Finished Mp3 Player for my 3d modeling assignment

Here is the finished model of the mp3 I did for my assignment I'm extremely happy with how this turned out, considering its only my 2nd proper model, a few things are slightly wrong with it part on the mp3 player sticks out rather that in where it hides the usb connector, and some of the wires looks bit crappy, hopefully I will get better at it as I do more.

So without further a due here is my 3d model of a mp3 player :)

3D Headphones

Wow, Seems like I'm still getting a lot of views on my blog so just like to thanks everyone for reading :)

What I have been up to recently is making some headphones in 3ds max as part of my 3d model for my assignment, overall it will be a mp3 player along side the headphones, they're still unfinished just need texturing and the mp3 player still needs to be made currently working on that. So without further adue these are my headphones I have made : -

How the headphones looked early on in the process

This is the jackplug I made for them

The wire to connect the headphones to the jackplug

and how the headphones look at the end of making them minus the texture.

What? a year already?!

Wow a year at uni has gone so fast, come the 20th May all assignments will be handed in and uni will be over for the year till September, quite scary yet amazing how fast it has gone and how much has changed and happened, It's been a amazing year that's for sure I'm glad I decided to go back to Uni and I'm learning so much and meeting some awesome people, namely Scott,Jack and Rob,who you couldn't ask for better friends than those Not forgetting other people of course but you lot know who you are and that way I won't get moaned at if I forget to name someone lol!.

Looking back over the work I've done this year, it looks I've came along way from knowing pretty close to nothing about most programmes we've been using, and its been a lot of  fun (and hard work) trying to learn them, I'm feeling pretty good about this course and I hope my attitude and inspiration continue to grow as we move into our 2nd year and new house which is going to be full of fun!!. Can't Wait!!


Now I've finished being soppy, thanks for reading :)

Comic > Film

As most people Know I'm not a huge fan of Comics > Film, most of them end up being very poorly done and nothing how the Comic's originally made the characters/heroes or completely mess up the story, I'm a pretty big Comic Fan my favorites being DeadPool, Captain America, Wolverine, Punisher, 2000 AD, Spider-Man (naturally).

I've watched most Comic to film, films and been sorely disappointed pretty much most the time with the exceptions off Spider-man 1 and 2, Blade 1, Wolverine Origins (except the last 15mins, which completely craps on one of my favorite characters, won't spoil the ending for people who haven't seen though the ending is a complete joke), Hellboy, Iron Man (which I've only just got round to watching), and I suppose Fantastic Four 1 & 2 were ok'ish.

The films I've been sorely disappointed with were the X-Men trilogy I hated them they got all the characters wrong wolverine shows off his emotions way to much in it, which he rarely does, Cyclops the leader (apart from Xavier) of the X-men is rarely in the films and dies even..

Spider Man 3 after finding out Venom was actually going to be in the 3rd film I was so hyped for it, yet they managed to mess it up one of the best villains imo he hardly got any screen time and its what the fans wanted the most was for venom to be  in the film, and they made spider man look totally weak in the 3rd film when he loses the symbiote suit.

I won't even go into how much I hated DareDevil , Elektra, Hulk and the remake of it, and the completely terrible Punisher films. Oh and how could I forget the absolutely horrific Judge Dredd, there are probably a few more but I would rather forget about them.

I'm still yet to see Thor but people have been saying it's very good, I might drag myself to see it just hope it doesn't disappoint, and also the Captain America film which I am actually quite excited for I really hope they make it a good one, The Avenger's film should also be pretty good too they Have War Machine and Hawkeye in it which is quite surprising they are going with the original avengers and not the popular ones and mish mashing them.

Overall I'm not against making Comic > Films, Some of the films I've mentioned actually prove it can work and work to a great standard, though I wish they would take more time and care while writting and making these films rather than making a cheap buck; as their are a huge amount of fan's who love to see their favorite Hero's on the big screen then end up sorely disappointed.

Thanks for listening Rant over :)

Remediation

Remediation is when the use of one medium or a idea that originated in another area, such as a radio idea being used in a film or a television show. Sometimes this doesn't always work out for the best as something which works well in one medium does not mean it will work in another and could fail miserably though other times it could work even better than the original idea it spawned from.

Two terms that were brought up were Immediacy and Hypermediacy which I will talk about here.

