I made this sketch in two nights, as part of a general quest to find a form of game design which is comfortable enough to be a form of play in itself. As it turns out, Unity makes 3d exploration game creation into just such an activity.
Tonight, I decided to start making an interactive version of this trap jaw ant video.
Some working pictures:
This is a light weight journal to show everyone what the deal is with my thesis! Today’s Entry:
Also, random idea encounter!
What if there were bizarre tunneling beasties who lived with the humans? And they keep on doing their thing, even when you aren’t logged in.
I just submitted my proposal for Brand New Colony, for the Fox Fellowship. Download it here.
Another antimation.
I think the current state of video games is made of on the one hand, the big mainstream makers who evolved out of the original companies, and on the other hand people who were kids when those companies were making games. Now, we find ourselves uniquely literate in the form, and we’ve come of age as designers exactly as a tremendous boom of availability of middleware makes it pretty easy to make complex games for free.
After a few years of returning to our roots and admitting that there was magic in the gaming past which has become very rare, I think it’s natural to feel a little sick of that strictly retro fare, and now we ought to go pretty crazy trying to discover veins of that magic with new designs.
This post was going to be longer originally, but I think it’s done. :)
Why ants? While reasearching how to get ahold of some ants as reference pets, I realized just how little I know about them. There are sites–– an entire online world of enthusiasts–– about ant keeping, and I haven’t been a part of it. So why am I pursuing this as a thesis topic?
After all, I have plenty of hobbies and passions of my own which I’ve been involved in for years: social dance, musicianship, coffee, filmmaking, and classic video games. Why not do something stemming from those?
Also, I’ve defined some of the characteristics that have been laced throughout my past work: an acknowledgement of the context of the work, generally featuring a ragtag team of creative friends who follow their dreams and do it “their way” –– so why doesn’t any of that apply? After all, I’m currently working with Vaguely Spectacular, which is a sort of Bad News Bears organization, but I continue to think of my ant project as separate from that. Have I been drawn in by the desire to make a masterpiece, and therefor cast it as the work of an individual? I should likely focus instead on the orchestration of the organization to create the piece, as Jamie did with Spectre, since that’s a central passion of mine as well, it turns out (the art of producing).
So, next design brainstorm: Themes or subjects from my past which could win out over ants. And after that: Organizational structures which could win out over the lone wolf paradigm.
My first stab at an ant walk cycle animation in Maya. :) So far, just the legs.
The HSI Corporation has just completed the alpha release of their revolutionary Human-Seal Interface. Do you have what it takes to strike a deal with the seals?
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