PPP - Professional blog

In order to maintain a web presence and showcase my work online I have created a professional game art blog under my online alias of Gendrick on Tumblr.
The blog can be found at http://gendrick-gameart.tumblr.com/

The professional blog is still currently under construction due to commitment on the actual projects thus far, but I hope to use it to showcase my personal games development work as well as my work with Zeppelin for Hire.

The reason I'm using tumblr is because of the ease in which my work can be submitted and shared across the website. Similarly, the tumblr interface is also incredibly easy to use, and works can be formatted correctly without error or difficulty, unlike the problems I have faced on other blogging sites.

PPP - Self Publishing

Talk about self publishing and how it will benefit me as a writer

As a writer it is often difficult to get published, similarly I have several opportunities to develop comics with art provided by my peers. Therefore I need to find an avenue to release and sell my works both online and in print. This can be achieved through self publishing, although potentially more expensive than going through a publishing house, I will retain all creative freedom in my works, something which is very important to me.

Though self published works can be sold online, it is also possible for me to use self publishing to order printed copies of my work and sell them at conventions at a fixed price determined by myself. These conventions can also provide an excellent networking opportunity.

A way self publishing is possible is through the website Lulu.com. This website allows for self publishing books both as ebooks and in print. Lulu also allows for printing through Amazon, and publishing of ebooks via Kobo and similar ebook readers.

PPP3 - Possible future, working for Gearbox Software

I am a big fan of the Borderlands series, and as such, I would love to work for the videogames developer Gearbox Software. I feel that Gearbox have a great creative environment, and their games have a distinct style that suits my personal tastes

Unfortunately, like so many of the larger games developers, they are based in the U.S. so to work for them I would have to emigrate to America, this means that it is unlikely that I can work for them for at least five years.

Recently I have begun to feel that I do not wish to work for a larger games company, instead preferring to work on smaller indie projects. However after developing my portfolio extensively, working for Gearbox might be an ideal opportunity to explore.

GaMaYo

GaMaYo is an informal network of games developers from the yorkshire area. When Zeppelin for Hire begins publishing games, we will eligible to enter this network.

Because of the opportunities that could be gained from joining GaMaYo, it will be an invaluable benefit to Zeppelin for Hire, however they only accept developers who have released at least one game and are based in the Yorkshire area. While we are still a long way off from releasing our first full game, two of the three current members of Zeppelin for Hire are based in Yorkshire, while I am living Nottinghamshire, meaning that I am close enough to commute to Yorkshire if needed.

There is a wide variety of developers that are a part of GaMaYo, ranging from iOS app game developers such as Appy Times, to developers for triple A consoles such as Sumo Digitial. Similarly, many of the developers consist of only a single person, while others contain multiple people.

When Zeppelin for Hire is ready to join, GaMaYo could prove to be an invaluable asset to the growth of the development team.

Game City

Game City is an annual video games festival held in October in Nottingham at Nottingham Trent University. There are also several other Game City events held though out the year, providing ample opportunities year round for networking within the games industry.

Because I will be living in Nottingham after leaving college, Game City will be local to me, meaning that it would be worth visiting as many of their events as I can afford. Similarly the networking opportunities presented by the Game City event mean that Zeppelin for hire could benefit greatly, allowing us further opportunities for future projects, and to perhaps take on new members for the team.

A similar event I will also be attending is BAF Game held in Bradford in November.

BAF Game

BAF Game is an annual event held in Bradford every year as part of the Bradford Animation Festival in November. The event comprises of several guest speakers who come from various positions in the games industry from the world over, with both local and international companies coming in to talk about various aspects of the games industry.
It provides a perfect opportunity for networking with the BAFter hours event held after the seminars with the games developers and other guest speakers.

While I have been to BAF game twice before, I did not engage in the networking events. This was mostly down to me not having any sense of direction I wanted to take in the games industry, however, now that I have formed Zeppelin for Hire with Adam and Andy, I feel that both myself and Zeppelin for Hire could greatly benefit from networking at this event.

