So, the Ottawa International Game Conference is officially kicking off tomorrow, Monday, May 26, but I got to attend a pre-conference workshop featuring the Unity game engine. I've been following the development of the Unity engine from its humble roots as a Mac only development platform to the multi-platform powerhouse it is today. Most of the territory treaded by the workshop was old hat to us grizzled ancients, but just about perfect for those unfamiliar with Unity hoping to learn how things are done in this powerful yet easy to use engine. The best part was definitely meeting folks from Unity Technologies and being promised a look at some of the rad upcoming features in Unity 5 tomorrow at the conference, including (drum roll) the much anticipated new Unity UI system!! I am SO psyched! I hope I can sleep tonight!


Image from www.unity3d.com

CoreTechs Tactics Kickstarter Campaign is Live!

Click This Link To Check Out The Kickstarter Campaign!

Some friends of mine have launched a Kickstarter campaign for their turn based strategy game CoreTechs Tactics.

The ideas behind CoreTechs are all really cool, but the community involvement aspect is really what sets this project apart! The team put on these rad "Cardcasts" over on their Twitch channel allowing anyone and everyone to contribute ideas toward the design of new units for the game. I highly suggest you all hop on over to the Kickstarter page and see what the game is all about!

Image from: http://coretechsgame.com/

Ottawa Jam Game Making Headlines!

Kotaku.com recently posted an article about one of the most innovative games to come out of this year's Global Game Jam, Keep Talking and No One Explodes. The gist of it is that one player puts on a VR headset and tries to diffuse a bomb before the timer runs out while their team mates, who can't see the bomb, have to walk them through the procedure because they have the instructions! I haven't had the chance to play this game yet but all my friends who have tell me it's an amazing and totally unique experience. So, big props to everyone from www.keeptalkinggame.com for getting covered by such a prominent gaming news outlet! I wish them the best of luck with the game, the concept is just amazing!

Amazing Looking XNA Port of Heretic

A friend of mine who goes by the name of Daivuk has been fiddling around with porting the classic FPS game Heretic to XNA. Along with just getting it to run, he's been implementing some pretty damn fancy graphical upgrades. I recommend checking out his YouTube channel as he frequently posts updates explaining what he's been working on. The graphics nerd in me loves this stuff!

Extra Credit on the #1 Lesson in Game Design

Came across this and thought to share it. It is so on point! And, you know, true of pretty much any creative endeavour in my opinion. No one is born good at anything. And whether or not there is such a thing as talent, one thing is for sure, those who create great things have large piles of not-so-great things they've created leading up to that greatness. As a life drawing teacher once said to me: If one out of a hundred of your drawings turns out good, then draw more and you'll have drawn more good drawings. Do this enough and you'll find that more and more of your drawings are good ones. I mean, I don't pretend that practice makes perfect, indeed only perfect practice makes perfect but you'll notice, even the amended version of the saying still prominently contains the word practice!

ONLY ONE From Ernest Szoka Now Available!

Only One, the ridiculously fun and surprisingly tactical hack and slash from Ottawa developer Ernest Szoka is now available for free on iOS and Android. I've been a big fan of the game ever since I first played a rough build. There's something unique about the feel of combat that's really compelling. Oh, and the dude's little leg dance during the whirlwind attack still cracks me up!

Check out the trailer and game info here.

Rare Glimpse Into Ottawa Protonight!

Yves Tourigny, who hosts weekly design sessions at his place, recently got himself set up to do time lapse video of the testing. Here is attempt number one! Those of you who read my post about last weekend's game jam might recognise the first game in the video. Big thanks to Yves for the video!