Immediacy is where media tries to make it seem like it isn't media at all for example Tim Bradstreet who done art for the comic "The Punisher" and "HellBlazer" its a drawing but done in a way which makes it look like its a real photo. Here's a example

Hypernediacy is were the media makes it very clear that something isn't real at all, I guess a silly example of this is "Last Action Hero" film where Jack Slater and Arnie who plays himself in the film one role is were he is a Big action hero in films and the other role is how he is in real life.

PixalH8 / Matthew Applegate sound lessons.

We had a special guest lecturer Matthew Applegate also known as PixalH8 who over six weeks taught us all about sounds and music , all the different ways they are used to change emotions like a really horrific scene wouldn't be anyway near the same if the sound was off, or if it had really happy jolly music to it.

The 1st few lessons we had were watching Star War's and looking at how they made the sound effects such as a laser sound is made by a slinky and dropping a ball down inside it, and a light sabre sound is made from a old 50's tube television with the back pulled off and a microphone being swung back and forth behind it near the tube.

Matthew also showed us about the Star Wars music how most the song's intertwined like Darth Vader's imperial march has slight hints of Luke Skywalkers Theme mixed into it, to give the hint that they are related, Leia's them also does this too, I found this really interesting it wouldn't be something you would normally notice till you analyze it, It made me want to find and watch other films to see where else this happens.

The next 2 lesson's we had we were shown how to make Foley sounds which are the Old School way they used to make sounds which were when they used items to create sound effects for example a tray of stones and someone wearing a pair of shoes on there hands and moving their hands on the stones to create someone walking over stones and they could make this sound like someone running, walking, walking quietly or if you were to drop a melon from a roof and record it smashing on to the ground it would make a sound like a head exploding.

Some of the sounds we created with Matthew were snapping salary to make it sound like a neck snapping, cutting a cabbage slowly with a knife to make it sound like cracking bones, and squeezing a cabbage to sound like a erm i guess way to describe it would be a egg sound from the film "Alien", we created a whole load of sounds, which was very helpful in creating sounds for our games or games we wish to make in the future.

The last 2 lessons were about editing the sounds we created with a programme called "Audacity" and how to get the sound effects to sound really good and realistic so it would sound even more like a neck snapping and you could edit it too sound truly horrific and brutal.

I really enjoyed Matthew's lesson's they were full of interesting pieces of knowledge and I learnt so much from them, he is a really interesting person, it's made me look at objects in a new way to see what sounds they could produce and even got me back into making music again but looking at it from a different perspective. I'm really looking forward to hopefully having more lessons with Matthew. 

3DS Max Room

Over the past few month's been slowly working on making a 3d room in 3ds max, it's coming along pretty well, I was originally going to use it for my flash game project but a few hitches voided that idea, but I'm going to continue working on it and have it as a portfolio piece then in the summer hopefully make a flash game with it.
I really like the way its going though me and 3ds max don't get along very well so i'm quite proud of it to be honest, so I thought I would share it with the people reading my blog.

How to Make a person look like a Tiger Person.

I quite enjoy playing around and creating things in Photoshop, So I thought I would post up how to create a Tiger person.

So first we will find a picture of a person ( mine was a random picture taken from Google images).

then we need to find a picture of a tiger ( which again this picture was randomly found on Google images)

 Now we have our images, Open up Photoshop and make 2 new layers place your photo of yourself or the person you want to transform on the 1st layer; then on the 2nd layer open your tiger photo then select Multiply from the layers blend mode (as shown in the picture below). Then match up the tiger photo to match up best you can to your photo of yourself or the person.

Once the tiger's face is lined up with the person's face, you need to erase the outlines around the face (remember to stay on the tiger layer when doing this) , Then you need to erase the eyes. You can reduce the Opacity when doing this also to make it easier to see the outlines.

 

We can then use the Clone stamp tool on the nose by holding alt and left clicking (don't forget to put the opacity back up to 100%) and use it on places you think look odd, like any showing bits of skin on the face also the outline of the nose.

 Next we need to make the skin on her neck and chest look like the tiger again we use clone stamp tool, take samples using Alt and Left clicking on the top of the forehead to get the stripes you can also use the cheeks.

