My graduation project
polycounter lvl 12
Hey guys, I completely forgot to tell you all here that I graduated in February!!! I am now a master in Communication and Multimedia Design *yay*!
My graduation project was to brainstorm for cool game ideas > pick the best 5 ideas and pitch them for the company I was following my internship at(in Holland your final graduation project is often combined with an internship) called Kalydo > make a GDD of the best idea > make a prototype based on the game/gdd that demonstrates the core gameplay. I had to complete the project in about 4 months time! Needless to say I am basically an artist, so the company promised me that one of their coders would help me one day a week, as soon as I had finished the GDD.
(Image: One of the first sketches for the pitch to explain my game idea, kind of hard to understand without an explanation I guess :P)
So, after I spent about 2 weeks getting to know my colleagues, the company, their current lineup and brainstorming my ass off I pitched the best 5 ideas in a presentation. During this presentation one of the game ideas was so appealing to the CEO's of the company, that they were literaly jumping up and down from their seats from excitement(they were like a bunch of wild apes on a chiquita plantation, a sight I still have nightmares of in my sleep). So instead of the one hour a week, they decided that the coder should help me 3 days a week!!!!
(Image: The first prototype version)
Thats when the ball(perhaps I should say cube) really started rolling down the hill! The coder was so enthousiastic that he coded the entire prototype in the same weekend after I presented my idea with coder art! SO after some talks with my councelor from school, I decided to finish the GDD during the next two weeks, and try to make the prototype into a fullfledged game in the remaining 3 months I had left.
(Image: how do you make art for an entire game with 4 worlds and 88levels in 3 months? Recycle the art!)
To make a long story short: I almost made it! The game was about 90% finished and was in the polish fase when my internship was over. I made hundreds of models, textures and other graphics, I was also the level designer for the entire game and made all 88 levels. Unfortunately I couldn't finish making the entire game due to reports and other school stuff I had to make in the next month. But the team at Kalydo finished the rest, and now the game is playable on their site! You can register(or already login using your gmail account) and play the game for free for the first 15 minutes or so!
Anyway, theres even more good news, initially the game was supposed to be made only for the kalydo platform, but a few deals have been made and now the game is going to be ported to WiiWare AND the iPhone!!!
SCREENSHOTS(from an oooooold version, I took these on my last day at Kalydo, it has been improved a lot!):
CHECK OUT THE VIDEOREVIEW BY WIIFOLDER.COM. THIS DEMONSTRATES THE GAMEPLAY VERY WELL:
http://wiifolder.com/?p=290
PLAY THE GAME HERE:
http://www.kalydo.com
Thanks for reading. And another special thanks to all of you polycounters in general, I learned a shitload here that definately helped me during my school period! Let me know what you think and if you want to see or hear more, I already feel like a jackass for devoting this entire thread to me haha!
My graduation project was to brainstorm for cool game ideas > pick the best 5 ideas and pitch them for the company I was following my internship at(in Holland your final graduation project is often combined with an internship) called Kalydo > make a GDD of the best idea > make a prototype based on the game/gdd that demonstrates the core gameplay. I had to complete the project in about 4 months time! Needless to say I am basically an artist, so the company promised me that one of their coders would help me one day a week, as soon as I had finished the GDD.
(Image: One of the first sketches for the pitch to explain my game idea, kind of hard to understand without an explanation I guess :P)
So, after I spent about 2 weeks getting to know my colleagues, the company, their current lineup and brainstorming my ass off I pitched the best 5 ideas in a presentation. During this presentation one of the game ideas was so appealing to the CEO's of the company, that they were literaly jumping up and down from their seats from excitement(they were like a bunch of wild apes on a chiquita plantation, a sight I still have nightmares of in my sleep). So instead of the one hour a week, they decided that the coder should help me 3 days a week!!!!
(Image: The first prototype version)
Thats when the ball(perhaps I should say cube) really started rolling down the hill! The coder was so enthousiastic that he coded the entire prototype in the same weekend after I presented my idea with coder art! SO after some talks with my councelor from school, I decided to finish the GDD during the next two weeks, and try to make the prototype into a fullfledged game in the remaining 3 months I had left.
