I will have the keyrings and stickers at Melbourne Christmas Comic-Con on December 6-7, so see you there!

November Newsletter

Thanks to everybody who came along to Supanova Brisbane to try out the games. We had three games at the show for everyone to judge, and the students were super excited to share their projects.

Yes, one of our games producers was Spider-Man. This is the wonderful Dark Heavens Explored team, fretting because their game wasn’t at optimal resolution on the wide screens provided by TAFE.

The final three games we showed were:

Dark Heavens Explored

This is a 3D pixelart game. The students asked me about Heavenly Wudang, and I scribbled a map of the facility for them, and they built it. This is a bridge leading over the water to the main square surrounded by the three main halls. Master Liu is waiting there, in his Shaolin robes, ready to give Emma some special training in True Way hall. Note that the students even managed to do the black banners with the motif of the Big Dipper on them.

Inside True Way Hall, Emma learns some basic martial arts moves, and destroys a dummy. She then walks to the stairs behind the hall, and proceeds up to the Golden Temple, which the students have recreated on the top.
This game won people’s choice, so congratulations to the Dark Heavens Explored team! (Prizes were provided by the Australian Computer Society, who helped develop the Level Up program at Supanova).

Celestial Banishment: Journey of the Jade Dragon

Itta did a poster for this game, and look how it turned out! (He gave me a printed on to put on my stand at Oz Comic-Con as well).

The students based their design of Jade on Queenie’s design from ‘Small Shen’ – and Queenie was delighted to see it.

This game is a sidescroller with lovely lush colours. Jade has to travel to the Celestial Palace, to try to steal the scroll that banishes her from the heavens…

She has to fight random guards, and then faces a big boss which is an original design from the students – and they had a bunch of lovely original designs!

The game itself was super popular, and the Nine Dragon Wall was a fun feature. Jade’s health bar is a pearl held in a dragon’s claws, and as she takes damage, the pearl itself is shattered.

This game won Creator’s Choice Award, because myself and my business partner thought this one was terrific.

Detective Cheung – Investigating the Chen Family

This wasn’t my idea, but I’m so glad the students thought of it. This is a game in the style of Ace Attorney (OBJECTION!) where Detective Cheung is convinced that Emma murdered John and wants to take his fortune. They completely and accurately recreated the actual building where I placed the Hennessy Road Earthly Wudang Academy – the diamond-shaped cutouts on this building to the left are real.

Cheung here is standing next to a Hong Kong bus stop, and although the designs are mostly roughed out at this stage (they only had one semester!) they did a fabulous job of recreating the streetscape down to rubbish bins and bus stops. And their design of the family itself is flawless.

This team won Highly Commended and I honestly think all three teams were winners.

Melbourne Oz Comic-Con

I don’t usually do the December Melbourne pop-up but this time I have the merch ready (keyrings and stickers as shown at the top of the newsletter) and I’ll be selling them from my stand. I’ve also asked for my table to have power so I can take my laptop along and give you a chance to play the actual games! So if you’re in Melbourne, come and check out the games and the lovely merch that the students designed and produced for me, and that will be available online soon. (We’re thrashing out a licensing agreement and that’s a LOT of paperwork.)

So see you in December, and if you’re in the other states I’ll have plenty of merch for you next year!