 This bit is personal preference, for the lips go to person layer and clone stamp tool her lips  and go over them to bring them out, you can change the colour of the lips if you wish. You will end up with something like this.

 That's pretty much how to make a tiger person, you can improve on this and make it look really good by changing the background, using shaders, adjusting the lighting, etc.

I hope you enjoyed this Tutorial

Just play around and remember to have fun :)

Major Design Issues for KS1 Flash game Essay

Major Design issues faced in developing a flash game for

Key stage one children.

By Steven Wright (S143211)

The game we made for our key stage one flash game is called “Animal Frenzy”; the idea of the game was to educate children in learning about animals and the environments they lived in, also about caring for the environment. The game play mechanics are dragging the correct animals on to the background while finding litter placed around the scene, once the correct animals have been placed you move to the next level in which there are 5 in total. When making the game there were major design Issues we have been faced with and had to think about while making this game for key stage one children, are the following Gender, Art style, Music, Sounds, gameplay and difficulty while still trying to keep it educational and fun for the children to play. I will talk about each of these and how we researched and how we overcome these issues to make it a suitable fun yet education game for key stage one children.

The gender is an important aspect we needed to address so the game appealed to both genders, boys and girls so either gender could have a connection with the characters, at that age girls and boys tend to prefer to play as their own gender so it was very important to put it into the game, we researched other flash games to see what they did to solve this issue, a lot of the games we looked at didn’t give a option of selecting the gender of your character and only gave you one gender or the other to play as, the games we researched also featured a male and female lead character, which we thought was good idea as it appealed to both genders.

We decided to use the idea of having our main characters male and female; to solve the issue of both genders having a connection with the main characters as they could connect with one or the other, we also decided to keep the main characters young looking when designing them to try to give more of connection. We decided that we wouldn’t let you make or choose a character to play as so it felt like you get to play as yourself which would also make the player feel connected as they feel the main characters are actually talking to them and that they were actually part of the game.

The Art for the game is a very important aspect of the game we needed to make the graphics big, bright, colourful and cute looking to grab the children’s attention and to keep them interested in playing the game to make them want to see what was  going to be coming up in the future levels, we researched what appealed to children visually by looking at other flash games, children’s television programmes and magazines, all these types of media had similar things in common bright colourful artwork with friendly looking characters.

The backgrounds for the levels are very colourful, and have a cartoon look to them which appeals to children of a young age, the levels have a basic detail design to keep them very simple looking but still visually pleasing so it wouldn’t look over the top. The Animals were designed to look like their real life counterparts but with a twist of making them appeal to children we did this by making them cute and friendly looking, using bright colours, friendly facial expressions and poses, we felt it was important to still keep the animals looking like their real life counter parts so the children could identify the animals if they were to see them outside of the game, we kept main characteristics of the animals such as tiger stripes and the lion’s mane, this would further help the children in recognizing these animals. The main characters which are Mickey and Mandy who guide you through and tell you facts about the environment and the animals, we kept a cartoon look which looks friendly with bright colours, so children felt they were characters they would like to help and play with, the age of the characters also was important to keep in mind so children could associate with them more, we originally had Mickey and Mandy as adults but we felt children would connect better if we made them younger looking.

The sound and music for the game was an important issue as it needed to fit the mood of the game as well as appeal to the children playing the game, it also adds a lot to a games immersiveness it can make or break a game if the music or sounds aren’t correct. The animal sounds we researched by looking around the internet for the characteristics of the sounds the animals made, also sound clips and video footage of the animals, we wanted their sounds to be authentic so children could recognize the sounds of each animal if they were to hear them outside of the game, once we found the sounds we had to edit the animal sounds so they didn’t sound too loud or too harsh so the children who were playing wouldn’t be scared when they heard them.

We thought it would also be a good idea to add in Voice acting to Mickey and Mandy, To bring a bit more life to them and too excite children hearing them like they were talking to them and also to bring out a bit more enthusiasm of what Mickey and Mandy were saying, We decided on Robert Hutton to voice Mickey as he fit the role of Mickey, and we chose Nicola Mizon to voice Mandy as we felt she fit the role of Mandy, Both voices we thought children would like and feel comfortable with as they’re clear sounding and very friendly voices. 

