A New Dose of Fan Art
Posted by Aaron on October 3rd, 2011
So, it’s been a year since we posted the last piece of fan art on the blog, as we’ve been posting them on our Facebook and Twitter pages instead. Here are some highlights of the past few years, but there are plenty more where that came from! Check out our Facebook Fan Art album and the deviantART Fan Art group to see even more amazing fan art!
As seen above, we’re starting out with a Journey costume made for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion by forum user Natterforme. Even though his computer crashed, he still remade and finished the costume for public use! As a mod, it’s always a work in progress, so keep looking at the thread here if there are any more updates. And click on the image after the jump to download the file:
Get To Know thatgamecompany’s Michael Peddicord
Posted by Aaron on April 25th, 2011
This week, we bring you another interview, this time of Michael Peddicord:
What do you do on a day-to-day basis for thatgamecompany?
Michael Peddicord: I’m a tools engineer here at thatgamecompany. I’ve been here about a year. Basically, I’ve been working pretty closely to tools, the artists, and the designers, trying to create a workflow that is quick and effective, so they can get their stuff done!
Simone Di Gravio/@AltairJp3: How did you get into the game industry? Inspirations etc.
This is my first actual full time job at a game company, but [my history in game development] started around high school. I learned that a friend was making games for mobile phones, and I was like, “That’s amazing! Tell me how you do that!” He gave me some references and I started learning C++ and started making games. In college, I entered contests, specifically the “Experimental Gameplay” contests. I was able to win myself a summer internship at EA Tiburon in Florida. That led to another summer internship with Robin Hunicke at EALA working on Boom Blox 2. Then I took a summer off and then I started working here.
Yeah, absolutely. It definitely helped working with her, she got a good feel of my personality and she thought I was a good fit for the company.
Samantha Vick: What is your favorite part of game development?
Michael: I think my favorite part is to be able to explore new ways of doing things, new ideas, and being able to communicate those ideas to a player. Game development is a really neat way of giving your ideas to other people. I do a lot of thinking in my own head, and it’s nice to have a medium to convey those thoughts to other people.
4 color rebellion Interviews Jenova and Robin
Posted by Aaron on February 22nd, 2011
I tried having a longer title for this post because there are just so many things covered in this two part interview, but there’s a limit to what one should do. (And each part is a lot bigger than most other recent interviews.) Even though this article was published back in December, it still has a lot of great information about TGC and our members’ views on gaming.
What topics are talked about?
Artistry, prototyping, the industry as a whole (and compared to other industries), TGC’s culture, and that’s just on the first page!
If you’d really like to educate yourself on progressing the game industry or just like to hear what thatgamecompany has to say, here is one great two part article:
http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2010/12/20/4cr-interviews-that-game-company/
http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2010/12/23/4cr-interviews-that-game-company-part-2/
If you are as big a fan of finding out how the creative process works in all kinds of media as I am, make sure you read part 2!
Vote for flOw and Flower to be shown at The Smithsonian
Posted by Aaron on February 17th, 2011
Between March 16th and September 30th, 2012, The Smithsonian American Art Museum will have a gallery called, “The Art of Video Games.” The Smithsonian is exploring the 40-year evolution of video games. From the humblest of beginnings on things nowhere near as powerful as your cell phone you stopped using 10 years ago, to these chunks of metal and plastic that would beat out any supercomputer just a few years ago.
http://www.americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2012/games/
What The Smithsonian has done is opened up a website where the public can vote on what they would want in the exhibition. There are already games nominated, and each game only has two competitors, so don’t worry about having too much trouble deciding which game you should vote for.
The reason we’re telling you this is because flOw and Flower have both been nominated for inclusion in this! flOw is up for the Next Generation Era/Modern Windows category and Flower is in the Next Generation Era/PlayStation 3 category. So, go ahead and vote for two of your favorite games right here:
http://www.artofvideogames.org
And if you didn’t notice, the banner for the The Art of Video Games voting website is surprisingly familiar…
Kellee Talks about the Flower Design Process
Posted by Kellee on December 16th, 2010
This is a talk that Jenova, Nick Clark, and myself have done at a number of different conferences, but I thought I would put it here for those who couldn’t attend and are interested. I take the audience through our general design philosophy, but then demo a number of the prototypes we developed as we searched for the final “Flower” experience.
