1-year milestone. Part 1.1: Education and The Calling.

So, the grand Post Mortem begins! I start this first post (excluding the introduction) with my opinions of what sort of education did I get myself into. Onward!
 
The 4 courses and their synergy. I am happy to have been one of the first people to try the new branched out program in Game Design at Campus Gotland. I have heard only positive things about the education in games on Gotland. The change of format was even more appealing to me […]

1-year milestone. Introduction.

Hello and welcome to my blog!
My name is Gleb and I recently finished my first year at Uppsala University in Bachelor Programme in Game Design. During this year I got to meet a lot of different people and experience a lot of things. The most important thing I realised was that I made the right choice by deciding to embrace my passion for games and wanting to create games for others.
So, what is the point of this blog? This blog […]

Random stuff: white boxes and Black Mirror

So, this is my first blog post outside of any specific assignment. In order to practise my writing, I will simply spew out some nonsense about the stuff that has been on my mind lately.
 
Whiteboxing

Recently, my first team finished our first real project. It didn’t turn out as well as I wanted it to be, but I learned a lot of things. One of those things was the realisation that whiteboxing isn’t something that comes naturally to everyone.
What is whiteboxing? […]

Game Production Afterthoughts

It’s over. Our ten-week march is over and we have a game. Or, at least, something that constitutes as a game? I am being super harsh here. Do we have a game with a start and an end? Yes. Can you finish the game? You could if you are very good from the start. So, ok, we have a game. Could it have been better? By a lot. Yay! We have a bit undercooked game. Not bad for a bunch […]

Game Production Diary 5

For this week’s post, I’d like to write about my design of the boss arena, the interior and the end of our game.
For those of you who didn’t read my previous posts, where I think I mention the general ideas behind our game: my team is designing a game that will consist of the only level. Basicly, we try to deliver the whole narrative in one experience. Because of that, we need to finish our story after ending the only […]

Game Production Diary 4

This was the last week before our beta demonstration. We finally got together all our assets into one large pile to get them into a comprehensive experience. I finally got some time with everything we have. And the construction of the level turned out to be an interesting thing to do (I never doubted that it will be).

I had only a general idea of how to structure our level. The task we have allows us to create games with only […]

Game Production Diary 3

For more information on my game, please visit my first diary post, where I describe in more details the game we are working on.
For this week’s blog post I would like to discuss the incorporation of the same visual element in different places to intensify the aesthetic side of the game.
So, according to the narrative that we try to create, energy is everything in our game world. All living creatures consist of the same energy: the trees, the avatar, the […]

Game Production Diary 2

This week all the groups presented their alpha builds. It was an exhausting experience to sit through around 20 presentations. But, thankfully, I didn’t leave that torture chamber without some insight about our own game.
in Game Design, you are always warned about how you will probably never get to build your own concept. But when a concept isn’t perfect, it allows you to pull at one loose string and unravel the whole thing into a lose pile of idea. You […]

Game Production Diary 1

Our project is a shoot ‘em up game. The theme of game revolves around a world of stone “trees” that have a structure of a geode; stone on the outside and a crystal hollow core. All of the creatures of the world live inside of these “trees”. And the energy of the world is in the crystals. In this game the avatar Betulla, a mix of a spider and a humanoid, climbs the inside of the tree trunk in search […]