Logo

I am working on some free logo design for a friends pet project.
So far I have made the first demo logo and we will go from there with her feedback. :)

Her basic brief was that she wanted a logo that was 'a bit retro a bit chic and a bit geeky' for 'ChiQ GeeQ PhyiQ' which is a pet project of hers (custom geeky clothing and accessories) she also wanted something mainly typography (font) based.

This was the first sample so I decided to empathize the Q as the tying factor with a diamond for its references to quality and geeky connections (such as Minecraft) I then decided to have each of the words reflect their themes and emphasize that the brand is a little bit different.

RPG Maker XP Adventures (Troll Game) Update2

Ok so only a little update but I felt I would like to share the work I have done...

So apparently waterfalls in caves are not allowed to have nice bubbling endings to them.... :( I searched Google high and low to see if anyone made a custom waterfall autotile but apparently I am the only nutter that wants a lot of caves in their games...

So I was left with the only option of making one (or editing the grassy waterfall to brown pixel by pixel)

I would like to share this so no one has to go through hours of unnecessary pixel work themselves.

One fully working cave waterfall auto tile. Feel free to use in commercial and non-commercial games but please do credit (me) Nights-Rune. :)

RPG Maker XP Adventures (Troll Game) Update1

Ok so really exciting first update! Wooo....

I am working on a game about a young Troll who leaves her tribe wanting to explore the wider world. (Nope no plot spoilers here!)

So far I have been mainly working on making sprites for all the Trolls (who have long ears with fluff and tails with a fluffy tuft) and also on the MASSIVE custom tile set needed to make the Tribe's home in the caves.

Also a lot of map making has been the focus so far (because Troll tribes are very communal there are no doors or truly separate hosing so its one HUGE map for just the inside of her home)

I really like the style of RPG Maker XP. Its graphics may be a little retro but they are clean and quite pretty with a slight anime vibe to the stylization. (The above picture includes a fully animated Troll blacksmith - a sprite edited from one landofshadows produced)

I have so far animated all the fires (Trolls are really into fire) so that torches, fire places and fire pits all move as they should, which takes a long time on a massive map with many sources of light. I have made the cave screens a little bit darker than the outside but since Trolls have brilliant night vision it would not make sense if it were pitch black.

I am at a stage now where I can refine the map and add in people to make it an imersive world. So I am now spriting Trolls like mad (which is mainly adding ears and tails to original sprites) and because I want a really deep and believable world it means making a lot of non essential characters.

Note for other users of RPG Maker XP: This game is not going to be used for commercial purposes as it is my first game, as such I am using a lot of other people's source materiel from the web. I am putting together an extensive credits so that I can give people proper thanks for their work. If you do at any point see any of your stuff please let me know what it is and what name you want to be credited as! I have tried to be really thorough in my search for who to attribute work to but sometimes I haven't been able to the find the creator!  On a related note any of my edited sprites are free to use in any non commercial game, if you want to use them please credit it to Nights-Rune. Thanks so much and keep being the awesome community that you are!

I will be posting more updates on the progress of the game when interesting and non spoiler type things happen so please stay tuned and thanks for reading!

RPG Maker XP Adventures

I was in two minds about weather to blog about this or not but I decided I would. I have recently brought myself a program called RPG maker XP which I hope to use to create games. I have also signed up to a community for game devs to learn and get involved with other games. (link here for people who want it)

I have decided to showcase the work I am doing on my game and on other projects. So stay tuned for more updates.

To start I am showing off the art assets that I made for a horror project called deep within the mind (which has been shelved for now sadly)

It is only a title screen and some buttons but I am fairly pleased with how they turned out.

Interview With Adrian Corker (About Copyright)

Interview with Adrian Corker: - 26/01/2012

Associate Lecturer School of Humanities and Performing Arts (ALD) (Faculty of Arts (ALD))

Interviewer: Holly C
Interviewee: Adrian Corker

Holly: Do you think that copyright poses a threat on participatory culture or participatory culture poses a threat on copyright - if so, how so?

Adrian: By participatory culture you mean people being able to get involved with creators of original work?