Gameplay was something we had to get just right, so it wouldn’t be to difficult for the children to play, and so they would understand how to play without having to read a long tutorial of how to play, we made it so the tutorial was in the first level so the child could play while learning how the game works at the same time to make it more fun, we also added a help screen which also explains how to play in more depth in case the child got stuck while playing, we also added in screen shots showing the child what to do alongside the instructions on the help screen, to make it clearer how to play and also put in details about various elements we added like the rubbish littered around the levels, the try system and how the medal system worked.

We needed to make and keep the game enjoyable throughout so the child wouldn’t be bored playing and eventually end up stop playing the game, the game itself could become very boring as it is initially just drag and drop the animals on to a background, so we needed to make it more interesting we tried to do this by adding interactive elements into the backgrounds which is a little animation which happens during each level for example an acorn dropping from the tree when the pigeon is placed on to the branch, we also added in parts of the background with saying what they were for example if the player highlighted a piece of tall grass it would highlight and a box would appear saying “Tall grass” which would make the game bit more enjoyable when playing as they would also be learning about parts of the environments as well. Litter was another element we added to change the game being just drag and drop, the litter is hidden throughout the level’s which the player can optionally find which will improve the medal they would receive at the end of the level. The medal system is something we implemented to improve the longevity and to add a goal to the game “When players begin to feel they don’t have a goal worth striving for, the begin to get restless” (Costikyan, 2002:2), as when we thought about the game we had no reward system other than placing the animals to progress further into the game, the player needed to have a motivation to carry on which is also known as “struggle” in design terms “It is essential to note that players want to work for their rewards” (Newman, 2004:16)  there four types of medals bronze, silver, gold and platinum; Bronze being the lowest medal and platinum being the highest medal depending on how the player performs in the level will result in which medal they will receive, we also put our own spin on these medal’s by making them include animals such as for bronze you would be rewarded with a fish and for gold you would be rewarded with a Lion; we decided to use medal’s as we discussed as a group that they were commonly used to reward children at a young age for good work.

Difficulty is a very big issue when making a key stage one game, as you can’t make it too difficult so the child would get frustrated and give up playing, you also can’t make it too easy so the child would either finish the game really fast or just end up being bored and stop playing before the game is completed, I think we managed to get the difficulty just right for the age of key stage one, we have 6 animals to choose from 3 correct and 3 wrong,  we also gave the player a set amount of tries which we decided 6 tries would be a good number for the player to find and place the correct animals, the tries go down as they place an animal, if they lose all their tries then its game over and they have to start the level again, we felt that it’s better to have the player replay the level rather than have to play the whole game again from the start, they can replay the level as many times as they would like to until they pass the level, that way its kept the game easier without the player getting frustrated of having to start from the beginning.

We also decided to make the game get progressively harder so the first level will be the easiest and the last level would be the hardest so as the player got more comfortable with playing they would find it gradually getting a little more challenging, we did this by lowering the amount of tries you were given to guess the correct animals, we all thought that would be the best way to tackle that issue as it was very hard to think of other ways to make our game get progressively harder due to the style of game it was.

In Conclusion I feel our game didn’t have many design issues, the minor one’s we had we were able to overcome, by researching, thinking like our target audience, working and discussing as a team. While talking as a group it was mentioned about what a designer was consisting of which this was brought up “As a designer, you still have to figure out what is fun, what your game is about, and what vision and goals you bring to it” (Church, 1999:4) which a member of our group said that we also need to always think about our target audience when designing the game, and I think that is a very important aspect of designing a game, the target audience always comes first, as they will be the people playing the final product, so all decisions and other points off view should be considered with an open mind for designing the best product for that audience.

Bibliography

Costikyan, Greg (2002) ‘I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games’. In: Frans Mäyrä (ed), CGDC Conference Proceedings. Studies in Information Sciences. Tampere: Tampere University Press, pp. 9–33.

Newman, J., 2004. Videogames, London: Routledge.

Church, D., Gamasutra - Features - Formal Abstract Design Tools. Available at: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3357/formal%20abstract%20design%20tools.php

Retro Review Essay

Boulder Dash Review

Boulder Dash’ was released in 1984; the platforms used for the game series were various home computers such as the Atari 400/800 and commodore 64, it was later ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System, PC and Amiga amongst others. It was created by 2 people by the names of Peter Liepa and Chris Gray, the game was later bought by a company called "First Star Software". 

