Graduation, News, and Hawk

Graduation!
Like a release date for the sequel of your favorite game, graduation is nearly upon me. As I've espoused before, I highly recommend the liberal arts path to game programming. I've learned a ton of stuff that may not be directly applicable to programming but is extremely relevant to producing enjoyable and creative art and entertainment :)

Wideload!
One might ask, since it seems to be the question on everyone's tongue, what I'm doing next year. As some of you already know, I'm headed to Wideload Games in Chicago! I interned there last summer and really enjoyed it. You can see lots of my work in Texas Cheat 'Em on XBLA - which is a really fun multiplayer game for those who love complicated strategy with a hint of luck. Many thanks are due to this community and GG for getting me positioned for this next step. Thanks! I definitely owe quite a few of you a beer now that I'm old enough ;)

Hawk!

More bloggishly, my senior thesis used TGEA!

Hawk: 3D Gestured-Based Interactive Bird Flight Simulation
In a nutshell, this is the foundation for a bird flight game. Player motion is controlled by two Wiimotes, held as though flying, and consists of soaring and flapping. There are AI hawks that could be scared out of your territory, thermals, and lots of water. It's pretty fun to just soar around, but lacks real gameplay goals since that wasn't the point of the thesis.

Enough words, though; the paper about this was long enough.


And an early video with me playing for a bit. The 'final' version has better flapping animations, tighter controls, and doesn't look like it was recorded through a rotating pane of deformed glass.