Shaping up

I have decided on the story and settings of my game. Lord of the rings and many other films and useful references later, I have decided to set my own fantasy world of Everest as the setting for my game.

The main Hero is a boy named Tai who is accompanied by a mysterious Minotaur like creature named Zork!

Obviously this is a public forum and my idea is still up in the air but I will update as I get ideas down.

Platform Dive!

While researching Zelda to get ideas for my own work, I found myself thinking that it would look so much nicer if it we're on a better graphically capable system, such as the PS3 or Xbox 360. The Nintendo Wii doesn't appeal to me as a console either, I feel it's control systems take me away from the game play too much, I fin myself swinging my controller around to hit anything really annoying and would prefer to be able to sit back and feel my surrounds more. The Wii is a very innovative way of playing games, but for what I want to do, has no real appeal when I can achieve a visually nicer game on a different console.

Image Sourced from Games Radar

A logo is forever...... unless you change it?

I'm well underway with my work and have just finished creating a logo for my game.

Initial Idea

Taking the principles of adventure and action, I immediately started to concept my vision for what I was going to create.

I wanted a game that will be a fun immersive experience for the player with a strong coherent narrative keeping the action going.

Immediately I went to my local game stores and started seeing what was about.



Uncharted is a very popular series with high levels of environment exploration and treasure finding, but I found, although yes a good game, I have no interest in the way the game is set, I was looking for something a bit more fantastic that would bring out the child in me and get me thinking more creatively.

While out I found Zelda, ocarina of time on a playtest stand and it immediately spoke out to me.I also descovered that there was a new Zelda release coming to the nintendo wii, and made it a priority to follow as I worked on my own work until it's release.

I started thinking about how I could be unique in my approach to an all ready popular genre, and didn't note any games involving two heroes, all of these games focused on one character, and I had already started drafting a fairytale between two protagonists that I think fit the genre and narrative I was aiming for.

This would be the start of Zork : The Last Guardian.

Blue Dragon

I picked up a copy of a game called blue dragon. The game's lead artists Akira Toriyama was reponsible for the Dragon Ball Z series.

This game is very much the direction I want to take visually. It's very attractive and incredibly presented. Although it isn't an action adventure like the game I want to design, there is a lot I can take from the game and use as inspiration in my own work.

Zork!

Project 1 of my new term at NUCA is to re-imagine a game that our tutors have set us. I drew a game called Zork, one of the first interactive adventure games 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language.


Zork is set in "the ruins of an ancient empire lying far underground". The player is a nameless adventurer "who is venturing into this dangerous land in search of wealth and adventure". The goal is to return from the "Great Underground Empire" alive with the treasures, ultimately inheriting the title of Dungeon Master. The dungeons are stocked with many novel creatures, objects and locations, among them grues, zorkmids, and Flood Control Dam #3— all of which are referenced by subsequent Infocom text adventures.


In short the game was very frustrating and I hardly got anywhere before I died. Just from playing it I got a sense of exploration and this triggered my thought patterns, eventually leading to the creation I will be blogging about.