Ciday!

Aidans take on Eleeso's outfit was not met with the approval art of this caliber deserves - or any for that matter.

Todays modern cupid has to be ready for anything. Looking sharp in his pink waistcoat and matching camoflage, Eleeso is ready for action. Ah well at least theres still the prospect of an unlockable outfit.

The Aidan art ban continues.


Its dawned on me that its been E3 this week and I haven't mentioned anything about it. Its definitely less of a spectacle now, still looking forward to Army of Two, MGS4 more epicness - would have been nice to see gameplay (is it possible to be over epic'd?), Mariokart Wii after double dash seemed a bit like Twilight Princess but for MK but !!! WiiFitness!! Where did that come from! Im genuinely excited about the possibilites for developers. Esentially a dual input, pressure sensitve DS screen. Mario Kart Pedals, giant Robot feet, skateboard - so much potential!

Darewise things progress ooookay. Had a meeting with Adrian about production and Protoplay - got a load of good tips for demoing material and discussed some broader production topics. Also got the inf0 about the computers were using which are essentially the same ones were using here at EA which is great news.

Engine Wise got some really good stuff - Rowen got a crude level of detail implemented and Rich nailed down the cyclical targeting and lock-on. The character also automatically animates to point at the target which is great news since we thought it was going to take ages and its taken about a day.

Art wise, despite my awesome contribution, Dave experimented with some character designs and Ross continued with mapping (almost finished!) Unfortunately we weren't able to get finished art assets in as we had hoped but we did managed to get our new island in and its now shrunk down to 1 grid (cant believe it was 6 at first!). Despite concerns that its too big we dialed up the flight speed to represent what it will be in the final demo and it feels really nice to fly around. Its got some awesome views and although once we start getting world objects in with Rowens new character generation script its going to really come to life.

Ive also been chatting to the guys from zerO.One over the last week, seems like things are going on well over there. Inevitably the topic quickly turned to Ross and whether he was on some kind of crusade. I think maybe in his mind he is :)
Ive been thinking about the whole ... opinion ... issue. I guess as people who have been playing games for years we like to see new and exciting things, so some topics are bound to irk. But being here kind of has highlighted why these decisions are made - because mechanically they work really well. Take crates, and hazardous liquids, and obligatory stealth sections, etc (insert your own pet hate here) they all perform a function really well for little cost - sometimes its technical limitations -sometimes its time. I kinda got derailed there - I guess what i'm trying to say is what about the ones we like? Coop, and com chatter and generic squad based epicness get me going every time (well most times), which makes them awesome ^_^

More next week!

The Lucid Dream Teamzor