It has been suggested that "Game Structure is Multi-dimensional, because it allows players to take many possible paths throughout the game space" - (Costikyan, Greg 2002.20). In "Boulder Dash" the player controls a protagonist called "Rockford". The player has to control Rockford by using only the movement arrow keys which are: up, down, left, and right to manoeuvre Rockford through the caves and terrain. The player is then free to move in any direction he chooses’ as long as there are not any obstacles in the way. The camera is positioned in a top down view; the player can see the whole level layout as soon as the level begins. The outside of the levels are confined by rocks which are there to prevent the player from walking off the side of the level to empty space. The players’ task is to collect the various treasures which are in the form of diamonds and gems. Some of the gems are well hidden and have multiple pathways to obtain them. This relates back to Costikyan’s theory that games should have “many possible paths”.

It has been suggested that "There can be no game without struggle" (Costikyan, G. 2002.17) and this is true in the case of ‘Boulder Dash’. The levels are not just seemingly straight forward with Rockford collecting treasure and reaching the exit; there is also the inclusion of various hazards to prevent Rockford from achieving this goal. There are two main obstacles throughout the game. The first are monsters which constantly move around; although they cannot move through the dirt unless Rockford first clears it. The second are falling rocks which fall when dirt is moved; Rockford has to move very fast from these as they will land on him and kill him; or in the harder stages the fallen rocks can create avalanches of rocks which are even more challenging to avoid. The player is also restricted by a time limit and after collecting all the treasure, the player then has to reach the exit before the time runs out. If the player fails to achieve this they then lose a life. The game starts with three lives and once all three are gone the game is then over, and the player has to start from level one again. These are the different types struggle in the game.

When describing the aesthetics for a game it has been stated that there is a need to move away from words like ‘fun and game play’ (Hunicke, Robin et al. 01.2) for Boulder Dash it would be easy to say "fun" and "game play" though it would be better to delve deeper than that. I would say it was "Fantasy" considering there is not much of a story other than knowing Rockford is a archaeologist searching caves for treasure; so you could make up your own back story for the character and his motives. There is also no story through out the game so the player is again free to think up a story as the game progresses.

There is also a "challenging" aspect to the game as it is like an obstacle course such as with the need to dodge the monsters and rocks; as well as planning ahead of your movement to make sure the next piece of dirt your digging will not let a monster roam free or let a boulder fall on you. You must also make sure you can collect all the treasure and reach the exit before the time limit. I would also say "discovery" as at the time there was nothing else like Boulder Dash; it was truly original, and the discovery of the next level to see what Rockford has to face to collect his treasure.

Thinking about the people who would play this game, I think achievers (achievers are gamers’ that always want to achieve high scores, or completing the game) would be the main type of players, always playing to better there own score, to beat the current high top score or to try to keep the high score if they are already at the top of the leader board. I would also say explorers (explorers are gamers that play to discover new ways to tackle a level, or discovering new things in games that most people would not think of trying) as you would have to explore the levels to find the best way to navigate through the various obstacles and to collect the treasure in the fastest possible time. It could be possible to say Socializers (socializers are gamers’ who play to see what other people are talking about, or play for socializing aspect of gaming) play this game also when friends played round each other's houses in competition for who was the better Boulder Dash player, they would compete for the high score, fastest times, they would also share knowledge of the game with each other telling each other tricks and tips for beating certain levels or ways of beating levels in a faster time.

Boulder Dash I feel is a Ludus game as the player is being confined by rules; they have to collect all the gems to be able to uncover the exit. They are also confined to that one screen to move the character about on; there are no other goals in the game except collecting the gems and reaching the exit; so the player is confined about what they can do. I would also say Boulder dash was a Alea game as you have the randomness of the enemies movement around the play area there is not any other randomness other than the enemies. Boulder Dash I would say is a Agon game as well, as the player has the competition of the leader board trying to beat that high score or even the competition of friends trying to compete who can get the furthest in the game. It is also very possible to say Boulder Dash is a Mimicry game as it is make-believe; there is no story through out the game so the player is free to think of a story as it progresses.