Holly: Yeah, the whole culture that’s being spawned from the Internet; the making, sharing, not just passively consuming, actively wanting to be a part of it…

Adrian: Yeah, it does, obviously I mean if you take the kind of old media model it’s not - it doesn’t have a way of making money out of that. Participatory culture accepts rationalizing it as some kind of promotional device – which means that they’ve fought it right from the off as opposed to other industries like the gaming industry which obviously understands a bit more about new media, and the music industry tried as hard as possible in criminalizing its consumers  - in doing that they have kind of devalued what they do really, so if you push that model what the old media is trying to do, it could …But with the Internet the cat’s out of the bag, you’re never going to be able to stop it, and there are attempts to do that at the moment. I think most people who make work and who are artists understand the benefits of participatory culture – everyone Facebooks and Tweets now (well except for me, I don’t ) and people use it as a means of building up networks and connections and getting people to be aware of what they do, and people give away things for free in order to get exposure, so most artists are much more pragmatic about it than the business. But the business doesn’t deal in pragmatism, business is geared to make money and they have formulas - they don’t like to stray from the formulas because it sends their spreadsheets into chaos. Hopefully there will be a balance struck – that’s what we’ve always hoped for. At the moment there is too much  - sort of old media versus new media - there’s a battle going on between them, and people who make content- are the kind of victims of both, and in a way both have got it slightly wrong. I don’t believe in everything being free – like if you go in a supermarket – we’re culturally conditioned to understand that food isn’t free, it’s a resource. I don’t see how things created by human beings using time, expertise, energy and resources should be given for free just because we can now digitize the content and spread it on the internet, so you know new media hasn’t got it totally right – I love the innovation of the new media but its also – you know- we’re needing? to invent new models which will be able to give artists sustainable livings, and old media - what the old media’s based on is a – servant relationship which is – you sign to them – you cannot work for anyone else – so that’s obviously the eighteenth/seventeenth century model – so there’s huge room for some pragmatic shift that would serve everyone.

Holly: Yeah. In light of the recent events where do you stand on the whole SOPA / PIPA debate?

Adrain: It’s the same I think. Like I said it’d old media versus new – they’re fighting for their own basic new business models or old versus new business models and you know – I think artists need to be protected. I don’t think iTunes or Apple or – a lot of new media giants – you know - Google – they have the same inherent moral problems in different areas as the old ones. Privacy, totalitarian dominance of the markets  - this idea that new media is good and old media is bad is just too simplistic and there’s problems with both, the prob with that bill is like a lot of old media companies who lobbied Washington particularly Hollywood, have convinced Washington of their own importance – of how much money they bring in - which I think has been vastly overrated?  - according to what I’ve read – Hollywood don’t bring in as much as the figures suggest but it’s how they account their money? There’s an accounting quirk in how they account the money they generate – they’ve over inflated their worth to the economy. Vastly. And in doing that, you know, probably because they’re all going to the same parties – they’ve got Washington’s ear – and obviously their fighting is very Draconian – sort of bill – fighting to have it implemented. I don’t agree with it, but then I don’t agree with just letting everything sort of float about – I mean, in fifty years time copyright might not exist  - but there’s peoples livings relying on it at the moment and you cant just suddenly overnight sort of cut it all off – which is also potentially happening - well it is happening – peoples incomes have been shredded to pieces in the last five years. So –

Me: So do you think the copyright laws need to be changed and updated to accommodate the - for the Internet?

Adrian: Well yeah – the problem is that – yeah – I do  - you’re getting into a whole thing now where the copyright laws as they exist they’re about a certain time where you own stuff-  a lot of the body of work that’s worth money is now running into the public domain territory. According to the film industry Disney had their bill extended to keep mickey mouse ??… bill twenty years extended for like Disney’s work and that kinda stuff – they’re trying to extend their ownership and its like sand falling through their hands – they cant hold onto it forever. I just think the trouble with copyright is that it was originally intended to protect the work of the person who created it – but because of how the economy and intellectual property works  - the owners of the intellectual property quite often aren’t the creators anymore. These corporations who have used business models and this very unfair servant - slave type contractual relationship, which I’ve just mentioned, to kind of make money and on owning peoples intellectual property – you give it to them  - they give you some money, or the chance to record an album – or make a film, and they’ll give you the money to do that, and then they own everything and make money out if it so – its original intention is changed – and the creators aren’t really the people who are benefiting so much from it  - they haven’t made all the money – the creators – oh people say ‘oh artists, or musicians – they must make so much money from the copyright laws’, but the people who do – are the business not the artists so I’d like to see the business cut down drastically, because they don’t do enough to warrant the profits they actually make – and like – to have the artists have a bigger proportion of the pie?  Like - I haven’t really thought about what could be done to improve it, in terms of concrete suggestions, but I think the middle man should go – what gets freed up by them going should be more portion more to the creators of content.

