It’s time to introduce you all to the  second game projects of the class of 2013! The students were divided into groups and given the task of creating a vehicle based game in 4 weeks.

The games were presented to a jury of game industry proffesionals in February, after which the jury played the games and discussed them with the students.

The jury consisted of:

• Lionel Cregut – Dice, Artist
• Richard Blom – Avalanche, Art Producer
• Andreas Wrangler – Avalanche, Level designer

Cryptic

Cryptic is a game of combat, exploration and puzzle solving. It is a top view game that plays as a
classical shooter with a twist; you can be both in the virtual and the real world. It is a shooter in the real world while being puzzle oriented in the virtual world. You move between the worlds by
possessing robots and use them to fight and to solve puzzles.

Cryptic was created by:
Game design: Oscar Göthberg and Erik Johansson
3D graphics: Oskar Bernelind, Ivan Nestorov, Peter Jemstedt and Buddha Babulanam

Hovercraft

Hovercraft is a vehicle based multiplayer shooter for up to six players. In Hovercraft you play in either the red or the blue team. Each team starts by building a base that consist of towers and walls. After that both team fights and tries to take the bomb that is located in the middle of the level, when any team gets the bomb they will then try to plant it in the enemy base.

There are three vehicles to choose from: The FlamethrowerHover is great at short range and has lots of health. The Missilehover is best at long range but has the lowest health. The Emp can shut down enemy vehicles and is great in teamfights.

Create carnage and destroy the enemies base!!! MOHAHAHA

Hovercraft was created by:
Game design: Pär Kamfjord and Tomas Ulfström
3D graphics: Dan Mihaila, Isabell Sarstedt, Simon Lindberg Amanou and Hannes Delbeke

 Robot Rescue

In a world much like our own a rare mineral that can negate gravity has been discovered. The corporation, Volto, uses robots for the difficult and dangerous task of mining the minerals. The robots succumb to all kinds of dangers and are discarded whenever a newer model arrives. But one day a small robot becomes aware of what is going on and wants to free his friends from their slavery.

Robot Rescue is a puzzle/platform game, where you have to save as many of your robot friends as possible from the mines. You take control of a little robot that can give instructions and upgrades to his bigger friends in order to avoid hazards and pits as you try to escape the mines and factories. Making use of platforming and limited resources, Robot Rescue features puzzles that require skill, timing and logical thinking to get through.

Robot Rescue was created by:
Game design: Isak Åberg Nordmark and Jakob Have
3D graphics: Felix Fritzell, Adrian Drott and Kaj Westerlund

Beat It

Beat It is a 2.5D side-scrolling shooter in which you control a spaceship. This sounds pretty ordinary and our game is played like most side-scrolling shooters; you shoot enemies, you avoid obstacles and you even have to solve the occasional puzzle. But what makes this game unique and different from all the other shooters is that you do all of the above to the BEAT of the music. The music you play to will make the game come alive and almost everything you see will move to the beat of the music.

That’s not all… in Beat It, we let you customize your experience by letting YOU choose the music you want to play to by picking a song from your personal music library on your computer. The intensity of the song you choose doesn’t only influence the feedback you get in the level, but it also influences your opportunity to score BIG! The higher the intensity of the song, the higher the multiplier will be and the more points you can accumulate.

Beat It was created by:
Game design: Simon Palm and Joep de Valcke
3D graphics: Mikaela Älgekrans, Dragos Burlacu and Samuel Schultz

Wasteland Warriors

A pacey vehicle-based battle arena game for up to 4 players. Defeat your opponents with powerful pickups, while navigating through hazardous environments.

Wasteland Warriors was created by:
Game design: Hannes Lidbeck, Vendela Carlberg Larsson and Alisa Nylund
3D graphics: Kim Ekdahl, Karl Wrangbäck, Kim Aava and Jakob Larsson.

Captain Goldtooth’s Space Pirates

Captain Goldtooth’s Space Pirates” is a 3D, top-down, tower defense game, build various towers and send ships of your own to plunder the merchant ships of the East space indian trading company.

Captain Goldtooth’s Space Pirates was created by:
Game Design: Daniel SJöberg and Louie Bergendal
3D graphics: Julia Dahllöf-Hinder, Peter Zippert, Kalle Löwenberg and Regina Cardenas

This was, as mentioned earlier, the students second game project. If you’re curious about their first project, follow this link: First games by class of 2013.

A couple of weeks ago we had some people over from Paradox to teach our students a thing or two about Quality Assurance in game design. QA is a critical part of game design. It’s not just about finding bugs, it’s about making sure the game maintains a high quality in every aspect.

Paradox stayed with us for an entire week, talking about how they approach QA and what their production pipeline looks like and during that week our students got to be a part of that process. Our friends from Paradox brought a couple of their games with them for our students to work on, namely Europa Universalis IV, Crusader Kings 2 and War of the Vikings.

So big thanks to Paradox for this very educational week! Be sure to check their games out on their website by going to http://www.paradoxplaza.com/.

If you want to know more about QA in game development, here’s an interesting interview with Niklas Lundström from paradox regarding that subject: Interview with Paradox Interactive: Quality Assurance in Gaming.

Welcome to another open house event! As we are now open for registrations, this is a perfect opportunity for you to come see us and learn more about our school before making your decision.

Futuregames has been around for more than 8 years and we aim to make sure that our students are in the top layer of developers in the industry and that they all have employment after graduating. Our courses have been developed in collaboration with proffesionals from the gaming industry and are tailormade to meet the real demands and needs of the industry.

For this open house event we’re not alone; besides Futuregames, you can meet Agile Academy and eCommerce Institute as well and learn a bit about the education programmes they have to offer.

Welcome!

Where: Åsögatan 119, Stockholm.
When: April 16, 18:00
Facebook: This way!

Last week we attended a Swedish Game Awards conference. SGA is the largest game development competition for students all around Sweden. We had half a dozen students on location to present this years submission to the competition, the plattform puzzle game Robot Rescue.

That’s not the only reason we had for attending! FutureGames teacher Sjoerd De Jong was asked by Epic Games to hold a presentation at the conference of Unreal Engine 4 and how Blueprint scripting impacts the way he is building Solus, a single player survival and exploration game that he is working on with Teotle Studios. The entire presentation is available for your viewing pleasure on YouTube.

Heads up, future students: applications to FutureGames 2014 are now open! We will be holding an information evening on April 16 at 18:00 for anyone wanting to know more about the education. (There will be a post later on with more detailed information about that event.)

All applications must be sent in by May 15, that means that it’s high time to gather work samples and start writing your applications. Please remember to double check that your application follows the guidelines since incomplete applications will not be processed. For detailed instructions on what the requirements are and how to apply for our educations, click here.

Good luck, everybody!