Blast from the past: Clive Barker's Undying (video)

Clive Barker's Undying is a horror-themed first-person shooter computer game based on the Unreal Tournament game engine. It was developed by DreamWorks Interactive, and released in 2001 by Electronic Arts. Noted horror author Clive Barker was consulted in shaping the game's plot and background story and also provided the voice of Ambrose, a character in the game. Undying follows the adventures of 1920s Irish paranormal adventurer Patrick Galloway as he investigates the mysterious occult happenings at the estate of his friend Jeremiah Covenant.

This excellent PC game should not be missed by any player, today it is old but still very playable with a great storyline and fantastic atmosphere its a must have. Just watch this in game play movie and enjoy.

The Art of the Start (download)

If you want to start in a gaming industry don't just look at the game related products because the game is a product of many things like: good story, nice programing... So if you want to read something interesting here is a nice book from Guy Kawasaki for everyone who want to start anything.
Bellow is a book description from Amazon.com and for your pleasure i provided free pdf of a few pages from book for you to download.

Book Description
What does it take to turn ideas into action? What are the elements of a perfect pitch? How do you win the war for talent? How do you establish a brand without bucks? These are some of the issues everyone faces when starting or revitalizing any undertaking, and Guy Kawasaki, former marketing maven of Apple Computer, provides the answers.

The Art of the Start will give you the essential steps to launch great products, services, and companies—whether you are dreaming of starting the next Microsoft or a not-for-profit that’s going to change the world. It also shows managers how to unleash entrepreneurial thinking at established companies, helping them foster the pluck and creativity that their businesses need to stay ahead of the pack. Kawasaki provides readers with GIST—Great Ideas for Starting Things—including his field-tested insider’s techniques for bootstrapping, branding, networking, recruiting, pitching, rainmaking, and, most important in this fickle consumer climate, building buzz. At Apple, Kawasaki helped turn ordinary customers into fanatics. As founder and CEO of Garage Technology Ventures, he has tested his iconoclastic ideas on real- world start- ups. And as an irrepressible columnist for Forbes, he has honed his best thinking about The Art of the Start.

Don't give up!

Do you like games, enough to enjoy playing it but what about creating them. Searching the web i found that many people want to create games by themselves. But after some time they found it hard work to do only small parts of it and they give up. Some people like to play some to create and then some combine those to and get to play while having a real time job creating PC games. And to enjoy what we do should be the target of us all. I know its all pretty graphics in PC games but behind those colorful animation artists stand to create a world for us gamers. So please be true to yourself, you are creating a world, it is no small task, be ready and don't give up.

Above this text is a screenshot taken from Guild Wars a great online game with some very nice models.

What 3D software to use? Read on. (download)

How to make a PC game, what software to use? Well if you have money Autodesks Maya sounds pretty nice but what if you are starting as a “garage game designer” and every penny counts. Open source comes to mind and its not a bad idea to start. When you are starting you really need to be creative to be noticed and you certainly need to cut costs to zero. Equipping your computer with open source software is a great idea for start. Because why limit your potential with high cost software at the start when you can just go create and have fun in the making. Some people started with Maya and some other expensive software because they wanted the best from the start, and what happened? They were under pressure because they “had” to create profitable game to just repay the costs of their investment in early game developing software. Free yourself from the start to the end. Certainly if you make a hit, hey go get anything you want but just keep making hits. So one of the software that should not be missed is Blender. Blender is an all-in-one 3D modelling and animation suite. It can be used to produce computer-generated images and movies. It was originally developed by Dutch company NeoGeo, then made available as a commercial product by subsidiary Not A Number. When NaN shut down, one of its founders set up the not-for-profit Blender Foundation and worked to raise funds to buy the rights to Blender. Consequently, Blender is now under the GNU General Public License which makes it open source and free for anyone to use. Recently there was a great project using Blender which resulted in first Open source movie called Elephant Dream which is currently heavily downloaded on various torrent sites. That just proves how much users value this software. Go to http://www.blender.org/ and have fun. And also i provided you with the pdf download of Blender 3DNoob to Pro - Beginner Tutorials which i found on wiki.


Bellow are two quality pictures representing Blenders power.

Developing a loyal audience. (download)

Alone in the Dark is a great series of games worthy of looking at and playing. Alone In The Dark was actually the first 3D survival horror game when it first appeared for the PC in 1992. That fact alone is a praise for its developers Infogrames, because if you want to be noticed you have to be first and original, those things usually tend to go together. The story is based on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, although later games in the series drew inspiration from other sources including Voodoo, the Wild West, and the works of H.R. Giger. The series have become hits spawning similar games like Resident Evil and movies based on its stories and success.

