The Eye of Sauron

Half Presentations

Last Wednesday were Half Presentations - so named because they're halfway through the term. We invited ETC alums, a number of our EA friends, and a few other guests to be in the audience for the two presentations and Q&A's afterward. A free lunch, of course, was used as bait.

The presentations were in a 'double-wide' theater at Electronic Arts, so the audience is twice as wide as it is deep. This can be an extra challenge for a presenter, but both teams did a great job of adapting.

Top image: The Tea & Sugar Team during their introductions.
Middle image: Linhan presenting with Shih-Han looking on.
Bottom image: Team Hatch, with the Global Imagination globe in demo mode.

Historical "Fiction" means you don't have to do research, right?

We've been doing a lot of playtesting on our spherical shooter, and it's safe to say that we've "found the fun." People enjoy playing, even though the game's currently flailing away without any sort of scoring or win condition. We're in a good place; all we have to worry about is not losing the fun while we fill in the little details like "goals" and "story" and "intuitive controls" and "more than one type of enemy."

Speaking of story, we've got one of thems now! The game's all about defending a Renaissance-era human settlement (the only one in the world) at the North Pole from giant monsters that rise from the South Pole. Now, that's already historically and geographically inaccurate on too many levels to really think about. So we went whole hog on the made-uppedness and came up with this story:

1000 years ago, in 1459, The King of Europe decreed that all the citizens of the world must relocate to the green and fertile plains of the North Pole, to escape the fearsome creatures that rose from the south. Since then, the pact he forged with Queen Margaret of the mermaids has kept the human stronghold safe from all seafaring invaders.

But now, in 1654, the tides are turning. The currents are granting passage to the underdwelling beasts of the South Pole, and a new King rallies the naval forces of his kingdom to drive back the approaching monstrosities.

It doesn't quite have the velvet perfection of John Hodgman's richly textured historical dishonesty, but it's a spirited mendacity nonetheless. I'm particularly proud of its assertion that one thousand years passed in between 1459 and 1654.

Our First Shooter Prototype

The Magic Planet team is building a shooter! It's set on the ocean, which seemed like a logical choice for a shooter's setting since outer space isn't spherical.

It's toroidal. Everybody knows that, right? We'll let the Magic Donut team take care of that one.

Anyway, our game is based on real nautical battles that have occurred in the Earth's history. Take a look:

Here, the player's ship follows a giant enemy prawn, about to shoot its collision sphere for normal damage.

Here, another giant enemy prawn prepares to strike the North Pole. You may remember this from your history classes, assuming your teachers got all the way through the real history and had time to teach you the imaginary stuff.

We're hard at work on this one, so expect to see more soon. We're also getting a 3-foot Magic Planet soon, to replace our 2-foot one, so expect it to get bigger, too.

Hatch Update

As our first application nears completion, the Hatch team is looking ahead to our next challenge: a game to be played on a sphere. We're quick-protoyping a few ideas, and I managed to use a discreet cell-phone camera to sneak some images past myself and post them on this blog.

This prototype is a platformer that wraps around the globe, set against stolen images from Mario 3 and starring Dotman Uglyhat, the Placeholder Hero.



That's Dotman! And here he is in his prototype adventure, Dotman Uglyhat and the Lawsuit of Miyamoto.



Dotman chills with Mario (DISCLAIMER: Mario is part of the background. You cannot chill with him).



Dotman prepares to stomp a Koopa Troopa (DISCLAIMER: background again. Do not attempt to interact with the Koopas).



Dotman readies himself to enter a pipe (DISCLAIMER: although the pipe possesses collision detection, you cannot travel through it. Also, that pipe doesn't even work in the original game, so what are you complaining about?).

Birth of Hatch

Today the Global Imagination team unanimously agreed on the name Hatch. We like to perceive ourselves as hatching ideas for the giant egg (The Magic Planet System).

Henceforth, we shall be known as "Hatch"

Photos of our brainstorming maps will follow shortly.