Darren Arquette

Mad as a hatter

Darren Arquette — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 12:41:11 +0000

I’ve just noticed that I haven’t posted in a while so I thought I’ll quickly write something.

The reason why I haven’t posted in awhile is because I’ve been a bit busy with university work, writing reviews and then completing Dragon Age: Origins as a City Elf.
The rest of the time I just haven’t been bothered really as there wasn’t much to update on.

But there is now, recently I got my feedback from Games Design & Production 1 and received and 80 which is one of the highest in the class and well on my way to getting a first. You can read my Games design doc here Engauge Your Enemies.

Other news I sent off my application off to Disney for an internship, really looking forward to a reply, hoping they accept me like. Other than that I might be off to see Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland, which I think they should of called “Return to Wonderland”, sort of like ‘Return to Oz’ because it seems more like a sequel then a remake. Oh well.

Riddle Results

Darren Arquette — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:28:38 +0000

Results of the riddle for the first 24 hours are quite shocking because I thought I made it to easy but anyway the results are;
Riddle 1. 33 People
2. 15
Gameover screen 1. 16
3. 15
Gameover screen 2. 6
Secret screen. 3
4. 13
5. 12
6. 11
7. 12
You Win. 9

Well it seems quite a few people didn’t make it until the end, um… I’ll have to do some changes with it then I guess or so if I can get even more people to play it to get some solid feedback.

Cheshire Cat Riddle

Darren Arquette — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:07:26 +0000

The Cheshire Cat Riddle videos are now done, video below. You can also check out some of my other work that I created for the Disney Interactive Studios Creative Brief for Internship 2010/11 here.

Animex

Darren Arquette — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:59:21 +0000

Animex was this past week, well still going on but I only go for the Animex Games bit really. But continuing my success of getting the nerve to talk to the legend that is Sir Ian Livingstone, the founder of Games Workshop and the importer of D&D – as well as President of Eidos (or Sqaure Enix Europe now?).

I managed to speak to Scott Campbell, awesome dude, from Double Fine who is the Art Director of Brutal Legend and Psychonauts.

Eric Baldwin Lead Animator at Naughty Dog, learned that all the animation on the characters faces was actually hand animated. Which blew my mind because of the animation in Uncharted is soo amazing especially with the characters faces; there’s soo many little movements in there that most people don’t notice but need to be there to make the characters feel alive.

And probably my highlight of the night, John Palamarchuk from Sony Santa Moncia, Lead Cinematic Environment Artist on God Of WAR 3!, whom told me some little technical details about GOW3 which just shocked the hell out of me, there’s no trickery with the titans one screen, they’re on the screen in real time! Like if you found a bug that teleported you over to the Titan you’ll be able to run on them as they’re just as big as the entire level.

SOOO looking forward to the GOW3 Trailer appearing on GamertrailersTV Tonight.

Lost down a rabbit hole

Darren Arquette — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:43:05 +0000

Hey guys,
just wanted to quickly post an update since I anit done it in a while, I’m a bit swamped at the minute with work in and out of university, and with some projects on the side that I really want to do, they don’t really help much.

But you should see some fruits of my labour shortly with a few new 3D models and a few Alice in Wonderland inspired level/puzzle design docs going up over the next week or so.

Other than that I anit really been up to much, just got back from Hull last night, and a lovely time with Vix and her family, just got Google Chrome, quite liking that, and a few games to review like MAG, Buzz Junior: Dino Den and ME2, which I’ll be putting a few hours into tonight.
So yeah feeling a lot like Alice atm, lost down that rabbit hole… just without the drugs.

Imperial March

Darren Arquette — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 23:46:36 +0000

Hey guys just a quick warning of the coming Darkside to the site, and if the name and that, didn’t just give it away, a few Star Wars related things will be popping up on the site. Nothing to do with University work just lil side projects of my own, that I thought would be a laugh/challenge to make.

Soon the full AT-AT will be up, with maybe a video?, and then an X-Wing, Tie-Fighter, Star Destoryer and finally THE Millenium Falcon.

(All things related to Star Wars is of course copyrighted by Lucas Arts, this is purely for educational, in 3D modelling, purposes)

Hard at work – Work in Progress

Darren Arquette — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:49:42 +0000

Man it’s hard, writing a Game Design Doc, when you’re trying to put down what you have in your head but are hoping to make enough sense that the reader will understand it.
Fair enough some will say I should have enough experience with writing that way, especially when counting my Novel, but I still find it really hard. Just because it mkaes perfect sense to me, I’ve been growing this idea for some time but when it comes to telling someone else it’s hard to explain it to them just because it clicks in my head but obviously this is new to them and they probably wont get it the first time.

So atm I’m writing what I’ve called “Scale of Evil” in my game doc, detailing the size of the hero and the suprioer size of the Bosses as well as the way the player will interactive with and how the fight should/will play out.

Game Design Doc + Happy New Year

Darren Arquette — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:05:04 +0000

As some of you may know, from following me on Twitter, I’m currently writing a Game Design Document. Nope unforunetly it’s nothing big just a small ICA but as you can see a section on the right has been opened, entilted; “Engauge Your Enemies”
And before you ask/say, yes that’s not how you spell “engage” (meaning, carry out or participate in an activity), the Engauge I use means, Process of converting an image file containing a graph or map into numbers.

Weird I know but here’s the reason why I have called the game this…

It’s mostly about the gameplay, sure you engage your enemies but you also, like Ikaruga, asorb different colours of energy which in turns may, or maynot, make you stronger (still working on that) but also when you defeat stronger enemies, aka bosses, you turn them into a card or object (not decided yet) which allows you to use them as a state building thing to further allow you to use them to make yourself stronger, like an RPG in away, they can be applied to your ship overall or just certain parts.

But that’s not all, the story is also the reason.

Our hero is a ex-pilot, the only one amongst a small rebel alliance fighting against an opressive force, so he goes in to take images and provide the rebels with data but he accidently gets involved and thus must fight the enemy… or maybe not sounds a bit cheesy I guess you’ll just have to check out the page regularly for more updates.

Oh and before I forget, Happy New Year everyone. Hope 2010 is a brilliant year for everyone.

Better late than never

Darren Arquette — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:51:03 +0000

Hey guys and gals,
As you may of noticed I’ve given the whole site a bit of a general make over with some new features, mostly to help you guys advertise me ;D, but you should also see a bit of new content up amongst the site as well as a few slight page changes (more of which will becoming by the end of May 2010.)

And for fans of literature, you may of noticed I am now posting my entire book, Forgotten Tales: A Phoenix Dream, onto the website. There is a good reason for this and it’s not to try and grab the attention of any publishers or anything it’s just I’ve been working on this book for so damn long that I just want to get it out there.
As some of you may know, I came up with the original idea for it at the age of 12, began writing a brief outline for a story that then turned into three, then five books (3 are the main story, the remaining 2 are a side story that takes place between the first two books) and then at the age of 16 began finally writing Part 1, and finally completing it at the age of 19.
So yeah little sick of seeing it and just wanna get it out of the way to work on the next ones.

Other than that, I wish everyone that vists here a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Vehicle update

Darren Arquette — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:10:57 +0000

The page Vehicles has been update, you can check out what’s been updated here.

More updates will be coming in the next couple of days.