A similar event would be Game City, held annually in Nottingham, which I also fully intend to attend.

Personal Development - Writing competitions

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/books/adults/short-stories/prizes/

It is no secret that I am passionate about writing stories, I love creating worlds and characters across a wide variety of genres, however I always struggle to motivate myself to write any more than the odd page or two. A way to keep myself motivated to write, provided I have the time.

http://www.bedfordwritingcompetition.co.uk/
The Bedford Writing competition is an ideal competition for working over summer. The deadline is the 30th of september 2014 and has a word limit of 3000 words, a word count I often find myself writing to with my stories.

http://www.inktears.com/Inktears/WritersNewWritersContest.html
The Inktears flash fiction contest has a deadline of 31st July, and a word limit of 500 words. I feel it would be an interesting challenge to attempt a short story of only 500 words as there is very little you can tell in a short space. The story would then have to be a sudden event that can engage the reader.

There are several other writing competitions that can be found at the booktrust link above, however the two I have listed here are ideal for me to get into writing and entering competitions.

PPP - Script writing for comics

Because I have recently started writing comics with my peers, I have found it necessary to learn how to correctly format my scripts.

A cursory look on the internet revealed a short tutorial guide on how to properly lay out comic scripts. This has proved to be invaluable as I was able to quickly pick up script writing for comics and easily managed to find a way to write comfortably in that format.

I learned how to write comic scripts for a web comic titled "The Misadventures of Prince Jeffrey"I am writing with artwork provided by my friend Jeff Maddison.

Script writing is very different from standard prose writing. While prose writing is designed to present a story directly to the audience, script writing frames it in a form that is easier to manage for adaptation into a visual format. In comics, script writing is usually divided into a set number of panels that will appear on the page, with the panel descriptions setting out the actions the characters take while the dialogue is laid out in, often numbered, a way to easily communicate how the speech bubbles will fit onto the page.

I hope to continue writing for comics long after the webcomic is finished. Both professionally and on web comics. I would also love to write comics for DC comics and 2000 AD, both comics publishers whose works I have been a big fan of for a long time.

PPP - Founding the LCA Tabletop and Board Gaming Society

I formed the society in order to allow people of similar interests to myself to meet likeminded individuals and to get a chance to take part in tabletop and board gaming.

In order to form the society I had to follow a procedure set out by the Student Union, requiring me to list the societies intention and ensure that we had enough members to warrant an interest, as well as appointing a committee to aid me in running the society. While simple to follow and set up, the procedure was time consuming and although I started forming the society in January, we were unable to have our first session until the week before we broke up for the Easter Break. However this means that when the other committee members take over the running of the society, they will be able to set up effectively immediately.

So far sessions with the tabletop gaming society have been fun with an increased turnout each session. Thankfully sessions have been small so I haven't had to worry about trying to accommodate people into large sessions where there have been more people than we can fit into a single game.

Currently members are advised to bring their own games, and so far this has been successful. The largest sessions have been the pen and paper roleplay games which can accommodate a large ammount of people. 

The society has mostly been advertised via word of mouth, although the LCA Student Union also put out an email advertising the society.

In order to keep the member of the society up to date and answer any questions that they may have I have set up a facebook page that is open to anyone to join, similarly I have also been provided an email address by the LCA Student Union I can use to answer any questions to the society.

So far running the society has been a rewarding experience and simple enough to organise. The use of social media through facebook has been a massive contribution

PPP3 - My Practice, Level Designer

As part of my studies I have done a lot of work within game engines, and this has sparked an interest in Level Design. Level Designers are responsible for the layout of the game environment, making sure that the environment meets the needs of the player in response to gameplay.

I feel I have learned a massive amount in regards to being a level designer through my end of year project Northern Iron.

