Trade Secret at GDC 2011!!!

I am very pleased to announce that 2% Collaborative Projects in association with Politically Incorrect Games will be taking Trade Secret to Game Developers Conference 2011, courtesy of the University of Advancing Technology.

Back in early October, the team heard that our school U[A]T was hosting an internal competition for student projects. The winners would be given hotel, airfare, and an expo pass to GDC 2011 in San Francisco. On top of that already considerable investment, the school would also print off marketing materials such as fliers, shirts for the team, and other various marketing tools.

Our team has worked very hard polishing the game as well as preparing a presentation to woo the judges. After a lot of lost sleep, sacrificed weekends, and dedication by the team, we won out over 8 other teams, and will be sent to GDC along with the other winners, Project Tellus, with which we share many Team Members.

I'm very excited to go to GDC San Francisco for the first time and look forward to promoting the game as well as making many contacts this february.

As always Trade Secret can be found and played here: Trade Secret Game

Trade Secret in the IGF

Well yesterday we submitted Trade Secret to the Independent Game Festival. Realistically, I am fairly certain we will not win. Optimistically we may reach the student showcase. We spent a lot of last week in crunch time, working long hours trying to get features in.

I didn't spend as much time as a good portion of the team working because there was little i could do to meaningfully contribute towards our goal. Most of my work is more abstract, and for the IGF build we focused on Tier 2. My work was already completed for Tier 2 and i lack the unity skills to meaningfully help the level designers. I did spend a lot of time with the group though, giving my moral support and answering the odd question here and there.

The last few days however i was able to test quite a bit, tracking bugs, finding flaws, and giving general feedback to see what we can and cannot fix in time. The most up to date and current build of the game will be located here:

Trade Secret

Overall, it was a great experience trying to get the build as good as it could be, even if we ran into issues and it is far from perfect. This simulation of a real crunch time is probably going to be one of the best learning experiences i take away from my time in school, and of course it was learned on a personal project, not a school project.


So it goes...

Arms of Pewter

Today i finished the basic plot outline for Legacies of Mistborn: Episode 1. It will be about the half skaa bastard of a plantation noble who has a weakness for the illegal skaa fights that were mentioned in the books but never actually described. The main character, Duke Dirtfist, will be a fighter who secretly uses pewter to his advantage. Thats about all i can say without giving the plot away, so you'll just have to wait for the game to come out. :)

It should be fairly short, but that is more or less the point of splitting the game into episodes.My vision for the different episodes is to slowly add features to the concept of a mistborn game. This way i introduce the powers one at a time, with small games, get advice and critiques to help me improve them as i make them. That way the last episode will incorporate all 8 basic metals and hopefully players will be familiar with the various mechanics.

This can lead to problems as well if i expect players to have played the earlier games. I will definitely have to incorporate a decent tutorial for the mechanics without making it too boring for returning players. It is definitely a challenge and i'll have plenty of time to think about it.

I do have a bit of an idea for an overarching plot that will connect all the mistings together and the mistborn character as well. It would really be easy to make the connection obvious, but im going to try and keep it at least a little non obvious.

I feel really good about this project and i cant wait to finish it and pop that into my portfolio.



So it goes...

We are the Guild, BWA HA HA HA

Today, I became a villain, an icon, and the leader of all humanity. At least in Trade Secret. 

So today I had to explain the structure of the gameworld to the level designers and everyone else on the team. During my explanation of the first in game cutscene, i happened to do a two second motion that made everyone laugh, and declare me as the main villain. I simply move my arms in a motion akin to "The Twist", only much more muted, while i said "Bwa ha ha ha, We are the Guild!" They all proclaimed i should be modeled and animated doing that very motion for the game, and they declared me the Guild Master.

So i'm not only the Combat Designer and the Writer (or as i like to call myself, Loremaster), but i am now the Guild Master. So i'm going to write myself in to be a steampunk Dr. Robotnik like character, and i will make sure it is in the final game. So let that be a lesson to all you in game design. Make your team laugh, and they'll put you in a position of power.

Oh, and the next person who says Hey-Oh! is getting kicked in the shins.

So it goes...

Trade Secret Update and Legacies of Mistborn

Trade Secret is doing pretty darn well lately. Our team size has gotten quite big, and at 23 members, we apparently have the largest team UAT has ever seen. Our project manager, producer, and other leads had a meeting with the schools marketing department recently and were assured that if we get sponsorship to GDC San Francisco, they'll send all of us.

I had fun volunteering at Austin and I plan on volunteering at San Francisco as well. Hopefully some of our more sociable members will spread the word much more effectively than i ever could. I've never been a good salesmen, but hey, that's what producers are for, neh?

I'm very much looking forward to working on this project more. I recently had an idea for a very cool new feature for the game that is simple to implement but will just require a lot of new content on my part. I'm pretty excited to do a bit more visible work, since much of the story elements aren't portrayed by cut scenes or dialogues. I'm not sure how much i can say, so i guess I'll have to be mum on more details.

There is another project i am going to begin very soon that i dont have the same restrictions. I'm excited to announce my plans for the game Legacies of Mistborn (LoM), based on the novels by the very talented Brandon Sanderson. This is an unofficial fan game and i will do my best to bring the excitement and feel of the Mistborn universe to a new medium.

I plan on splitting the game up into several small episodes, each featuring different characters with different allomantic abilities. Once i have the first episode to a point of testing or critique i'll post a link, and eventually once its completed i plan on sending a link to Mr. Sanderson himself.

Thats all for the time being. Hopefully i'll start to update more regularly, especially when i get my portfolio up in the next months.

So it goes...

Birth of Blog, Trade Secret, and GDC Online

Welcome, all 0 people who know I have created a blog!

Seeing as I don't have a proper website yet, and GDC Online is coming up i felt obligated to have at least SOME presence online besides social networking sites. This blog will be dedicated to my game design, with occasional posts about projects and their status, and other random thoughts I may have on the subject.

At the moment I am working on a project tentatively called Trade Secret until we come up with an actual name. This is a student project that we started during a class during the summer at The University of Advancing Technology. We have been doing our best to simulate a realistic work environment, with the secrecy and all.

My role on the project is Lead Writer and Combat Lead, so im in charge of the story, monsters, combat, etc. I'm very excited for the project because i get to do my favorite parts of game design and participate on a great team filled with hardworking individuals. This project will very likely become the mainstay of my portfolio until i get a proper job.


GDC Online is coming up and I'll be volunteering during the week. I'm pretty excited since i have never been to a GDC. I expect it will be a very humbling experience and make me question my career path, but it'll probably inspire me just as much to work harder.

So it goes...