My thoughts on Boulder dash are that it is one of the all time classic games, and definitely left a mark on gaming in it’s originality and pure simplicity, yet its still very appeasing to a wide range of people and gamers’, it manages to attract three different types of gamers’ the Achievers, Explorers and socialisers. It allows the player to move around and explore the level in any direction, which means there are multiple ways to solve collecting all the treasure which makes it pleasing to play.

Bibliography

"Game Structure is Multi-dimensional, because it allows players to take many possible paths throughout the game space" - Costikyan, Greg (2002) I have no word & I must design: toward a critical vocabulary for games New York: pg 20

"There can be no game without struggle" - Costikyan, Greg (2002) I have no word & I must design: toward a critical vocabulary for games New York: pg17

"In describing the atheistic of a game we want to move away from words like "fun" and "game play" Hunicke Robin, LeBlanc Marc, Zubek Robert (2001-2004) MDA : A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research  San Jose : pg 2

Story for my storyboard

This is a story I came up with and wrote for my storyboard.

In a Peaceful Village known as "Normere" , People go about their daily life growing crops and crafting, the children playing and laughing. The villagers could hear a slight rumble in the air sounding from a distance, the villagers started to act cautiously to what the noise was, When In the far distance they could see a pack of riders on horses heading there direction, The Villagers started to panic trying to find their children and to hide their valuables as the riders drew closer and closer. 

The villagers hiding in their hut's in hope the riders were just passing through, as the riders got closer they could see the riders with weapons and torches; they could tell the riders weren't just passing through as a arrow covered in flames launched and landed in the straw roof of one of the hut's as the fire quickly spread along the roof, more and more arrows  landing in there village quickly setting it ablaze, The villagers picked up whatever they could to defend themselves for what was soon about to happen.

The Riders arrived, attacking, killing all that got in their way, Women, children the men put up a fight but were soon killed, One boy started running toward the forest barely managing to escape, he hid behind a tree watching at the horrors that was happening in his village, his mother being killed while searching for him; his father holding on for his life attacking back but was soon overwhelmed by the riders beheading him and holding it up as a trophy of a glorious victory, The boy started crying; the leader of the riders heard him and spotted him and commanded his men to kill him, the boy started running for his life; he ran and ran until he passed out, the riders could not find the boy and gave up their search.

The boy woke to find himself in a dark cave, surrounded by wolves watching him; the boy was scarred and started to cower and edge away in fear he will be eaten; A wolf slowly walks up to the boy, Fear was in his eyes as the wolf was right up close to him; and moved his head to the boy sniffing him then licks the boy and let out a gentle whimper of friendship.

As time passes the boy grew close to wolves; never leaving the cave for fear what was out there; the wolves bought him food from their hunts for him to eat.

As the boy got older the wolves started to take the boy out on their night hunts showing the boy how to stalk his prey, how move quickly silently, how to smell and sense his surroundings; The boy could feel his sense's, his movement  improving to a incredible degree he could move and sense the same as the wolves.

One night when the boy and the wolves were out on their hunt, the boy sensed a man and went to investigate, he could see the man wielding a sword, swinging it as if he and the sword were one, attacks strong and straight, Fierce blows The boy was totally mesmerized by this man's skill with a blade; The man noticed the boy and starred; the boy was scarred and couldn't move.

The man slowly approached the boy sheathing his sword and holding his hand out in kindness and says "Don't be afraid I'm Balrock", the boy was hesitant, he could sense this man was trustworthy he slowly moved his hand to reach out to the man's they shook hands, the wolves ran over to the boy to see if he was in danger and snarled at the man; the boy looked at the wolves and shook his head, the wolves nodded and approached Balrock in a friendly manner and licked him to show their friendship; they looked at the boy in a way to say farewell as they knew they had found the boy a true home with a man who could teach the boy how to be normal; the boy pats the wolves and says "thank you, I will always remember you" The man looked at the boy and said "I will call you Grey Wolf" the boy smiled.

Balrock took Grey Wolf back to his hut, and said "you better get some rest, we will be training early in the morning", Grey Wolf smiled and said "I will be as good as you someday".

Grey Wolf woke up and opened his eyes and screamed in agony, he was not used to light being in a cave for such a long time he's eyes were permanently adapted to night time; Balrock woke up immediately he saw Grey Wolf in pain and knew what was wrong he ripped his shirt and put it around Grey Wolfs eyes as a blind fold. They Started their training.