I have recently started an indie games development team with my peers from the Northern Iron project we have dubbed Zeppelin for Hire. For our first project we will be creating an 80's sci-fi inspired game under the working title of Saturday Night Vengeance. Because this project will be a massive departure from Northern Iron, most notably being from a 2D rather than 3D perspective I will have to make some very different considerations. While we have not yet finalised the style of gameplay, we do know that the game will centre around two or more human characters and their stories, requiring the set dressing of the level to reflect their quest for vengeance.

PPP - Steam Greenlight

Steam Greenlight is a scheme developed by VALVe to allow aspiring developers to submit their upcoming games to be voted for by the gaming community. If the game idea generates enough interest then the game can be published and sold on Steam.

While Greenlight is a fantastic scheme for allowing developers to get their game published, there are a few faults. Firstly a great idea doesn't always guarantee a great game. There have been several instances of a game generating a massive amount of interest only to be released at a very poor quality. And secondly, on the reverse, a game will only get published if it generates interest, meaning that the game must be effectively advertised for people to vote on the game.

I feel the Greenlight could be an awesome opportunity for publishing Zeppelin for Hire games, however I will need to generate a strong network of contacts and followers to effectively advertise the game in order to generate enough votes to warrant publishing.

Zeppelin for Hire Website

To promote my Indie Games development team with Adam and Andy I put together a website for Zeppelin for Hire. While the website is still undergoing construction, it is located here at http://cyberpuke.com/zeppelin4hire/ at a temporary domain.

Once the website has finished construction it will be moved to www.zeppelin4hire.co.uk under a domain owned by myself

The website will consist of a homepage, The Team page, a Projects page and a blog/news feed as well as a page for contact details with the team members.

Home Page: This page will prominently feature the Z4H logo as well as some brief information about the company.

The Team: This page will contain pictures and information about the team members, explaining their role on the team and perhaps have an inspiring quote about lemon meringue beneath each picture.
http://cyberpuke.com/zeppelin4hire/the-team/

Projects: This page will contain an overview of the games that we have created/are creating, with visitors having an opportunity to go over each project in more detail, learning more about the core of the game.
http://cyberpuke.com/zeppelin4hire/fields/projects/

Blog: This game will concern the day to day news of Zeppelin for Hire and keep visitors informed of what the developers are up to
http://cyberpuke.com/zeppelin4hire/category/all/

Prince Jeffrey Webcomic - 3D modelling development opportunities

Because of the complicated architectural nature of the Prince Jeffrey in-story world, with each kingdom and castle taking inspiration from a different set of cultures and architectural periods, it will be difficult to draw each environment from scratch with only a single reference.

I feel that by constructing asset reference, I will be able to help frame the scene a lot more effectively, as well as drastically improve both mine and Jeff's understanding of architecture in relation to perspective. I will also be able to dramatically improve my 3-dimensional modelling skills, and be able to produce a wide variety of buildings quickly and efficiently. Fortunately I will not need to use texturing as this is simply an aid to the lineart, however on pieces I am particularly proud of, I may wish to practice texturing techniques.

This development opportunity will also give the chance to try my hand at the 3-D sculpting program mudbox. Allowing me to further develop the shapes of buildings in order to create more interesting architecture dependent of the culture the architectural design is meant to represent.

PPP - Indie Games Development

When I finish my degree course at the end of may I do not feel I personally have the skills required to work professionally for an existing games developer. To that end I need a space where I can develop my skill set and improve my port folio.

Because of the much smaller scale of Indie Games and the fact that they are usually self published means that I have a much greater level of creative control in regards to the gameplay and style of the game. Working as part of an indie games development team also means that I have greater opportunities to work as a writer, and adds the challenge of writing stories for a potentially non-linear platform.

After talks with Adam Khalid who I'm working with on my final project for university, we hit on the idea of carrying on working together after college as an independent games developer, with a possibility to release games through Steam Greenlight or similar avenues.

After several discussions amongst our team for the extended practice module we decided to call our games studio Zeppelin for Hire.

My role within Zeppelin for Hire will be that of lead writer and level designer, I will also assist in 3D modelling whenever we made 3Dimensional games.

