Redoing my game design document….or something like it.

So yesterday I had to go to school with two other classmates to meet our Game Design teacher. Aside from one, me and my other classmate have to apparently redo our Game Design document. Well sort of. What I have to do at least is some additional artwork, additional information and rewording of the document. The rewording and the additional information shoudn’t be a problem, but extra artwork will require some extra attention. We do get 3 weeks to finish it so there is more than enough time.
Besides that, I’m also working on redesigning this blog. Hopefully I’ll get it done soon.

The new year is around the corner / Blog Reboot

For next year I want to start of at full swing. I have a lot of plans for my blog, starting wit a revamp of the look of it here. I’m busy making my own design for this place and it will be up next year. I’ll also have a bi-daily feature going up. I can’t say what it is yet, but it will be interesting. But before that happens, I will have my top 10 Games of 2008 and what I look forward to in 2009.

Animation Director 101

So I have been appointed as the Animation Director of my animation class. I have to admit, I was surprised but also was well aware why the teacher chose me. During our first class, he asked everyone what they wanted to do after school. I answered that I wanted be a concept artist/animator and eventually direct my own games. And thus, he laid this challenge before me. It’s going to be interesting. My first task is choosing a character that one of my classmates made and making a model sheet of it. The first draft is done and tomorrow during drawing class I will take a poll from the team and apply the necessary changes, if any.

I’m pretty psyched about this assignment. Being able to pull this off will bring me one step closer to my goals.

Rhythm Tengoku Gold impresses in the weirdest place.

This has to be one of the most random things that happen to me in quite a while.

I was on the bus home from work. It was pretty crowded and loud so I decided to play Rhythm Tengoku Gold on my DS with my headset on. Around three quarters through the bus ride, and halfway through the 6th remix, the person behind me taps on my back. So I pause the game to turn around and see who needed my attention at such a crucial moment in the remix. It was a guy and his girlfriend and he asked what game I was playing. I was quite surprised by this and responded that it was Rhythm Tengoku Gold and that it was a Japanese import however a localized version is most likely to appear near the end of the year and that it would be called Rhythm Heaven. Apparently the have been watching me for a while playing the game and they though it looked like a ton of fun to which I responded that it was indeed a ton of fun. I also explained the basic gist of what the game is and that it was the sequel to a Japan only game from 2 or 3 years ago(it’s actually 2 after checking it).

The couple really were impressed by Rhythm Tengoku Gold, despite the fact that they only saw me play with my headset on. The said they were going to keep an eye out for Rhythm Heaven when it releases. After that I wondered ‘What if I was playing Guitar Hero: On Tour instead?’. Freaky.

The lesson learned today, Rhythm Tengoku Gold can get instant fans, just by seeing someone playing it. I will be playing this game more in public to see if I can replicate similar results.

Who and what is Max about

I am a enthusiastic Dutch gamer that recently stared following a Bachelor of Arts in Interactive Animation course in Amsterdam. I have been gaming for 15 years and 14 of those, I have been a core gamer. RPGs, more specifically JRPGs, is my genre of choice. However for the past 4 years or so I have been dabbling in other genres more like rhythm games and slightly casual games. I am a bit of a Nintendo fanboy, but I respect what the other companies are doing. I own both a Wii and a 360. I was planning on buying a PS3 down the line, but with the recent announcement of FF XIII coming to the 360 I have no reason to own one at the moment.

The game that made me a core gamer was Secret of Mana on the SNES, which is to this day my all time favorite game. After I finished the game for the first time with my cousin, I turned to him and said ‘I want to make awesome games like this when I grow up! I want to work at SquareSoft and make RPG’s with them!’. Of course I was 8 when I said this, but the passion to get in to the development industry has remained to this day.

It’s been a long winding road to this point in time. I am going to use this blog to put up some of my artwork and post interesting game news I have come across and game and school related stuff that I have experienced. I hope you all enjoy reading my blog. Suggestions and constructive comments are welcome.

Welcome to my blog

Hello all on the internets. I am Maxemillan, but you can call me Max. This is the first of what I hope will be a lot of post on my blog. I wanted to start posting a while a go but didn’t know how to kick it off exactly. Now I do. First a little bit about myself.