Holly:  Thanks that was great! 

Note: I decided to add this interview transcript to my blog as it was a really great experience. Adrian Corker is not only a lecturer at Plymouth University but is also an expert on the topic of copyright, being a media content producer in his own right. I found this experience both insightful and informative and wanted to share it. This was also used as part of my dissertation process (Info on how to get a copy of my dissertation here) and may benefit future media students, be used as a resource, or simply prove an interesting read for people curious about copyright.

Review: Nemos Reef (Mobile Game)

It's been quite a while since my last review and I have been wanting to do this one for a while.

I have put it off because of the kind of game I want to review.  Hardcore gamers will probably hiss and slink back into their game caves but I am going to review a 'casual' mobile game.

For those in the dark as to what defines 'hardcore' and 'casual' games pretty much any game on a mobile can be considered casual. Hardcore games are games on PC or Consol like 'Call of Duty', 'Mario', 'World of Warcraft', 'Kingdom Hearts' They generally are things like RPG's and Shooting games and what most gamers consider 'traditional'. Casual games are things like 'Peggle', 'Plants vs Zombies' and the like, simple things like hidden object games. 

I am really not sure how most gamers feel about casual games but between my Zelda stints there are vast times where without casual games I would be left unplugged. I as a gamer I do not really like being unplugged all that often. 

So with that explanation out of the way I would like to talk about a mobile game (available on the app store and Google play store) Nemo's Reef.  A continuation on the story of Disney's movie  'Finding Nemo' where you help the little clown fish build a perfect reef. 

I am not exaggerating when I say that this game is like a digital form of crack for me. I literally have trouble putting it down. 

So what makes it so appealing you ask. Well its visuals are so bright and colourful that even though it's fairly graphically simple it still looks stunning. Yet despite all the bright and varying colours it still has a very relaxing quality.  The music is soothing and you can spend hours getting lost in the repetitive nature of completing quests and harvesting the materials needed to progress.  The game play is pretty simple (it's a kids game so no real shock there) but it's enjoyable to watch your reef expand and grow as you level, bursting with colour and fish as you discover new combos. Little fish are simple enough to get with coral combos making the reef feel alive and for any kid that gets lost watching fish tanks this game will be a winner and keep them quiet. 

 

So are there any downsides? Well yes. The game is free to play with a pay for perk currency and while it is very possible to play without spending a penny it will be very slow going and annoying as hell for anyone who is even a touch completion-ist . The rare fish are much more easily obtained with the pay for currency and there are some very good plants and nifty decorations to spend real cash on. One would think a company as big as Disney would not even need to have pay for perk system in their games but hey everyone likes a profit and the bundles they do are somewhat reasonable. On the plus side rare fish can be 'fed' to spit out a pearl (the pay for currency) around every three days for the cheapest and going down the more in game currency you sink in. The quests can be ignored completely but sometimes do demand use of the pay for currency which can get highly annoying. The game requires connection to the internet to play so if you have a Wi-Fi or cloud access you can enjoy it on the go or at home, it will eat through mobile data though so be warned of that.  Frome time to time a chest will pop up, most of them unlock with the peals (cash based) but sometimes for the in game obtainable resources , though it is worth noting that not all the ones open-able for the in game resources give better rewards than what you need to sink to open them. The flip side is that sometimes a chest will appear with no lock and will open for free, actually genuinely for free... There is a daily log in bonus, it's not the best but you get pearls starting on the third day, the bad thing about it is it resets after five days down to a really rubbish reward whereas most games keep going up or at least keep the rewards good but if you log in all five days you can net nine pearls which is better than nothing.

