In this post I'll talk about two things; firstly my 3YP (3rd year project) and, secondly the up coming Three Thing Game competition.
The Project
Currently the project is at the "Initial Report" stage. This is where we (my fellow students and I) are required to outline what our projects are about and how we plan to go about them. It's a rather tedious process, but a relatively short one. In this report we also talk about some specifications. Now, since I've been given this project, instead of making one up for myself, I'm in the mindset that I'm working for a client and, as such, should be given a formal specification. But I don't have one, and I won't get one, and therefore I'm required to think up of the specification myself, which is quite difficult when all I've basically been told is that I need to calculate how quickly a fire engine can get from A to B based on historical data.
Although I have little idea about the actual specification, I do know this: I am going to work with Microsoft SQL Server 2008, since that's the format the fire engine data is in, and the ITN Layer that is provided by Ordnance Survey for the road mapping. I know that I'm supposed to be able to calculate the nearest road to particular location on a map, and figure out the average speed that previous fire engines have crossed on particular roads based on the historical data. Roads that have no data will be a problem, however, since there is no speed data provided by Ordnance Survey (they don't deal with that kind of stuff) I won't be able to calculate how fast fire engines can travel on untraveled roads.
I have recieved the data I need to start on the project; the fire engine data in SQL Server backup form, and a compressed version of the road data. I've hit a bit of a block, though, because I haven't yet found out how to restore an SQL Server backup...
Three Thing Game
Now, there is a competition run every semester by a couple of lecturers here at the University. This is a competition based on making a game with XNA, using only 3 words picked at random. There are multiple teams (up to 20, I believe) and each team picks 3 words out of a cup, so each team gets 3 random words, or things, to use to make a game. Then teams then have a week to think up of an idea and prepare, then at the weekend they spend 24 hours solid making it. The games are then judged and the winners announced. There are usually some prizes at the end.
I entered last semester's competition with my team, To Be Confirmed, for the first time and got the phrase "Warrior Koalas on Mars". We came up with a game where you are a koala that runs around Mars placing turrets and fighting of enemies in the form of various animals. We were very pleased with the outcome of the game and, while not quite complete, we won with a unanimous vote. The prizes were some shiny new Windows Phone 7 phones (I got the HTC Trophy 7), and the game was displayed at Platform Expos for the public to play.
Warrior Koalas on Mars
My team mates and I will endeavour to finish the game eventually, in between our course, and then it will hopefully get released on Xbox Arcade. We may port it to Windows Phone, but it will be unlikely for several reasons, the biggest being we don't think the control mechanism would work.
Here is a video of my team and I while we are working on the game during the 24hr session last year.
I am entering this year with just one other person, a team member from last year, under the team name The Infamous Two Sirs. The thing selection is on the 24th, and it's from there whether we find out if we have a good selection or not; we were pretty lucky last year. I will be streaming a video of the 24 hour intense game dev session HERE, which starts from 11AM on the 29th.
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