Hello again!

I'm currently fiddling, tweaking and haxing the site to make it look more awesome.

Please have patience while I'm twisting the bolts.

I've finally finished the short developer video of DM-Fuji. Sorry for the wait. Here it is:

Since this is my very first project using Unreal Engine 3 I'm very happy about how it turned out. I exceeded my expectations alot, and got very happily suprised by how powerful Unreal engine 3 is.

Hi!

Long time no see. Thats because ive been very busy at Futuregames Developing something very special that I'll probably show off att the folio sometime soon. Just too keep things updated I added DM-Fuji up here as well. I'll be finishing the level and developing the developer video as first priority the coming weeks.

Two releases this week, wow!

Finally finished the Technodome.

It's not too friendly on an old computer due to openness and isn't compiled with LDR for filesize reasons.

Hope you enjoy it!

>>Download here!

Finally I'm done with the Decadence postmortem. Its a reflective report on the mod Decadence me and my friends from the university of Skovde developed during a period of 1,5 years. It's 41 pages long and covers pretty much all the disciplines.

A big thanks to the rest of the Decadence team who helped me out and wrote parts of it <3.

>> Download the post mortem

>> Visit the official decadence website

Since I started studying at Futuregames I've been playing around with the unrealED to get my bearings with the engine. My first creation turned out to perhaps become something interesting so I decided to continue working on it.

As a Hammer user since about 7 years back i thought i would find it difficult to get used to working with a new editor, but to my suprice, that wasn't at all the case. UnrealEDs basics proved to be very similar to Hammer, and since it offers tons of more tools and import/export capabilities I now feel like I'm really at home.

UnrealED is extremely easy to get around with and the way it handles packages and content and custom materials is very very impressive. Not to mention you can preview lighting within the editor! Such crazyness has never been Hammers strongest side. Another important note is that along with the game when you buy Unreal comes a DVD with 20+ hours of video tutorials that shows your way around the editor. Thats just awesome. The quality of the tutorials are much, much higher than Noesis tutorial DVD's for Hammer (which in my humble opinion shouldnt be allowed to be sold at all considering the low quality and very high cost).

However one thing that speaks in favor for the Source engine is the fact that Unreal is extremely focused on mesh based geometry, while source uses BSP for the most part. This makes it much more difficult to come up with original designs only using the editor when working with unreal. I believe that the pros easily outweights the cons, especially now when the Unreal Development Kit has arrived which enables anyone to make their own games with epics technology at no charge if you don't make more than 5000$ out of the product.

Anyways, heres some pics of what ive been doing the past 3 weeks:

Finally!

I just finished my postmortem while on the train to Stockholm about Chit-Chat, a board game me and fellow students designed during the introduction period at Futuregames Academy.

Below is a quote from the introduction:

"I'm Filip Coulianos, level designer and a general game enthusiast with a background in the action game genre of computer games. Chit-chat is a board game me and four fellow students at the Futuregames Academy developed during a period of three weeks as an introductory course to computer game development. It was as much a team building exercise as it was teaching us how to make fun games."

>> Read the full article here

Hi!

It's been a while since I wrote something here. This is because I've recently moved to Stockholm and been busy trying to find a permanent room and get my computer up here, but now everything is in order and I've gotten time to finish the damn thing!

You can have a look at the technodome video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIR3-LQf4bE

Currently I'm working on two post-mortems that Ill hopefully will be able to publish "soon". The first one is a huge post mortem of the Decadence project, and the other one is a much shorter one about a board game project me and fellow students of Futuregames academy did develop in three weeks.

Finally i can show off some pics off my current project!

The technodome is a 2 month project with a bunch of unique features for the Half-Life 2: Deathmatch community. Head over to the leveld design section and have a look at the pics!

"The Technodome is a Half-Life 2: Deathmatch level with unique game play mechanics.

Based upon event based levels such as dm_crossfire and dm_runoff players in the Technodome has to collect energy cells to power the security door and get to safety from falling bombs. The energy cells can also be used to access the RPG and Crossbow.

Technodome has unique gameplay mechanics and even includes a special HUD-element only using only Hammer scripting. Level design, scripting, lighting and level beautification is made by me. Environment art made by Valve corporation. Additional art made by Pontus Karlsson and me."

I just noticed that GameCareerGuide finally published my article "Coulianos Method For Pacing Analysis".

GameCareerGuide is a daughter site of the well-known GamaSutra, aimed towards students.

I contacted Gamasautra about the article a couple of months ago asking if they where interested in publishing it. They suggested that GameCareerGuide was a better alternative, I agreed. They were very accommodating and I can definitely recommend anyone to send them an e-mail if you think you've got something interesting to publish.

Big thanks to Chris at the Gamasutra staff!

>> Head to the article

A few days ago I had an email form a guy named Damion who had a couple of questions regarding my workflow when I do levels. I've seen these questions come up quite often on various level design communities and decided to write my own opinions regarding those. Here are the questions and answers:

When your to create an enviroment what is your work flow?

( Read more... )

When your creating a building, do you do so from reference?

( Read more... )

Hello again. I just wanted to shout out that I've added a link to Arcade Bergs blog about game design.

One article that i found particularly interesting is "An Actual Game Design Test" which is about the worksample he did to get a level design job at GRIN. Good read!

>> Head over to "Learning Game Design with Arcade Berg" !

As I’m about to make a very small deathmatch-ish project. The project I’m working on is a spinoff of the good old Crossfire and dm_runoff concept to create more drama, action and meta-gameplay to the level.

( Read more... )

I’ve had a look at the layouts of the official Half-Life 2 Deathmatch maps bundled with the game to get some ideas if they had similar elements to them. What I found was that this isn’t the case. Some of the levels look like Frankenstein’s monster since they got ported out of the Half-Life 2 single player (dm_lockdown and dm_overwatch). Others, like dm_powerhouse and dm_resistance are much more classic DM-style levels from a layout perspective, this is most probably because these levels got bundled with HL2:DM as a part of a price in a competition Valve started. My conclusion is that the levels in HL2:DM is pretty much random, but most of them are fun in their own way, but there is no consistency when it comes to layout. Good to know!

Below is a list of overviews for Half-Life 2 Deathmatch I did:

dm_lockdown:

dm_overwatch:

dm_powerhouse:

dm_resistance:

dm_runoff:

dm_steamlab:

dm_underpass:

Hello people!

I just finished my first article about pacing and variation in gameplay elements in English. I do believe one can still improve this analysis method a lot and there’s a big chance I’ll release follow-ups to this article in the future.

Heres a quote from the introduction:

“Todays games are improving in quality year by year. It’s mostly noticeable by the ever increasing visual quality, however the level design quality also has to improve to make a better game. Too often I see feedback solely based upon screenshots or graphics on both forums and reviews; they dont tell anything about the level design! Some people even seem to think that level design and art is the same thing. The word pacing has become more and more of a buzzword, but no one has really defined what it is. In this article I will present you my view of what pacing is, and how you can measure it and adjust it to perfect the end user experience.”

>> Download Coulianos method for pacing analysis here!

Edit (2009-10-11)

The article has been published on GameCareerGuide.com.

>>Go here and read the article at GameCareerGuide!

Hey! Me and my friend Tobias was attending Game Developers Conference in Cologne. We where participating as volunteers and because of this had full access to the event with free food, parties, drinks and all that. We went to cologne by airplane and then went couch surfing at two very kind and very generous hosts who showed us the awesome parts of cologne we would never had found otherwise. It also cut down the costs of the trip to only paying for the food and travel!

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