In this article series, on Tuesdays developers write about their line of work. Nikki Kuppens is game designer at Vanguard Games, which is currently wrapping up Gatling Gears.
Although no official release date has been announced, it won’t be long before the first ‘freemium’ game will reach the Xbox 360. The title in question is Dungeon Fighter Online, made by Nexon. They are also responsible for the possibly better known Maple Story.
DigIt is a game for mobile phones I made during the Game Design & Development course at the Utrecht School of the Arts. Before we actually made a working version, I had already used the game concept by itself to apply for that course. The finished game was well received and very much complete, but after the project was officially over I saw some opportunities to improve the game even further. That’s what this article is about.
So, before you continue, please take a look in my portfolio to see how DigIt works exactly. It’s been a while since we completed DigIt, but I thought the design notes I made then (while playing the game on my Nokia 7610) would make for an interesting article about hands-on game design. We’ll start off with the one change to the game mechanics and then review the interface to better support gameplay.
In this article series, developers write about their line of work every Tuesday. Nikki Kuppens is game designer at Vanguard Games, which is currently wrapping up Gatling Gears.
Real 3D gameplay is what editor in chief Niels ‘t Hooft was asking for after Nintendo’s presentation of the 3DS. It was the same angle in which I was looking at the presentation of this new handheld and the first batch of games. It’s a topic that has been keeping me busy for quite some time now. Not only regarding the Nintendo 3DS, but with regard to using 3D in games in general.
Students of the Utrecht School of the Arts, the school I also attended and graduated from, recently did a project with Vanguard Games as a client. The team, consisting of eight people, called itself JARRR and the game they made is called General Conflict.
A trailer for the game can be found here. Maybe it’s a little too chaotic to notice what’s actually going on, but I can assure you it’s very easy to pick up this incredibly fun and competitive game. The project’s main supervisor was Vanguard’s producer René Derks, who recently let the JARRR students pass their final exam with flying colors.
After redesigning my portfolio, I’ve spent quite some time working on all the things I wanted to do to present my projects in the best way possible. Until now, there was one big thing missing, though: video.
Most of the games in my portfolio have a demo or complete playable version available, but video provides a quick way to get an impression of the game without having to play it. Opposed to screenshots, video actually shows the game in action.
