Map preview - Widows Cave

Heres a preview of level design lead Adam Khoury's map Widows Cave. As Bug Company is a team based game with capture mechanics the teams begin a fair distance apart (A & B on map) and fight over capture points (yellow circles with green crosses). Notice the large snake skeleton in the centre of the map?

The next step for Adam is to build a rough approximation of Widows Cave within Unreal Editor and test it.

Group Meeting 27/02/09

Above: Programmer Steven Matthews discusses Unreal coding with the team.

Above: Level design concepts from lead level designer Adam Khoury.

Above: Group shot minus Louie Mitchell & Chris Begley (I was taking the picture lol).

Deliverables 001

Each week members of Powerhouse Games are assigned deliverables. These deliverables are given out on a Monday and on Tuesdays we speak to our design tutor Zuby Ahmed about them. Once he is happy with the deliverables set each student has till the following monday to complete them. Over the next few weeks Powerhouse Games will work hard on weekly deliverables and pool their talents to create something special come early May, Thats all Folks!

(P.S. we even have Hilary's backing on this one, how can we fail?)

Unleash the BUGS! (Part One)

Heres some renders of a placeholder bug creature for Bug Company. The beetle in these images is carrying a platform that players can stand on as they fly into battle. Credit for this model goes to Gary Seddon (3D Artist).

A week till Alpha!

This week Powerhouse Games are hard at work on getting an Alpha build for a week today (2nd March). All departments are busy creating levels, building/ texturing art assets & sound effects. An alpha build will hopefully consist of one Unreal level where key gameplay mechanics will be demonstrated. Come back later in the week for level diagrams and more.

Powerhouse Games team

Team Meeting 23/02/09

Above: Level designer Stephen Rhodes explaining his level concept with the team.

Above: Key requirements for Alpha Build.

Above: Team members hard at work on a cold Monday morning.

Above: Programmer Steven Matthews discusses his previous weekly deliverables.

Teaser Trailer

Here it is! The teaser trailer for Bug Company created by our art team (Emma Hampson and Gary Seddon). Enjoy!

Team Meeting 20/02/08

Above: Programmer Steven Matthews and Adam Khoury discussing a level design.

Above: Lead level designer Adam Khoury explaining his level design concept.

 

Above: Fun guns.

Above: Luke Bale, Gary Seddon and Steven Matthews hard at work during a meeting.

Powerhouse Games is proud to announce... Bug Company!

Its been a busy two weeks for Powerhouse games, and with two weeks until Alpha we have a title for our Unreal engine mod. Bug Company is a team based combat game. Players control insects in combat and need to work as a team to capture locations over several varied maps. More information on Bug Company will be revealed this week here on our Blog.

Welcome to our developer diary!

Hello and welcome to our developer blog. Powerhouse Games are a group of ten university students from the University Of Salford. As part of our design studies we are required to create a fully playable mod of Epic's Unreal engine. Here are the team and their roles.

Christopher Begley (Producer)

Jonathan Frith (Sound & Music)

Steven Matthews (Programmer)

Emma Hampson (Artist/ Team leader)

Gary Seddon (Artist)

Adam Khoury (Level Design Lead)

Stephen Rhodes (Level Designer)

Sam Owen (Level Designer)

Louie Mitchell (Lead Document Designer)

Luke Bale (Document Designer)

This blog will be updated with information on the teams progress over the coming months. The assignment is due early May and has the following requirements.

Tech Requirements

- 2 Character models (textured/ rigged and animated).

- 5 Vocals per character.

- Music for each level.

- 10 unique sounds per level.

- Full organic terrain complete with high quality textures.

- 2 Static buildings and 10 static meshes (including 2 high quality meshes).

- At least two original Unreal scripts.

- Loading and introduction screens/ full level information.

- Detail the design methods for all assets and level construction completely.

Presentation Requirements

- A section dedicated to the games design process.

- An analysis of the games production and pipelines.

- Detailed analysis of how the design process could have been improved in hindsight.

Monitoring Requirements

- Creation of a development diary.

- Video and photographs of group meetings/ monitoring of key tasks.

- Work diaries for each team member in the group.