Zeppelin for Hire

Following discussions with my teammates on the Extended Practice project, we have decided to form an Indie Games development studio called Zeppelin for Hire, sometimes abbreviated to ZfH.

Zeppelin for Hire currently consists of myself, Andy Bailey and Adam Khalid. Our roles within the studio are as follows:

Tim Holland - Creative Director, Lead Writer & Level Designer, 3D modeller

Adam Khalid - Concept Artist, 3D modeller

Andy Bailey - Concept Artist, Texture Artist, 2D Asset Artist


Our first Indie game project will be a 2D rpg style game set in an 80's themed post-apocalyptic wasteland, currently under the working title of "Saturday Night Vengeance"

To help get the project started, I put together a mood-board for inspiration:

Website
Our website is currently under construction but will be under the zeppelin4hire.co.uk domain handle once completed and hosted.

Business Cards
Business Cards for Zeppelin for Hire will be completed once our logo is finalised and our website is launched. This will be completed in time for Game Republic 2014.

Northern Iron - Canal Segment

The largest segment of the level would be the canal section of the game, consisting of a storm drain and a drained canal.

The storm drain serves as a walkway between the highway segment and the canal, serving to showcase the disparity between the industrial and residential areas built by the Sons of Iron faction.

The canal segment is a significant part of the game level, with the difficulty curve gradually rising as the player travels through the level.

 Although there were some complications regarding the proportions of the canal, the finalised asset added a greater dynamic to the canal segment with gradient of the hill and the segment granting the illusion that there was more to the space than first seen.

Massive improvements were made to the storm drain segment by adding shadows to the entire scene and then putting in overhead cables to add depth to the scene.

Northern Iron - Highway segment

For the Northern Iron project, I decided to divide the game level into three distinct playable areas, the highway, the canal and the train yard. This allows me to easily pace the game in terms of level design, with a small amount of enemies appearing at the start of the game, and gradually getting to a larger amount of enemies as the game progresses.

While the general layout remained constant, the highway segment received the most changes in regards to asset layout.

Originally the highway segment was incredibly compact and featured a small playing area. This was a result of the area slowly introducing the game to players and featuring very few enemies. Buildings were placed to provide obstacles for the player to weave around allowing them to get used to the in game movement.

The end of the highway segment is marked by a pile of wrecked cars, forcing the player to duck down an alley way to progress to the next segment, the canal.

When I received the finished floor model of the highway, it was much larger than the original blocked out playing area, however it was a simple enough case of rearranging the buildings to fit the scene. This also had the added benefit of allowing the player more freedom to get used to player movement, meaning that the original obstacles were unnecessary and detracted from the flow of the scene.

Northern Iron - the challenge of being group coordinator

Of my roles in this group project, my biggest one has to be that of group coordinator/manager. It was usually up to me to make sure things going into the game all matched up and were to the correct standard.

Although difficult, I enjoyed the challenge and found that I was able to make sure that the game world naturally evolved by mixing my teammates' skills with my creative vision as story writer.

I feel my role as group manager actually came about due to me being comparatively assertive about the ideas I wanted to see go into the game, resulting the others into deferring to me whenever they had questions regarding the creative direction of the game space.

Much of the organisation came from the use of Google Drive and Facebook Chat, allowing us all to work from home while transferring files and information to each other, allowing me to make sure that all elements of the game were correctly implemented and made to the correct standard and fit the aesthetic style of the game.

In game Enemies

Add Screenshots of enemy placement and health alterations, also discuss how you used the angry bots enemies as a template and what alterations have been made

The Enemy Mech from Angry Bots served as the template for two of the enemy mechs the player would face within the game. By raising and lowering the mech's health, I was able to change the difficulty of fighting the enemies dependant on how many of certain enemy types the player would fight at any one time. The reason we used this mech as template was because it moved and behaved in a very similar way to how we intended our own mechs to behave.