10years passed, Balrock taught Grey Wolf everything he knew from learning parts of the sword, wielding a sword to advanced stances and techniques; Balrock said "It's time you set of on your own, to seek your destiny and to set yourself at peace with your demon's; I've taught you everything I know and your even surpassed me with your natural talents, your much faster, agile than I could ever be" , Grey wolf looks at his master and kneels down on one knee and say "Thank your for everything you have done for me, master I will never forget you and I will hope one day we will meet again".

Grey Wolf sets off to find Zorrgaroth, He searched all over the continent; asking every city and village he came across with no one daring to speak a word about Zorrgaroth; A travelling merchant over hears Grey wolf asking and tells him where he might be able to find him in a castle to the north; He sets off to the north to find this castle the merchant spoke off.  

After some travelling Grey Wolf finds the castle, it was a desolate castle which was starting to crumble; he entered inside to find some of Zorrgaraths men which he easily deposed off with his sword; he kept making his way up through the castle killing the guards, till he reached the top and their stood Zorrgarath the man he had wanted to kill all those years ago for what he did to his people; he ran towards him with anger being careless Zorrgarath drew his blade clashed swords with grey wolf they fought and fought; but grey wolf got careless he wanted his revenge so badly; Zorrgarath stuck a blow which dropped Grey wolf to his knee's.

Zorrgarath said "so this is the Grey Wolf I've been hearing about searching for me, I've heard many tales about you, and you did not disappoint me" walking towards grey wolf slowly taking off his helmet, he takes grey wolfs hand and move it on his face and say's do you recognise me grey wolf, do you know my scent, Grey wolf starts to shake and say's It Cannot be, you cant be!!"

After talking to a female gamer friend of mine.

Recently I spoke to a friend of mine who is a female gamer, She was saying how "girl" games are very stereotypical of women, "girl" games mainly consist of cooking, household chores, looking after animals or really cute games;Why female gamers can't be allowed to enjoy games such as Left for Dead, Halo and Dead Rising etc, She also finds it annoying that guys are apparently the only people who are allowed to enjoy those games as that's who it is marketed to, and that if a guy went to buy a "girl" game he would get alot of stick for it and be labeled as "gay".
They also find how women are portrayed in games is kinda wrong aswell, They are set to be really hard ass women, but they wear skimpy clothes and have tiny waists with big boobs, which again is aimed more for the male gamer than the female, and that there isn't any "normal" looking women like bigger sized women only super model types, but when there is a larger women in a game they are usually the villian or there for comedy reasons.

Cakemania 2 Review

We got asked to play and review a "game for girls" , Rob (Kurtas) recomendation was for a game called Cakemania 2.

Cakemania is a game which is meant to be aimed for girls, the basis of the game is to fufil customers needs,
The game starts off with a very bright and colourful title screen, cartoon looking, which leads to the menu screen its laid out easy to navigate with 3 buttons a play button, a download cakemania (full version) and a options button.

The options menu is very basic with a sound volume slider which controls the music and sound, and high detail button for the graphics.

When you click the play button you are taking to a comic style introduction with the story for the game, after your gone through the story introduction you are presented a choice to how to start your game, either choice you make its still the same game with a different background.
There isn't any music for the game, just some basic sounds for instance, oven baking cakes and pinging and money jingling.

The gameplay is that you make the cakes put icing on them then give them to the customer, in return they give you money, you do this till you hit your money goal for the level and the level end's, you then get a choice of buying new equipment such as new icing's, cake shapes, a tray to display cakes and other things. There is a map for choosing level's these unlock as your progress through the game.

Overall - I Think the game isn't specifically for girls, I think anyone interested in micro-managerment would enjoy playing it, I think Kids would enjoy playing it for the bright colourful graphics, I think it would turn off most teen and older males as it's not really a style most males that age play, I also Think the game gets very repeatative for a older audience mostly males, It tends to get boring very fast, although a older female audience would enjoy playing it to pass sometime.

Absent for too long.

So I noticed I haven't posted here in a looooooooong time, I kind of forgot about my blog during the xmas holidays, But I'm back now and Hopefully keep up to date with my blog with lots of posts over the coming few weeks, I have alot to talk about during my absence :D