Beneath the Crimson Moon – Available to Download Now!
Posted: November 11, 2014 Filed under: Awards, Student Successes | Tags: Available to Download, Beneath the Crimson Moon, British Library, Crytek, Edgar Allen Poe, GameCity, Gothic, Masque of the Red Death, newport computer games design, Off the Map 2014, USW, USW Computer Games Design, USW Games, Whitby Leave a commentBeneath the Crimson Moon is available for Download Now! Get it today a give it a go, it’s a great game.
Beneath The Crimson Moon is an exploration puzzle game in which the player must find objects that can be destroyed. When destroyed, the materials gathered, can then be used to navigate obstacles by re-building other objects such as bridges or ladders. The game is fully voiced with a narrative and story. Team Members: Sam Beale – Visual Concept Designer, Zack Finley – Mechanic Designer, Gary Kings – Narrative and Audio Designer, Ashely Lake – 3D Asset Designer, Rob Pearce – Level Designer, Mitch Leatherdale – Level Designer.
Beneath the Crimson Moon was a finalist at Off the Map 2014.
The Off The Map competition is a collaboration between the British Library, Crytek and GameCity. It challenges higher education students based in the UK to create games inspired by the British Library’s collections, using Crytek’s cutting edge real-time technology Ceyengine.
The 2014 Off The Map competition accompanies the British Library’s current exhibition Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination. Curators handpicked a number of items, ranging from maps, sounds, text, images, illustrations and architectural plans, to provide three Gothic themes for entrants to base their videogames on. These were author William Beckford’s home Fonthill Abbey, Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Masque of the Red Death and the seaside town of Whitby, which features in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Two Newport Student Teams Short-listed for the Crytek Off the Map Competition
Posted: November 4, 2013 Filed under: Awards, Events, Student Successes | Tags: Catacombs, cryENGINE3, Crytek, GameCity, Ian McMichael, James McLoed, Mac Cutler, Mystical Wings, newport computer games design, Stone Henge, University of South Wales, USW Leave a comment
Off The Map is a year-long project that encouraged students to create interactive environments using the CRYENGINE games engine. The competition supported by Crytek the British Library and GameCity, challenged students from selected universities to draw inspiration from British Library maps and then turn that inspiration into games. Teams could choose from three different maps: The Pyramids of Giza, Wiltshire’s Stonehenge, or London around the time of the Great Fire in 1666.
The competition short-list comprised of three teams, two of which were teams from the University of South Wales’ Computer Games Design Course. As finalists they had the opportunity to visit Crytek’s studios in Nottingham for feedback about their games and to gain an insight into the companies production processes. The teams were then asked to showcase their games at the Nottingham GameCity festival to an invited audience of professional games developers.
Ian McMichael presented his team’s work entitled ‘Mystical Wings’, a fantasy world based upon Stonehenge where the player controls Liliana a 6″ tall faery.
http://www.crydev.net/project_db.php?action=project_profile&team_id=5306&project_id=5200
James Macleod and Max Cutler then presented ‘Catacombs’ a game which takes the player on a journey through a fantasy landscape of underground dungeons and caves hidden beneath Stonehenge.
http://www.crydev.net/project_db.php?action=project_profile&team_id=5375&project_id=5208
Computer Games Design Lecturer Adam Martin says: “The student’s professionalism during the event was excellent, they did a fantastic job of conveying a sense of the games they had created and described the technical details of their production, they impressed the seasoned games developers at Crytek. We are very proud of what they have done.”
We are now preparing for next year’s competition and see this as a great way to enable students to engage with industry in a meaningful and valuable way. The ethos of the course is to make great games, so when competitions like this arise we can integrate them as assessable coursework. We actively encourage our students to work on projects that combine academic rigour and technical expertise, both of which are highly valued by the industry partners involved with the Off The Map project.
USW Games 