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Know – An Educational Card Game

The following are play instructions for Know, and educational card game.

know_logo

Equipment

To play Know requires the following equipment:

  • Blank Cards (or pieces of paper).
  • Pens (not pencils).
  • Teams (at least one player per Team).
  • Source of Answers e.g Academic Textbooks.

Definitions

These are the definitions for terms used in Know:

  • Answer Cards A card that has written on it a Teams ID, their Answer and the Question number that the Answer Card is addressing.
  • Point Pool – The number of points available to be won on a Question.
  • Question Cards A card that has written on it a Teams ID, their Question, and a unique Question Number.
  • Question Prep A round for preparing Questions.
  • Question Round A round for asking Questions and submitting Answers.
  • Resolution A round for marking the Answers to Questions.
  • Round Deck A collection of Answer and Questions Cards for a Question Round.
  • Team ID A secret identifier that is unique to each Team.

Continue reading Know – An Educational Card Game

Masochisia – Games Testing Project

Browsing Reddit’s PlayMyGame subreddit I found a post by Jon Oldblood asking for QA testers for his upcoming game Masochisia. Wanting some experience having a look at game analytically I volunteered to help out,  and ultimately performed two rounds of testing.

My first round of feedback was based on my first impressions of the game. While playing I took notes on noticeable details that jumped out at me in areas like:

  • Technical issues.
  • Game Aesthetics.
  • Game Audio.
  • Game Story.

masochisia_screenshot

Continue reading Masochisia – Games Testing Project

Night At The Park – Game Jam Project

Night At The Park was a team project I worked on during one of Edinburgh University’s Game Development Society Game Jam’s. My team consisted of myself, an artist and my friend Sangseo Lee.

The Game Jam began with a theme which was Shadows. Games were required to include that theme in some manner.

My role on this project was as a designer. In addition to spearheading the game play and mechanics design, I hand crafted the following two levels using the Tiled map editor with assets our artist made, as well as free resources on the net.

night_at_the_park_level_1
Level 1

Continue reading Night At The Park – Game Jam Project

Hero of Allacrost

Reddit is where this story begins. Trawling around I joined the /r/gameDevClassifieds sub-reddit. A place of gathering for game developers advertising paid, and un-paid game project work.

By chance I came across a post asking for a game designer, to which I replied. Unfortunately the position had already been filled though fortunately additional help was happily welcomed.

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The project in question is Hero of Allacrost. Its an ‘open source single player 2D role-playing game inspired by classic console RPG’s, and I’m thoroughly impressed with the standard of this project. It’s use of BitBucket for source control, a Wiki containing lots of information/documentation, a forum, and welcoming project members! I’ve worked on this project for approximately a month, and my contributions to this project have been enhancements to the battle code.

Here’s the latest Hero of Allacrost gameplay footage.  Check it out!

Thrillseeker – Game Jam Project

Thrillseeker is a game jam submission on the theme “You Are Your Own Worst Enemy” designed and created by my friend Sangseo Lee and I. The core mechanic of the game is that whilst flying close to passing asteroids gives you a higher score, doing so greatly increases your chance of crashing. It’s like Burnout in that the player is rewarded for high risk game play.

thrillseeker
In-Game Screenshot

To play it, download this zip file and run the executable inside (it’s a GameMaker exe file)!

Immunity – Game Jam Project

immunity

White blood cells play a vital role for our health, without them we’d be easy pickings to the likes of even the common cold. Play a moment in the life of a white blood cell and battle against an ever growing hordes of viruses and protect the red blood cells to keep your heart beating. Even better, do it with a friend! Happy hunting!

Immunity is a coop game that I worked on with Sangseo Lee, for the Global Game Jam 2013 at Edinburgh. It took second place in the local competition and was noted by the judges for best design. At the moment it’s written in Java using the Slick framework and can run on Windows, Linux, Mac and Solaris. Check it out at the Global Game Jam website here!