The Crimson Skull is the most common type of in game enemy, often referred to as the "grunt" type. Because the player will often fight these enemies in large groups, I lowered their health so that a few shots from the player would kill them, however the large amounts of the Crimson Skull meant that the player still had a challenge when fighting them. Also pictured is the enemy spider from Angry Bots which serves as a template for the enemy Booze Bombs

The less common Booze Spider mech appears much less frequently, but has a much higher health compared to the Crimson Skull, this makes them much tougher to fight and is represented by their larger size and appearing in key locations.

The Booze Bomb is the peak of Marauder innovation technology, it is simply a barrel of strong alcohol wired up to a V8 engine and rigged to explode. This is the weakest in-game enemy and poses very little challenge to the player on its own, however in large groups mixed in with the other enemies can provide a distraction from the more pressing threats.

Northern Iron - My role as Level Designer

During later stages of development on Northern Iron I took on the role of Level Designer, originally this role was given to Rhys Bryant, but because I was tasked with adding the playable elements to the game I needed to make use of Rhys' level. Unfortunately our original plan of creating the game level to correspond to areas of Leeds proved to be ineffective and too large for players to traverse, as well as being counter intuitive in regards to gameplay. Because of this, and troubles in transferring elements from Angry Bots we were using as a base for our gameplay, the original level was scrapped and I quickly constructed a mock-up version of the level based on the design specifications I had written out.

As level designer it was up to me to make decisions regarding the placement of enemies within the game as well as how the layout of the environment would affect gameplay and vice-versa.

Because none of the members of our group know much scripting, rather than code the game from scratch we used the base scripts from Angry Bots and replaced the models of certain elements with our own.

Northern Iron - Alterations for Game Republic

Following our submission deadline we will be entering our game into Game Republic 2014, however there are several alterations and improvements that need to be made.

Voice Acting

Generic voice lines for the player character and the enemy mechs provided by myself, Luca Calabrese and Jennifer Maddison.

The characters that will be voiced are as follows:
Rachael Chadwick/Weapon of Sass Destruction - Jennifer Maddison
Rachael Chadwick is the pilot of the Weapon of Sass Destruction and has a thick Manchester accent

The Booze Spider - Tim Holland
The Booze Spider is a car converted with a beer keg for a cockpit and spider like legs fitted for movement, it is a product of the Nasti Moon clan and the pilot has an exaggerated north Nottinhamshire/Mansfield accent

The Crimson Skull - Luca Calabrese
Constructed by the Crimson Teeth clan, the Crimson Skull is a marauder mech named after its spherical shape and skull decals. The pilot has an exaggerated Northeast Yorkshire Accent.

Music

Additional music tracks to provide some variation to the background music as well as music for the title screen these tracks will include:

Title Screen:
Georgia on My Mind - Django Reinhardt

In Game:
Helen Forrest - Don't you worry 'bout me (currently in-game)

Additional Minor Assets:
There are many models that have been constructed, but due to time constraints have not yet been placed within the scene, some of these models also have not yet been textured also due to time constraints.
These include:
Various pipes and distillery mechanisms
Finalised Crimson Skull Model
An assortment of spikes, flags and banners

Animations:
Due to time constraints and a lack of information on the unity website, I was unable to get the animations for the mech models functioning in game, however every model has been animated fully.

Title Screen:
Due to poor work flow pipeline planning and subsequent prioritisation, we have been unable to get a title screen made for the game level, however we need to get one finished for Game Republic

Northern Iron - Adding diversity to the scene

Following the feedback, it became noticeable how the scene had very little diversity in terms of the assets within the scene. Using assets from other areas of the scene allowed me to reconstruct the level to a suitable quality, preventing a feeling of sameness throughout the scene. Below are some examples of how I have attempted to improve the lack of diversity amongst the assets within the scene.

In this picture I took one of the shipping containers from the Trainyard area of the level and moved it to the car barricades, adding a little more diversity to the area

Because we only have two car models, it was easy to overuse them when creating the barricade. A simple fix was to create new materials in unity that could be used to add a colour tint to the texture map.

