Making the alpha for Project Dak... Its going well, I'm placing roads, and buildings. I have the basic character in with basic working camera and movement along with image effects etc (All assets are not final and are mostly placeholders)

Did my first pass on my GDD. Things are coming together nicely. Here's a concept map to look over. I've planed it to be simple and easy to make with repeated assets to work with my time constraints.

On a separate note. We have to do an Expo later in the year. We have ben asked to think up a name... Last year they called it UNCHARTED 2012... Haha... I was thinking something like... IDK... The Expo 2013... I think its simple and conveys the meaning very easily... Perhaps we have it on a picture of a sketch that becomes a low poly 3d model, to a mudbox model and then an in game character... Its evolution, but it also shows exactly what to expect from the Expo.

So I've been asked to say some things about what I would like to hear from press and fans and what I don't want to hear from them.

I guess from the press I would like to hear that it packs content and quality almost akin to an AAA game. Its where indy games should strive to be as every day technology and software becomes more efficient and easy to use. So Its achievable for indies to exist again like they did back on the PS one with devs like Naughty Dog or Insomniac. 2 man devs making Crash and Spyro. That disappeared for 2 generations due to complexity and cost, but its coming back now with easy tools and hardware.

Simplicity means more creativity.

What I don't want to hear is that the game is "just another cheap indy game" that would be what I'm definitely striving my hardest not to be. I want to make a 'quality', 'full' and 'fun' experience, but at the price of an indy game instead of a blockbuster. That's what I want fans and critics to say about it.

So we now know what we have to do this semester. I've decided on my concept and have planned to the extent that I have the map, asset list and general plot line developed. Now I need to start pushing out assets and decide where in the story to place my vertical slice (The Demo will be done by end semester with the full game, hopefully, being 80% done by then)

Basically its much like Jak or GTA but with a very Star Wars or Ratchet spin on it. A sandbox city but with the bright setting of space.

Obviously it has many differences and similarities to those games. But I will be ironing out the details when I do the GDD tomorrow (I'll post that with map concepts and asset lists)

Been fooling around with making mobile 2d games. Got a few fun games that I'm creating content for, probably publish them when I feel there is enough shit in them to sell.

Other than that I've been thinking about next semester and what game I'm ganna make. At first my thoughts were on "GTA in space" but after a few weeks of brainstorming and concepting and making models, I realised that perhaps an open world game has a little too much content to be made in 6months...

So I started brainstorming a new idea and I've thought of doing a creepy/spooky archaeology game like tomb raider or uncharted... but in the future where archaeologists search for wrecks of old space crafts... I'm thinking that the ships could look like decomposing carcases with light piercing the holes in the ships hulls wick would be not unlike the rib cage of a carcus...

So I was concepting for this new idea. Its ideal for 6 months as its more linear in nature, but within it I could get the underlying functions I need for the open world game, such as upgrades and hover car handling.

I came across an interview with Guerrilla games about Zbrush and checked it out. These guys are probably one of the 5 or so devs that pioneer the future in terms of game engines... But anyways, I digress. I was interested by the fact that they've been using Zbrush for the characters, guns and... whole levels... Apparently they sculpt the level in Zbrush (minus props) and then export the mesh, normal map, bump map, diffuse map, spec map and height map (for tessellating them pebbles)... Apparently not only does this approach mean faster level design from consepting through to final level and tweaking, but It also lets the artist get the exact environment he wants in real time due to being able to sculpt every detail...

Of course these guys are amazing and they have much better tools, skills, resources (being the PC's an the poly/texture budget that comes with PS4, Umbra 3, LOD's and streaming) and engines than I have. but I figured I'd fool around with making my asteroids with that approach.