Last week the hub and teams we were joined by Steve Stopps from Arch Creatives.

Steve spent the day working with each team going through their awesome designs and plans and offering them all amazingly invaluable advice. It’s always an exceptional day when Steve visits and shares his huge wealth of experience giving the teams plenty of food for thought and things to consider!

The week before Steves visit, each of the teams presented their games and progress to everyone. With nearly all of them having something playable already for people to have a try out! It was also a great chance for everyone to get feedback from the others and to discuss their future plans, as well as a way of updating everyone with how they’ve been getting on so far. The presentations were excellently done and the progress everyone has made is amazing! The Teaboy Games guys better watch out 😀

We can also post the details of the remaining teams and their projects.

*Sadly we don’t have a picture of Perry! Martyns team mate*

Team: Nuclear Bear

Team Nuclear Bear is formed of two friends Jamie Mapp and Mark Pearce. They both studied a degree in Computer Games Development at South Essex College (University of Essex) and have worked on many projects together before coming to the Games Hub. Both have very creative and flexible skills sets, Mark focusing more on Audio design and 2D Asset creation whilst Jamie focuses on 3D asset creation and Programming. Over the course of the Games hub we aim to combine our skills together to make our first releasable Game and found our first Indie Games Studio.

Nuclear Bear aims to bring out people’s inner child by creating wacky and fun games on mobile devices that are both challenging and additive.

Project: Pain Saw

Pain saw is a wacky vertical endless runner game for mobile devices that sees the player taking the role of Jack the Lumber Jack as he is sent sky bound via a freak act of nature. The player must guide Jack to safety whilst avoiding the many obstacles that will come down the screen to stop him. Once the player has been stopped they will receive a score that they can compare to their friends via Facebook for bragging rights.

Finally, with Easter just around the corner updates might be slow, but rest assured there will still be plenty going on!

The hub was visited again the awesome Peter Disney from Wood and Disney accountants. He spoke at length about the many aspects of all things accountancy and the huge importance and role it plays in setting up and running a business.

Teams wise, on top of continuing to develop their games and business plans have also started to add more information about themselves.

So by way of an introduction here are just a few:

Team Name: NeverFall Studios

Team Description:

Dario – Sound Producer and Story Writer

Ethan – Artist and Level Designer

Diana – Game Designer and Producer

Kyle – Game Designer and QA

Vanessa – 3D Artist and QA

Game Description:

Overview:

A novice from a powerful guardian cult arrives in Colchester following a recent and disturbing rise in hostility of paranormal incidences in the area. The novice Delilah, under orders to only observe and report this strange and sudden change, finds herself dragged into a situation which she is not prepared for, battling the forces of evil and twisted souls in a desperate struggle for survival.

USP:

Semi historical storyline and relevant ghost stories

Real map layouts of Colchester

A mixture of third and first person POV for greater immersion

A balance of puzzle solving and pure horror designed to keep the experience fast flowing and realistic

Gameplay:

Third person horror game set in a realistic map of Colchester. Game mechanics of sanity bar, magic for ghost removal but no combat play. three separate methods of detection for the ghost and the outcomes vary with the type of enemy.

Game mechanics:

Health and sanity bars – visual and audio changes when these bars diminish

Spell casting, used for ghost purification and as a means to slow down enemies

Detection objects, visual and audio variations if used in points of the game.

Team description:

Quill Games is a team of three creative writers, who all think games need to be a little less ‘same-y’ and a bit more story.

Game description:

Popa puts you in the life of Mu Ken, a young monk who has been tasked with walking the Pyan.

The Pyan is the ancient pilgrimage to Mt. Popa, undertaken in order to ask help from the Gods to heal the monster-stricken land of H’ka.

However, Mu Ken’s journey will take him through many villages and lead him to witness the suffering of the villagers throughout the land.

The Pyan requires a week to walk its sacred path.

Each village is a choice between helping your people, and upholding your duty.

Team description:

Retreating Invisible Cows are first year computer science students learning to make video games and are in the process of making our first commercial mobile game.    A mix between Plants vs Zombies/Guitar Hero, Rhythm-ocalypse aims to satisfy both groups in combining the tower defence genre with the rhythm game genre. Each level is a new song, where you try to stop enemies by making them your groupies. This is done with a rhythm system that works by pressing specific colours to the beat.    The team are: Angelica, Tudor, Carl and Audun.

Team description: Liquor Studios (FKA Wizard Beard Games)

Liquor Studios is a small independent games company with a passion for developing fun and accessible digital games. Liquor Studios consists of three members. Chris, who has recently graduated from a music degree, and focuses on Sound design and composition for the games. Ray is in his second year computer science degree and is a programmer and the Artist for the game. Sean is the main programmer and is also on his second year computer science degree.

Our game, Elixir is an arcade style mobile app game, focusing on a familiar colour matching system.

The idea will be to tap the right colour boxes when the correct potions match up, every so often the colour will change, this will require the player to develop good reaction skills to deal with the situation.

The upgrades in the game are earned by tapping gold potions when they fall, which will give you a short boost, but also allow you to mix potions to gain permanent upgrades or gain a life back.

The game also include a combo feature, more skilled players will be able to link combos (Red, Blue, Red) to earn a multiplier on there points.

We’ll share more in the future!

Finally, one of the walls in the hub has been taken over by space invaders!