Graphics

This project has to go public. I’ve been working on a platform-arena game together with Guido Boogaard.

Each player controls a monkey. Both monkeys are attached to each other by rope. The camera shows a third person view of the monkeys and the relatively small level. The monkeys can be controlled by keyboard (WASD and arrows) or xbox/windowslive controller. The goal of the game is for each player to jump on a platform with his/her color. When doing so, banana’s will spawn. Players have to collect a certain amount of banana’s and offer them to the God, before he get’s angry. The God get’s more angry over time and when he loses his temper, the game is over.

We initially focused our design process so that the game would be fun. We showed the game to the public during the network lunch (if you were there and played our game, thanks!) and were overwhelmed with positive feedback. Some critical feedback as well, which is great. Something that really surprised us was that people don’t LIKE to play together. People tended to compete with each other (the game did not have clear feedback on the game’s goal yet). We set ourselves a new challenge when we started thinking about that response. Some thorough research pointed out the fact we Europeans get a lot of self esteem from competing and differentiating ourselves from others. This is contradictory from other world cultures where people focus more on their social bounds with other to satisfy their self-esteem. We hoped to have people co-operate and by working together in our game, to help establish a sense of self appreciation by working together. We were hoping to take another step by tying the level mechanics to the survival of the player. this way we hoped to create awareness of the environment. We’ve submitted a request for Gamefonds (didn’t get it), and though we’d love to iterate on the design some more to raise player’s social- and ecological awareness, we just don’t have the time and money to do so. That’s why we’ve shifted our focus back to fun.

The project is great because it helped me to get into Maya again. I’m very comfortable with the application once again and it feels great to be modeling. I’ve also become familiar with Unity some more. The cooperation with Guido is interesting and makes for a great camaraderie.

We’re aiming for a januari 2013 release on various mac and PC Appstores.   This site will be update to bring you further news!

What is the project about? TapTapShoot (Working title) is a competitive local multiplayer game for iPad. The Concept was born during a Game Jam with Niels Keetels. I don’t want to elaborate on the gameplay to much, because I have great faith in the concept and it’s potential success. I’ve got a version of the game running on iPad. There hasn’t been a player that did not like the game.

The gameplay is touch based. The objective is to destroy each other by shooting bullets. The game feels like an FPS  because players have to switch between aiming, shooting and dodging constantly. It has an abstract but colorfull artstyle.

Where are we going?

Due to other obligations, Niels could no longer continue to work on this project. That’s why I am currently looking for a programmer that wants to co-operate with me to finnish the project and get it ready for an App-Store release. Please contact me if you want more information, my email adress is to the left of this page.

What is you’re not just a player, but a composer and producer as well? This is what Niels Keetels and I asked ourselves during a 10 day Gamejam. We came up with an iPad concept where the player would design his/her own song by designing his/her own Robot.

On day 8, we realized we had been too ambitious to allow ourselves to finnish the concept in time. Because of this, we never made it into a playable game. I would like to share the concept and visual design, because I think it is unique and maybe we can inspire someone. There’s a small chance we’ll pick up the project again and finnish it. So how does it work? The game starts in a ‘construction mode’, we call it the RoboBuilder. The player chooses different parts to compose a tune, by composing a Robot. The Robot-parts would determine the rythm, bass and tone output. When the Robo is built, the player continues to play a level. The level contains 2D side-scrolling action. Little Robo will move from left to right. The goal of the player is to take down enemies in the rythm of the Robot, creating the tune of the level.

The game was created in Unity. We planned to release it for tablets. Please contact me if you want to learn more about this ambitous project!

The first and second of October 2011 were all about the Zorgen voor Morgen (Care for tomorrow) gamejam. At least for me and two collegues. Our mission: to come up with a concept that would help solve a future catastrophe in healthcare. It is predicted that in order to still supply the same level of healthcare service in the Netherlands at present time in 2030, two-third of the national population should work in the healthcare industry. Of-course that will not be the case. The gamejam is one of the initiatives to provide out-of-the box solutions and ideas that could contribute to solving the problem.

Our official assignment was to come up with a game that would stimulate the elderly to excersize more often, preferably with the grandchildren. Based on a vision where every home would have sensors in the house to keep track of the inhabitant’s health we’re also enthused to use the sensors as input device. Over the course of one evening and two days we pondered and created Adventuur (Adventure): an advent calender for two target audiences: elderly and their family.

We had a very creative and disciplined team that worked hard to create the Adventuur Calender. It’s an app that gives the elderly a chance to connect to their family. The App has two ‘modes’: One for the family, a caleder and one for grandmum, or granddad.  We figured that grandparents like to spoil their grandchilderen. Grandparents are able to think of a present (from daytrips to compliments) and hide it behind a door. The Kid’s have to come up with an assignment for their grandparents: if the grandparents clear the assignment, the kids get the presents.

We built this assignment based structure around an app based on a calander. We all thought of the excitement of opening one of those advent calendar doors and the materialistic love grandparents share with their grandchildren and combined it in this concept. We are convinced it could promote the interaction between the familiy while the assignments could tempt the grandparents to do more exercise. We won the third prize during the weekend.

Tafelmonsters! is a small App that was designed to teach kids how to do multiplication tables by automation. Repeat and you shall know was Malmberg’s Mantra when they briefed us. The iPad app was considered an experiment. Malmberg’ and IJsfontein’s first steps in the iPad iOS App store.

The project was done in a month, mainly by Tim Groeneboom and me. Once Malmberg picked a concept and style, the first thing we wanted to do is to define an interface that 8-10 year old’s were comfortable with. We made two prototypes. One Prototype was based on the assumption that kids would hold the iPad in two hands, using their thumbs to select the input. We made two half discs with the numbers 1-9, one for the left thumb, with the decimals. The right corner of the screen had a mirrored image with a disc with numbers, 1-9.

Prototype Interface 1Prototype Interface 2:Table top and drag

The other interface assumed kid’s would place the iPad on their lap or on the table. Kids would drag the numbers forming the answer to a small round circle. Then they’d drag the answer to a square with a missing circle. Please also check the images above. One strong feature of this interface was that kids’ could decide themselves whether to select decimals or single digit numbers first.

We assumed so we tested our assumptions. After playtesting it appeared kids’s preferred the second interface where they’d drag the numbers and answer. It was tested with 10 kids. A total of 8 preferred to drag. It was nice to start production knowing how the target audience perceives the product. We were able to built on that knowledge and we knew what mistakes we had made.

Tafelmonsters! Gameplay Screen

During production Tim decided that the relatively unknown framework he had used up until that point was not going to help him in getting the game finished in time. That’s why he switched to Cocos 2D. I had to make a similar leap. Abandoning the standard animation suite for a less suitable application that allowed me to produce the .png sequences I wanted. I was also able to create the fluid movements a lot quicker which helped a lot in bringing the characters to live.

Tafelmonsters! was released early November and it was a great success. It was the best selling Free iPad Education App for at least two weeks after launch and it is still being downloaded more then 50 times a day today. If you have an iPad you van get your copy from the link below.

Tafelmonsters! Startscreen

http://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/tafelmonsters/id459112955?mt=8