Jun 15

A relaxed day

Today I have spent the day doing some research into animation. I have realised that I will need:

Left

Right

Idle

Jump

Interact npc

Interact object

I am going to spend tomorrow writing my GDD and my project scope. I know that I would like a platform 2d side scrolling game with educational puzzles. It will involve counting and motor skills. I need to start researching into games designed for children as it is important that I get the controller right.

I am going to make an illustrated GDD and then portion it into various blog posts. I hope that this is interesting to read but I fear it may become too technical and boring.

I am trying to build up this company slowly and so far I have been o happy with the way things are progressing. I am so grateful for the support I am receiving on facebook , twitter and instagram and I am overwhelmed by the backing. Thank you everyone. New post coming tomorrow.

Jun 14

Character Design

Today I started working on the character who will appear across the first lot of apps to be released. I wanted something that children would enjoy and it must also be able to have facial expressions and body language. I have designed this character before for Uni at some point so I started this process with a little knowledge of what I wanted.

I knew that the first apps would be a 2D platform game and my character would have to work well for this purpose. I have a few ideas in the future for some 3D games so the character would have to look good in 3D. I have an idea for the first couple of levels and need to keep in mind the character must be able to walk, jump, hover and interact with other characters and the environment.

I started with some rough sketches. I was going for a walking robot with an old school TV for his head. This evolved into a hovering robot and I eventually ended up removing the antenna. I liked the antenna originally as i thought they would add some cool animations for body language but I realised by increasing the arm length I could get some extra body language from them.

I am extremely happy with the progress so far and will now move forward into research to make sure I haven’t drawn something from memory by accident. That’s all for this blog post, thank you so much for reading and have a great day!

“Every great design begins with an even better story.” — Lorinda Mamo, designer

Jun 13

Website is (finally) up!

Phew, It has been a weird couple of days. I think I’ve been through 20-30 various different themes before arriving at this one (Thank you Graphene.)
I am so happy with the site and am super excited to start building apps and keeping them up to date here.

A little about me

My name is James and I am currently studying Games design and art BA at WSA in Winchester, UK. I love arts and crafts, various pretty things, playing games and chatting!

I wrote an essay last year entitled How does gamification enhance assistive technology for KS2 children with learning disabilities? Writing this essay I learnt so much about AT (assistive technology) and how little customisation is done for children who require AT. Some children find it very difficult to use because its ugly, complicated or even the wrong tech altogether. I would love to see this company move forward into designing customised AT for anyone who needs it.

Why Build Create Play?

Build Create Play (BCP) are going to be designing fun games and apps that can be played for educational purposes. The main goal is fun and learning through play. I am a great believer in learning through play. Children will naturally role play various situations in order to learn them better. Who doesn’t remember pretending to be something else when they were a kid (I was always Lara Croft). Through these role plays and games we learnt appropriate and inappropriate behaviour which carries with us into adulthood.

BCP is about harnessing these natural rules that children develop and manipulating them to amplify the learning.

What else is on this website?

This website will also be serving as my reflective journal for my final year at Uni. The game I will make will be sticking to the criteria for BCP so I am more that happy to post it here.

“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”
— Albert Einstein