(Image: how do you make art for an entire game with 4 worlds and 88levels in 3 months? Recycle the art!)
To make a long story short: I almost made it! The game was about 90% finished and was in the polish fase when my internship was over. I made hundreds of models, textures and other graphics, I was also the level designer for the entire game and made all 88 levels. Unfortunately I couldn't finish making the entire game due to reports and other school stuff I had to make in the next month. But the team at Kalydo finished the rest, and now the game is playable on their site! You can register(or already login using your gmail account) and play the game for free for the first 15 minutes or so!
Anyway, theres even more good news, initially the game was supposed to be made only for the kalydo platform, but a few deals have been made and now the game is going to be ported to WiiWare AND the iPhone!!!
SCREENSHOTS(from an oooooold version, I took these on my last day at Kalydo, it has been improved a lot!):
CHECK OUT THE VIDEOREVIEW BY WIIFOLDER.COM. THIS DEMONSTRATES THE GAMEPLAY VERY WELL:
http://wiifolder.com/?p=290
PLAY THE GAME HERE:
http://www.kalydo.com
Thanks for reading. And another special thanks to all of you polycounters in general, I learned a shitload here that definately helped me during my school period! Let me know what you think and if you want to see or hear more, I already feel like a jackass for devoting this entire thread to me haha!
Replies
I can imagine it working great on the wii and iphone, looks awesome from watching the video tour too. Really nice job on everything, congrats
I remember having to pitch a game design to a local game dev for a class assessment years ago..... I actually felt sorry for them for having to listen to us for 5 minutes
Anyway, some of you are having problems trying the online version, here's how it works:
1: go to http://www.kalydo.com
2: at the top of the site you can see three green links 'login', 'forgot password' and 'sign up'
3: either log in using an excisting account(example: your gmail or facebook account already works, isnt technology great?
4: If you create a new account you only need to fill in 4 fields, none of wich is peronal information(except for age and sex)
5: after you created your account, all you need to do is select a game, the Kalydo player will popup and needs to be installed as a plugin for your browser(it is needed because the games are pretty high end 3d for a browsergame) and the game will load.
Also, yeah, it might seem dodgy because you may not have heard of Kalydo before, but Ive been there 5 months and I can tell for a fact that these guys would never ever ever screw you in any way. They are true gamers and do it for the love of the game
Hows life on you now that youve left te kickass-iest company in Holland?
a few corporate words from me then as studio co-owner:
OpenID
OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.
You get to choose the OpenID Provider that best meets your needs and most importantly that you trust. At the same time, your OpenID can stay with you, no matter which Provider you move to. And best of all, the OpenID technology is not proprietary and is completely free.
Every big company is starting to use OpenID including Google, Facebook etc and pretty soon MSN as well ....
You give permission to share your information before actually making the login complete. There's nothing spooky about it, we dont know anymore from you than your username really.
Flash insults
People plz we are not Flash :-) (although Flash is great though)
Let me explain:
Kalydo is a browser based platform that enables you to smoothly run a complete OpenGL/DirectX engine in your IE,FF, Chrome. While we where a first mover and our technology is one of the most secure around there are other companies doing this now. Check out QuakeLive for example from Id Software.
so please... flash... *snif*
Hey thanks all!
Grtz
The game looks very cool, nice style. When I am at home, I will check it out some more.
p.s where did you study?? (I am a CMD bachelor from Leeuwarden)
You are right I am a bachelor(I actually had to check my diploma for your question, always thought I was a master lol)! I studied CMD in Arnhem at the Hogeschool van Arnhem and Nijmegen (http://www.han.nl), are you going for the games direction or are you going the web/marketing route?
will definitely be picking this up on the wii
How was your experience with CMD? I always felt like I wanted to learn more then they could offer me. Though I did get an awesome trip to the gnomon workshop in SF where I met poop and arshlevon.