The original game engine was created by Frédérick Raynal as a pet project while working at Infogrames. With the help of Didier Chanfray, who made the 3D models, a working prototype of the attics (the game's first room) was designed. An internal contest was held to create the art to complete the 3D prototype. Yaël Barroz's art was selected and she was introduced into the game's core team. Frédérick Raynal directed the project.Shortly after Alone in the Dark's initial release, a major disagreement between the team and Infogrames' director (Bruno Bonnell) took place regarding the direction of the sequel. As a result, most of the original team left Infogrames to create a new studio named Adeline Software International.

There is a big point in looking at the Alone the Dark title series because it created an audience of its own loyal gamers which every company desire. Even to this day people are playing the game from 1992. because of its originality and as one player says “its kind of a time back machine for me, with playing it again i can go to the good old days of PC games”. So if you are a game developer why not start small with just a creative story and game play if you want to create a legion of your own loyal players and a recognizable brand. No flashy graphics and special effects just be original to the core, there is a pot of gold for your reward at the end of your gaming journey. But than the journey is never ending, just look at the table bellow and say why stop when money machine is going on and on…

For your gaming pleasure i provided download of the first game in series, enjoy and learn.

The series, as of this date, contains the following games:

Title	Year	Developer
Alone in the Dark	1992	Infogrames
Jack in the Dark	1993	Infogrames
Alone in the Dark 2	1994	Infogrames
Alone in the Dark (3DO)	1994	Interplay Entertainment
Alone in the Dark 3	1995	Infogrames
Alone in the Dark 2 (3DO)	1995	Interplay Entertainment
Alone in the Dark: Jack is Back	1996	Infogrames
Alone in the Dark: Ghosts in Town	1996	Infogrames

World of StarCraft

This time around gaming communities are buzzing with the rumors of StarCraft 2 which should be in the making. I still have a original StarCraft and its expansion and i can truly say it is a great game. It was a small revolution of its time, because for the first time in a quality title players could experience battles between 3 completely different raises. The story and music also helped in bringing it to be a smashing hit. Original StarCraft is still mega popular in South Korea where it is played on many LAN parties and tournaments so no wonder that rumor of StarCaraft 2 coming out originated from Korea. The rumors still haven't been confirmed that there shall only be StarCraft 2 the strategic game, and why is that important? Well if you combine very very large number of fans awaiting StarCraft 2 the strategic game with the World of WarCraft what do you get? Its simple another money making machine World of Starcraft. The time is ready to replace WoW on the throne and what better way to heat up excitement than with StarCraft 2, its almost like with Warcraft 3.
I just wonder who shall benefit from it, why not all, players and game makers. Well did we with the WoW, that is for you to answer. For now i am certain good old StraCraft is a great game and if you haven't played it, go get it and have fun like you should be with all the great games.

The rise and failings of a PC game developers.

Most PC players know Croteam a company from Zagreb, Croatia. The company was established in 1993, initially as a “garage games” makers because back then they had six employees. The first game they produced Football Glory in 1993, which was a moderate quality game received more attention from the court actions that were taken against Croteam from Sensible Software because of the similarities between their football game.
With only a minor games produced 1993-2001 their biggest product was released in 2001 as a Serious Sam title, a first person shooter. Serious Sam become a world hit its main features were: large amounts of colourful enemies, enormous open areas, many secrets and its superb game engine.Croteam created their own engine for use in both First Encounter and Second Encounter parts of Serious Sam and it was named “Serious Engine”, it was a little revolution of its time. When other FPS engines f the time had a limited draw distances and poor amount of characters on the screen at the same time the “Serious Engine” was delivering large amounts of detailed models which were very fun to obliterate by players.

The humor and fun within the game was another thing that Croteam delivered in a great style. The story itself was kind of a parody to the other FPS shooters of its time that way the game was shining in the sea of other similar titles. Combining all of this elements in one game it certainly produced a great gaming fun which players around the world appreciated. Reviews from various gaming web sites and magazines were excellent, usually bringing very high marks from editors and players.

But than on October 2005. came highly awaited Serious Sam 2 with the new “Serious engine”. The game was far from bad but it failed to deliver what was expected. Why? Well the players complained it was just an old story in a new cloth and that there was nothing new in it. The price of the previous editions of Serious Sam was very reasonable if not cheap, but after the success the price was raised by a large percentage and that also heavily reflected on the gaming population. Veteran players know what games are worth their money and were disappointed in Serious Sam 2. Marketing also did not help, many complained about the poor game demo which did not help in sales. To this day i haven't found any company which licensed “Serious engine” for its games so that also was a failure. I don’t like to hear about downfalls and i believe Croteam has a great game developers but what was the real reason of Serious Sam 2 failing to deliver? I believe it was many small things combined. Small companies can be destroyed this way so i wish all the people in gaming industries and especially Croteam good luck, don rest on your past glory because it will burn very soon. Watch every aspect of you game because players will certainly see that fruits of your labour are rewarded.