March 2011
1 post
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Blog Migration: Important Announcement for RSS and...
You may (or may not) have been wondering why there hasn’t been a post on here in a while. I’ve been building a new blog system which integrates with the rest of the site much better, and it’s almost ready to go live!
What does this mean for me?
The Facebook page will continue to publish updates as usual, but if you’re following the blog on Tumblr or subscribed to the RSS...
January 2011
2 posts
3 tags
Global Game Jam 2011: Hour the 3rd
Global Game Jam, Newport on Ustream
The global game Jam has started in Newport! Follow our adventures through the next 43 hours on the live stream above (I’m probably on the far left, in the hat, almost certainly doing something stupid), and via my Twitter feed. You can send us messages through Twitter too! And we’ll read them!
If you’re working hard at another jam site, good...
Guest Lecture
I’m going to be giving a guest lecture at the University of Wales, Newport this Friday afternoon, just before the Global Game Jam! Topics to be covered will include the basics of PHP and MySQL, getting XNA to play nicely with a web server, and building a basic global high-score system, with practical work setting up your own high-score server in one afternoon. Why not incorporate global...
December 2010
2 posts
5 tags
Indie Jam Triple Play: The Experimental Prototype...
This weekend, there are no less than THREE indie game jams going on simultaneously, and guess what? I’ll be doing my darndest to enter all three.
This week sees the Experimental Gameplay Project (1-31 Dec, theme: “Drawing”), Game Prototype Challenge (13-20 Dec, theme: “Immortality” and “Thin Ice”) and Ludum Dare 19 (18-20 Dec GMT, unknown theme)...
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Indie Kombat
For the last month, Alec Stamos of Ultimate-Nerds.com and I have been locked in an epic game-development battle for indie honour.
The contest ran from 5th-30th November.
Only 30 hours were allowed to be spent on anything going directly into the game.
Publicly licensed materials (graphics, sound, code libraries, etc.) were allowed, as long as they were declared in a readme file with the game.
...
October 2010
1 post
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Eurogamer Expo 2010
Last weekend saw Eurogamer Expo 2010 at Earl’s Court in London, part of the London Games Festival 2010. Despite being booked onto a non-existent bus, tube strikes, tube maintenance, roadworks and the bus company not stopping where they said they would, I actually managed to get there and back alive on the final day of the event, Sunday.
Overall I was impressed by the organisation and...
September 2010
1 post
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Graduation and IAP Award
Last week was a big one on the scale of my life so far! I officially graduated from the University of Wales, Newport with a 2:1 in BSc(Hons) Games Development & Artificial Intelligence last week at a ceremony on the university’s Caerleon Campus.
That afternoon I also attended the Newport Business School PrizeGiving Ceremony, where there was an ample supply of very nice tea and cakes...
August 2010
4 posts
5 tags
Ludum Dare 18: PIXELSPACE Now Available
PIXELSPACE is finished and can be downloaded now for free at dcfgames.com/games/pixelspace!
You play as a white pixel defending yourself against incoming infected green pixels. You do this by shooting them down or by guiding them to crash into each other (the latter having the chance of an ammo drop, hence “enemies as weapons”). Coming into contact with enemies will cause damage,...
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Ludum Dare 18: The Story So Far
If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll already know I’m taking part in the Ludum Dare 48-hour game development competition this weekend.
My game idea is a basic top-down shooter, with different enemies having different effects on the enviroment when they are shot. The player has a very limited ammo supply, so use of these effects is vital to survive. The player can also...
July 2010
1 post
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June 2010
1 post
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dcf Games Joins Indie DB!
Game-modding community site Mod DB has just launched its new indie game site Indie DB! From today I’ll be uploading selected games, screenshots and tutorials to both dcf Games and Indie DB at my account, davecheesefish. If you have an Indie DB or Mod DB account, you can “watch” me via the eye button on the right-hand side of my profile page. You’ll also be able to track...
February 2010
2 posts
3 tags
X48 Birmingham 2010: All Wrapped Up
Meet the team! Left to right: Mat Simmons, Jason Thomas, David Prior (me!) and Martyn Poole. Photo by Pixel-Lab.
The first X48 GameCamp of 2010 was last weekend at Birmingham City University, and Mat Simmons, Jason Thomas, Martyn Poole and I were there competing against 15 other teams from around the UK to produce a game in just 27 hours!
Our Friday started off with a 4-hour journey to get to...
4 tags
One Down, One to Go!
The Global Game Jam has passed into the realms of history, and the crash from the 48-hour caffeine buzz has just about worn off. It was a brilliant weekend, even better than 2009 if I may say so!
This year I teamed up with Matthew Simmons, Chris O’Donovan and Martyn Poole in Team FAIL HARDER (Team FAIL from last year, plus two) to produce the Global Game Jam Game Jam Boat Game. I spent my...
January 2010
1 post
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Weekend Developer: Top Tips to Survive a Game Dev...
Image source: The Pizza Review
Developing a game in less than 48 hours is hard. It’s hard to stop your brain from melting, and hard to produce anything near useable code when you’re blood is 98% supermarket own-brand carbonated caffiene drink substitute at 4 in the morning. With less than a week to go until Global Game Jam 2010, I thought I’d share my top tips for surviving a...
October 2009
1 post
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Pinballz
I’ve seen my fair share of game studio recruitment sites, but most have yet to realise that the only real way to really speak to me is through the medium of catchy song lyrics.
Even play, even play, even play, even play, even play, even play, even play, even play, even play with our pinballlllllllllllllllllllz…
July 2009
3 posts
5 tags
Imagine Cup 2010, IGF 2010 and...
Photo from the 2009 Imagine Cup final
This summer’s calendar is certainly looking busy…
The 2009 Imagine Cup has just finished, but already the Poland 2010 event is starting! I’ve signed up for the Imagine Cup 2010 and ideas are already forming… The round 1 deadline is 1st April 2010, so who knows what might happen before then?
I’ll be posting progress updates...
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Microsoft Research Student Celebration Day Videos
Video from Ed Dunhill of Microsoft
Various videos from the Microsoft Student Celebration Day held at Microsoft Research, Cambridge, which I was fortunate enough to have attended back in April, are now available for all to view. Of particular interest to me was the talk on fast route finding by Simon Peyton Jones (shown in the video above). If you want a clearer look at the slides from that...
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Kodu
Video from IGN
Kodu Game Lab from Microsoft looks like an interesting tool for co-op game creation on the Xbox 360. While I don’t foresee “the next big thing” in gaming being created with it, it certainly seems like its simple interface and ease of use could just have the potential to kick-start some new programming and design talent into considering the games industry as a...
June 2009
4 posts
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The "Old" dcf Games Blog - May: Recent... →
News and developments from May 2009
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The "Old" dcf Games Blog - X48 Download Link and... →
The link to download Bellis Perennis, our 3rd-place winning entry for the X48 Microsoft XNA GameCamp, plus various photos from the event.
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The "Old" dcf Games Blog - dcf Games at X48 →
After two days of slaving in front of a computer, the results are in, prizes have been announced and the pizza stains are in the process of being removed from the carpets. This year’s X48 Microsoft XNA GameCamp at the University of Derby brought together 80 students in 17 teams from universities around the UK and is widely considered a huge success! (Especially after my team took home 3rd...
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The "Old" dcf Games Blog - Hello! →
The first ever post in the dcf Games Blog!