The storm drain segment of the game level is perhaps one of the least visually interesting, to counteract this, I simply added cubes sized accordingly and coloured to act as cables and overhead pipes.

When shadows were added to the game level it soon became apparent that much of the geometry was actually floating a fair distance above ground level. The shadows allowed me to see the problem and alter the geometry height accordingly.











On reflection, I feel that the lack of variety of assets within the scene is down to poor workflow pipeline management, meaning that much of the geometry and environmental assets were left much later than they could have been. Now that myself and my teammates have a better understanding of the work flow and have comfortably embraced production roles, we are able to work far more efficiently, as demonstrated by the speed myself and Andy were able to make essential additions to the game world in the later stages of production.

PPP - Live brief - Zombie AI game

For his 4th year of study at Lincoln University, my friend is creating a Zombie Simulation game using advanced AI scripting. To demonstrate the scripting, he requires several 3D assets that will make up the game world and serve as the enemy zombies.

Project Brief:
 The project in question is a MComp research project examining the application of Agent-based and swarm AI to hostiles in video games. In particular, the project will focus on producing a realistic zombie AI using Agent-based techniques. In order to test this system, players will be placed in a randomly-generated cityscape map and asked to navigate to a given point. The map will be prepopulated by large numbers of hostile zombies and the player must avoid these zombies on their way to the destination. The player will attempt to complete this scenario 3 times, each with a different zombie AI setup. Questionnaires and metrics will then be used to examine changes in play style and player preference.

Required assets:
 A number of simple building assets based on the style of a town/city.
  Required features: Anywhere between 2 and 6-7 stories tall. Consistent style. Basic texturing. Collision volumes.
  Preferred features: Alcoves, back yards and alleyways. In brief, a range of hiding places and shortcuts.
 A simple zombie model. Left4Dead, shambler style.
  Required features: Basic texture, rigging, simple shambling animation.
  Preferred features: Multiple textures (for variation), simple standing animation (swaying, arm movement, etc.)

These assets will be used for the buildings and zombies during the testing phase to enhance the realism of the gameplay.

This project is an ideal opportunity for me to develop my 3D modelling skills, allowing me to create modular buildings that can be randomised to create realistic urban streets that the player can navigate as they evade the hostile zombie hordes.

I will also be able to improve my character modelling and animation skills and vastly improve my texturing skills through the use of 3D painting/sculpting programs such as Mudbox.

For research I will need an understanding of modern urban architecture in order to create buildings that can be easily randomised in order to create a realistic procedurally generated cityscape.

As for the zombies, I will need to research zombies in visual media in order to understand their aesthetic and movements. To develop my skills further I will attempt to create five different Zombie models, including two male zombies, two female zombies and one zombie that is mangled to only the vaguest of human appearance.

I will need to learn basic rigging and animation. While I have dabbled in these in the past, I have struggled with rigging and have so far been unable to successfully rig a character, however I have a series of step by step tutorials that will allow be to learn, and with practice I should be able to rig the zombie models to a good standard.

This project will allow me to prove I can work professionally with programmers to create an effective playable game environment. I will also have a selection of realistic environmental and character models I can add to my portfolio to show I can work in a diverse range of styles alongside my other stylised pieces.

As part of my research, I have begun to construct moodboards to help me develop the visual style of the game world, as well as to make sure that I understand exactly what it is that my friend wants out of the game.

This moodboard is my inspiration for the environment of the game, being a Zombie Apocalypse game, I feel that the game world would be set in a run down and poorly maintained urban setting.

PPP - Extracurricular project: The Misadventures of Prince Jeffrey Webcomic

Hey dudes, outside of college work I am working on a webcomic with my friend Jennifer "Jeff" Maddison on a webcomic we call The Misadventures of Prince Jeffrey, I write the story whilst she provides the artwork and ideas, as well as editing my scripts where necessary.

