sun. This was one of the last things we did before we left the office and took an early day, big days awaited on GGA!
Here are some pictures from when we built our booth. You can't really see it of course, but this wheel is actually spinning! (amazing.).
Here's Ruben and Esteban in their awesome cosplay costumes (and our booth in the background)!Here, Ruben and Esteban tried Abzolium.
We sneaked over to Victorious Skies and put our poster on their wall. Sadly they noticed, despite our ninja-skills.
Esteban showed true bravery and got up on stage in front of the jury and explained our game, what we wanted and even answered some difficult questions from the jury.
Here, we were waiting with some anticipation for the award ceremony.
We must have made a good impression, because we got the honorary "Award for human rights"!
The motivation: "The UNICEF and the University of Gotland give an award to the student or group of students who, in a talented and intelligent way, have worked to counter discrimination and further human rights in a game."
This years GGA was defiently a blast, we even got to see a lasershow! The rest of GGA can be read about almost everywhere, like here and here. The ceremony and party lasted until morning and Visby is even more beautiful during a summer morning!
Thank you everyone for checking out our booth, our game and blog, and have a nice summer!
/The Pawns team (+ Mikko and Thommy, who are not present on the picture)
(btw, sorry for the late update, we had some problems with log-in on blogger)
It's the very last week now, and we have some things that need fixing, besides tweaking and bug fixing. The last part of the first level is to be implemented, and it looks like we'll have a boss battle too!
Here are some nice screenshots from the game (klick on them for a larger image):
Last two weeks: All the art is done and tileable, Ruben has done a very good job, we even had time to put in some nice effects like a fountain and rain! Our music composer Mikko Jokela was working with us last week, so now the music it done as well as all the sound effects.
I have been working on the win/loose screen and alex is doing particle effects for them. Our teaser and trailer is done too, here's the teaser (you should probably watch them on youtube for a larger view):
And here's the trailer:
Esteban has been busy with his speech for GGA and making a nice presentation for it. Our programmers have been working a lot too, so now you can play two levels and win/loose. We have an intro and a menu, and of course some really fun gameplay!
Simon and Esteban have almost completed the third part, and all the enemies are in the game.
This week we have worked a LOT. Long hours and hard work have, however, have given us an alfa! We now have two characters with working powers (including animations), enemies that attack them, gameover-screen, support for sound and gui and it all works with xbox controllers! Esteban and I redid the schedule after getting feedback from our mentors and now we know what to do and when to do it. It was our cleaning week this week at the office, so now it's all nice here and the dust bunnies have been chased away (for now).
This week: With the handiwork of Simon and Esteban we have made the first part of the first level (1/3), and we are working on the second part (it should be done later today). Jonatan have finished the main characters animations and remade the lancer and the ranger animations. Ruben gave them a new look, so it all looks much better now. The ranger shoots a big bullet, while the lancer runs chases the enemies and tries to attack them. Here are some ranger animations:
And some from the other main character:
Ruben have done a lot of minor things this week, like water, a watchtower, the skies, the power-animations and the grass that is supposed to be in the very front of the camera, giving more depth to the level. Alexander have been cleaning animations, tiling pictures and made some particle effects. Here's the finished tree:
The teaser and trailer layout are now worked out, but we don't have the specifications so we can't start doing them just yet. Jonatan have made the first and last part in 3D.
I have been making posters, like these ones:
After tiling the background layers I have been game-testing and fixing minor things like speed, gravitation and controls. I am currently remaking the GUI (adding pictures of the characters and health-bars).
Our other programmer was away this week, so mikael have been fixing the powers, the camera, the ranger (so he can attack now), a game over screen and, of course, fixing bugs.
This week we have an official first playable! Here'a a screenshot:
This is the version we displayed for our mentors.
Our programmers put in two players, some of the powers and some enemies. For next wednesday, we should have all the powers and combinations, and a win/lose condition.
This week: Like mentioned, the programmers made our first playable. They all have their powers and some of them can be combined. Simon made spritesheets for animations and added them too.
Ruben and I cleaned and resized some images for our booth (for GGA). He continued working on the background for the city-part of the level, while I did concepts for powers and the teaser.
Alex and I tiled the painting that Ruben did so we can start building the level.
Jonatan animated one of the main characters, so he's almost done. Ruben remade two of our enemies, so their animations have to be remade.
Esteban is working on a picture that will be on the main menu and on our posters. He held two presentations this week, one where we showed our first playable for our mentor, Troels, and one where we discussed balancing and the powers of the characters with Gorm.
For now, the players will have two powers each that can be combined, and "hold down for a more powerful power" will have to wait, since the balance of the game is the most important thing right now.
Some friends playing Pawns
And mikael got some freestuff!