So on the whole would I recommend the game? Yes I would. For parents wanting a good game for their kids this will definitely keep them absorbed.  You do need to be aware that they will at some point want real money to complete things so it could be a good opportunity to teach them restraint. The way you pay for pearls is linked to your account and there is a confirmation screen but you may have to supervise the more persistent or smart child and laying down some ground rules (for any game) is never a bad idea. For adults looking for something both creative and relaxing that they can play at a whim when boredom creeps in I would say to give it a shot for gamers and non gamers alike.  It may not be the best mobile game out there but it is absorbing and utterly beautiful in terms of visuals and will suck you into hours of reef building if you let it. Also the younger of my cats seems to like playing it too! 

How to get the most out of gaming. (For parents who worry about gamer kids)

It can be a little daunting being a parent in the modern world, with your kids wanting the latest consol for Christmas, spending days glued in front of a TV blasting enemies or jumping bright coloured platforms.

Do you feel like you can't relate to them or worry that they aren't getting anything from the experience other than entertainment? Well there are some simple ways you can put your mind at ease.

Take an interest: This may be really hard to do when your young child is constantly babbling at you about brightly coloured monsters or when your teen is talking about how they 'pwnd' all the enemies and got a lot of head shots but ask them what they are playing and what they like about it. There may be surprising ways you can turn it into a positive experience for them or for both of you! For example if your teen really likes war games, talk to them about the period its depicting, the differences of real verses game world. Any WW2 game can open up a dialog on that part of history, tell them about any relatives that were alive back then, show them family medals from then if you have them. Find out why your child likes the games and talk to them. Maybe the reason your son or daughter likes the monster games is because they take care of them or maybe they enjoy the story, you won't know unless you ask and believe me they will relish in telling you all about it. 

Play together: If you are into games this is easier, Love an old Mario or some other retro game? Take turns in playing it with your kid or better still find a co-op, they will have fun seeing what you like and trying to do it as well as you if not better. If you are not into games this can be a little scary but ask your child to teach you or show you, they will get a massive kick out of feeling so accomplished and helping a grown-up and you get to see how smart they actually are.  

Offer help: Knowing that a parent has your back, even if it's just that you can snuggle on the sofa, safe in the knowledge that they will Google an answer for you when you get stuck, really means a lot to a child. It shows that not only are you interested in them but that you are there for them too! Here is where gamer parent's actually fall over, yes they may have fallen down the same pit at least a hundred times but accept if they don't take you up on your offer of assistance, do help them if they really are stuck but try to encourage them to solve the puzzle or jump a gap on their own. Be supportive and encouraging, as tempting as it is to do it for them, they won't learn or grow if you help them out the moment they become stuck, allow them to progress on their own at their own pace, be supportive if they fail, they will get there in end, no matter how annoying you find the game over music. 

Encourage deeper research:  Tones of games have interesting facts hidden in them, they are a great way to encourage your child to research deeper into things, be it finding all the secret arrears on a walkthrough or learning about the meaning of the names of certain characters; for example in one game a character was called Yggdrasil, this opens up a whole area of research on Norse mythology that you can explore together and may even give you both a deeper understanding of some parts of the game. I myself would not know some of the things I do now if I hadn't seen it in a game and researched it.  You can even weave some games into your child's education, for example if they are studying samurai at school then why not play something Like Shogun Total War and bring that part of history to life in a small way? There are so many games with so many subjects that even pure entertainment games can be an opportunity to educate. 

Pick age appropriate games:  It's very easy to blame games for having a bad effect on your kids but be mindful of the age ratings on games, they are there for a reason and are too often ignored. Can your child really handle the content of the 18 rated game they are bugging you for at the age of 12? A smart way to make informed choices is to play a little yourself or ask the staff in the shop what they think of it. There are games out there that can give very positive life lessons about friendship, love, sacrifice, teamwork and a whole host of other things. For example the game 'Tales of Symphonia' is packed with positive lessons like how to be brave and selfless. Read reviews and make informed choices about the games you actually let your kids play. 

Get the whole family involved: Party games can be a really great way to spend family nights in and they are becoming more and more accessible to non gamers . Why not have a Wii Sports night where even Grandma and Grandpa join in with the bowling? There are plenty of party games that you can enjoy as a family that are not just fun at Christmas or parties but great for family nights in!

So there you go, the key things to keep in mind are; listen, try and relate even in a small or remote way, be supportive, be encouraging, make informed choices on the games they play, get involved if you can, and if you can find an educating tie in go for it!

Update: I will be doing spotlights on games that can help education the first of which is now here.