The Misadventures of Prince Jeffrey is a fantasy adventure comic following the exploits of the titular Prince Jeffrey, a woman who takes it upon herself to rescue kidnapped princesses and other individuals in need, and her wizard companion Timotheus (informally referred to as Wizbitch by the creators)

 Art by Jeff Maddison

The story began life as a joking nickname I gave to Jeff Maddison, however her penchant for drawing characters inspired by herself and her friends, coupled with my tendency to refer to myself as a wizard, led to her doodling the two protagonists. This immediately sparked discussions about the two characters and the adventures they would take, prompting myself to write a short story based on the characters. Although we had discussed the idea of making the characters into a webcomic before this, the short story pushed us to further develop the story of the characters, and prompted us to actually take the webcomic idea to fruition.

I have learned a lot from this project in regards to world building and story writing, as well as a way to write scripts for comics.

I see this webcomic as an opportunity to further develop as a writer and to develop a greater understanding of the work that goes into writing a comic. The project also allows me a greater understanding of what I need to consider when writing for other people.

While the project will primarily be a web based comic,  I am interested in creating possible transmedia elements, including prose short stories and an in-universe style "Prince's Handbook".

Both myself and Jeff hope to see this comic gain a readership and perhaps develop into printed editions, allowing us to take the comic to comics conventions, allowing ourselves greater opportunities as comics creators.

Northern Iron - Our brand of humour

One of the fun parts of writing this world was maintaining a light hearted atmosphere despite the harsh realities of civil war and the atrocities that would no doubt be committed by all factions. Part of this comes from several visual gags that reoccur throughout the game world.

One of the most prominent visual gags is the use of billboards, often showing propaganda, or having been horribly vandalised by the marauders in inventive and amusing ways.

The use of pin-ups that depict male models in Bettie Page style poses is a common gag that was hit upon almost immediately due to its resonance with the personality of the central protagonist Rachael Chadwick. The drawing above was done by my friend Jeff Maddison after I discussed the idea of using male pin-ups as a visual gag and his been instrumental in shaping the humour of the game.

This pin-up was created by Adam who was amused by the idea.

This pin-up was created by Andy specifically for the Weapon of Sass Destruction and combines several Northern English stereotypes with an image of Bettie Page in a martini glass, swapping out the stockings for hairy legs, the martini glass for a pint glass, the skewer for a pick axe and hair for a flat cap and beard inspired by an AC/DC album cover.

Northern Iron - Nasti Moon Breweries

A key part of the Nasti Moon clan in Northern Iron is there fondness for and mastery of producing alcohol, which the other clans consume excessively. In order to represent this fully through visual narrative we need to understand what the breweries and distilleries actually look like.

Distilleries used lots of piping, valves and portholes that may be incorporated into the designs of buildings and mechs.

While this grain silo isn't actually used in a distillery or brewery, the colours and graffiti have a very Marauders feel to them.

Following my research photography shoot on the canal, Andy took one of the shots and converted it into a brewery befitting the marauders, complete with red banners and the distiller unnecessarily hanging from the ceiling.

This concept piece by Andy shows a regular brewery that had been taken over by the Nasti Moon marauders who have graffitied on the stills.

Northern Iron - Enemies, The Nasti Moon Boozebomm

After creating the Weapon of Sass Destruction, we soon needed some enemies for the player to fight, and with the marauders there were very few limits to how crazy the enemy mechs and machines could be.

While we had several rough sketches of the various faction mechs, the first specific enemy type to be designed was the Nasti Moon Boozebomm, a remote explosive fashioned from a beer keg and a V8 style engine on small tank treads that the Nasti Moons use to soften up their enemies before attacking them.

I drew this basic concept sketch to illustrate my idea in order to better describe what the boozebomm would do. I then handed it to Andy how redrew several iterations.

Northern Iron - creating the space in Unity

For Northern Iron we are constructing the game world in the Unity3D engine. While one of the game environments is based upon the existing city of Leeds, due to a divergent history, we are able to take several liberties with the placement of manmade structures and the needs of that world would be different to our own.

