James Battersby

Research Based Product Development

Posted: 20th August 2010

Hmm, been a while.

Well the main reason for this is because I have been very busy working on my research project which is looking into the intrinsic integration of education in games - you can find out more in my portfolio. I'm about two thirds through the development part of the game and its going well. I recently received some feedback from my supervisor and got some great advice on how to improve it once I've got the main gameplay sorted. Its still rough around the edges but I will be adding all sorts of effects to it soon enough. A lot of the work has been made simpler by using scanned copies of existing assets and using SFML as my graphics/media library. Should be able to get a really polished version by the end of September with research results.

Otherwise I've been climbing a lot in the Peak District and pushed my leading grade up to Hard Severe which has prompted thoughts about getting an SPA qualification but that I'll leave for the future. I'm off to Wales for the Bank Holiday weekend to try out some good multi-pitch climbs - really looking forward to that, it'll make a change from the short single pitches we have here (they're great but you can be left with wanting more).

As far as my career is concerned I am beginning to look for roles - I don't finish until the 30th September but I'm very keen to get my foot into the industry somehow and fulfil a life ambition. Exciting times!

Ark! Complete

Posted: 7th July 2010

After four weeks of continuous development we have finally completed our prototype of Ark! for our Integrated Development Project. The game was originally pitched for the Dare To Be Digital competition but unfortunately we were unsuccessful in securing a place in Dundee. Nevertheless we persevered and persuaded our lecturers that this project would we worthwhile and more relevant to the careers we are pursuing. Unfortunately we lost a programmer in the process due to him being on a separate course but we gained an additional artist. This required the project to be re-planned and a few features had to face the axe unfortunately in order to ensure that we had a quality product at the end of the project.

It has been extremely good fun working on this project and what really pleases me is that we haven't made a quick and dirty prototype - we could easily continue development on this game and scale it to be a fully fledged product without having to drastically change anything. It also runs smoothly despite the fact we haven't tried to optimise it at any point so far which is something we would should we add more complex features into it. You can download a copy of the prototype from the project page as well as other design documents etc.

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