WAKE UP!

I know... I Know...
It's been a while since I've posted ANYTHING. Please pardon my absence.

Last fall was a busy time for me with teaching and school starting (not me just yet).Then Skyrim came out and EVERYTHING was put onto the back burner. Then Christmas came and went. More Skyrim. I worked on my own games and portfolio for school... Needless to say, the absence has been long enough and I am back to write for you again.

A lot has been happening in the game world and I haven't written a single thing about it. GDC came and went. PaxEast came and went. Releases of skyrim, MW3 and a whole host of other games... to talk of them now would be old news. E3 is on the horizon and though I have my passes, for a second year in a row I will not be able to attend. It just costs too much to fly out there form the East coast. I will get there soon.

There has been a bunch afoot in the PC/CPU world as well. I started a series on building a gaming rig and got two postings into it before my hiatus from blogging. Now that I am back at it the foretold LGA 2011 in that posting is now out and available, Intel is slated to release Ivy Bridge any day now, NVidia launched the new GeForce GTX 680 GPU ... I may as well start fresh and rethink the build from the start... well, It will still be Intell, not AMD. ;-)

A lot has happened in my world as well. I am continuing to finish the application process for Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in the hopes for a June start for my MFA. I have been designing two games for part of the admission process... One is a board game based on the music industry and the trials and journeys of a small band from a garage to stardom. be the first to earn $1,000,000 and reach the "stars" and you win. The other "game" really is more of a level design created in 3DS max and UDK. I am also working through the book "Game Development with Unity" by Michelle Menard (SCAD Alumni) and I am enjoying the learning process.

Now that I have "caught you up" it is time to focus on the future of this blog and my plans for how to roll out new posts on a schedule. I want to put forth a concerted effort to post at least once a week about one of three things:

1. My thoughts and experience regarding the use of UDK, Max, or Unity.
 As I work through Michelle's book, design/develop my UDK level, or refine my models in Max to be static meshes in UDK, I will post my findings, hurdles, hang-ups and resolutions here. Not only will this force me to write on the blog, it will share what I have found from other blogs, videos, and help files. It will not necessarily just be a rehash of other posts, but rather a finite look at my specific issues and problems and how I worked through it. I continually find that I have to watch four or five videos and read 2-3 articles to actually find all of the information I need to complete my project. Helpful places/videos will be placed onto the "Links" page.

2. Talk/Write about the process of refining the board game.
 Since this is board game is a work in progress that I plan on refining to be a possible product on the market, I need to tread carefully on the actual postings of the design process. Rather than discuss specifics about the game, I will talk about some of the design principals surrounding the process and how I handled the challenges, rule sets, systems and design. Hopefully within a few months it will be an actuall game available on the market and you can buy it from me!

3. Thoughts on the PC I will build for my enrollment at SCAD for my MFA.
LGA 2011 is out, Ivy Bridge is due to be released in... did it come out today? April 23rd? I don't know... Any day now it's due out. How much RAM? What Video card(s)? SSD or HDD? Monitor choices, peripherals, drives, case, fans, cooling... The works. As I "sus" out the computer and research the components, I will discuss them here. I will link to other forums where I post my thoughts and you can follow the threads about my ideas and other PC builder's input about them. I will also place a link to my newegg.com "Wish List" so you can look at the exact specs and prices to the items I want to buy, and it saves me rewriting them here!

Lastly, as time rolls on and I begin (hopefully) my Master's program in Interactive Design and Game Development at SCAD, I will do my best to report out on the classes, my experience and projects I complete through the schools top rated eLearning program. Recently the school was given a #7 on a Top 10 list of "Who's Who" for game design degrees. For those curious... Full sail didn't make the top ten. My first choice, "Guildhall" at SMU was #5, however they do not offer a distance learning option. MIT was at the top, but that was more of a coding and software engineering focus.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to sharing more with you as time rolls on.

-Chad

Chad is an Adjunct Faculty member teaching video game design in Boston, MA. He is currently a freelance designer and owner of Phlume Artist Management. He can be reached for comment there. http://www.phlume.com