We opted to set much of the mission around the River Aire and canals, leading up to the train station where the player would face the end of level boss in a climactic fight. Similarly, in order to easily lay out and structure the space we divided it up into three segments. The city outskirts, the canal district and the train yard.

In the first segment, the player first discovers the Marauder's presence and fights small amounts of enemies.

In the second and longest segment, the player fights their way across the river aire, and faces multiple enemy types as it is revealed what is happening in the city.

 The player then reaches the final segment, the train yard where they face large and relentless waves of enemies until they reach the end of level boss.

Northern Iron - Settling on scale

An often overlooked part of level design by beginners is scale. However all objects in the space need to be sized appropriately for their purpose and use, otherwise they look off and breaks immersion for the player.

For our game there are two considerations we have to take when deciding on scale, the size in comparison to a human and the size in comparison to a mech. With the prominence of mechs in the world, pathways, roads and entryways will often need to be large enough to all these machines access to where they are needed.

We also needed to consider the size of the mechs themselves in regards to their operators. Indeed, we agreed that the mechs would be fairly small as far as other mechs in the genre go, but there is still a limit to how small that they would be. We agreed that the mechs need to be the size of a light tank at the smallest, and tall enough to fit a human operator inside.

The end result was that a human operator would be less than half the size of a mech, allowing them to fit inside the cockpit with the engine and other mechanisms and systems, while the mech was still small enough to easily traverse and fight in an urban environment.

In terms of the game engine, we decided to work to a 1:1 scale, with a single unit in engine roughly equating to a meter, so a human is 2 units tall, while a small mech, including the WoSD is roughly 4 units tall.

Northern Iron - Research and Development - creating the player character

Where would a mech combat game be without the mechs? To that end we needed to create a mech that the player would use, and as such, it had to fit the aesthetics of the Northern Resistance. To achieve this, the concept artists Adam and Andy would develop thumbs, which I would then give feedback on based on the aesthetic style and thematic qualities of the lore and game world.

The mech used by the player was dubbed the Weapon of Sass Destruction almost immediately, a name inspired by the personality of the pilot and my friend who had partially inspired her. This name stuck, and allowed us to develop the finer details of the mech, primarily the decals and paint scheme.

Adam's initial sketch of the Weapon of Sass destruction had the right basic idea, but felt too generic sci-fi and bulky for a Northern Iron mech. There was also a severe lack of anything to suggest it was built using 1940's technology.

Bouncing off of Adam's idea, Andy then developed a rough version of the WoSD closer in style to the 1940's aesthetic of Northern Iron.

When designing the WoSD we soon hit on the idea of using 40's style cars as the base for the design, prompting Andy to develop several thumbnails to work from.

Based on these thumbs, Andy soon developed a version of the WoSD that we were all happy with, but still required a few tweaks, made from feedback from myself.

Once we'd reached the final iteration of the design, Andy drew the WoSD from all angles that I would then take into Maya for modelling. He also incorporated a Pin-up design that would be favoured by the WoSD's pilot, Rachael Chadwick.

Once we had achieved a turnaround we were all happy with, I then set to work in Maya, modelling a rough version the WoSD, which Adam then cleaned up, making sure the actual model was closer to Andy's Concept art. The model would then be sent back to Andy for texturing.

Northern Iron - Research and development - research photographs

After figuring out what area of Leeds the game would predominantly be taking place in, Rhys and I went out to the river and canal to take photographs of the surrounding areas. Allowing us to get a greater understanding of the space when it came to modelling it in the game engine.

The images below are a sample of those taken for research, chosen due to either demonstrating a sense of the game space, or having some relevance to the game world.

Because our game is set in a 1940's style world, much of the ideal architecture in the canal area would have been demolished several years ago, however some old factory buildings still remain, allowing us to use these as a frame of reference when blocking out the game space.