I'll be a day late, and a buck short

Story of my life (and if you recognize those lyrics, then congratulations).

So I'm a day late on this week's Design-A-Week, but it's still here. It's also a bit short today too (only one page long), but it's built on the idea of stress. Everyone experiences stress, and heaven knows we like to bring that stress out in players through our games. If that wasn't true, games like Super Meat Boy and Dark Souls would never exist.

 Design a Week #4: Stress

I'm aiming to be themed for next week's Design-A-Week, with something to do with Halloween and building a quick little game to play.

- Rob

3 Ms in a row

First, Medicine. Next, Memories, and now we move on to Melee Quick Time Events. The core concept behind this idea was how could we get players more involved in quick time events, and make them really feel like they influenced the actions involved? Additionally, how could such a system tie in to the already existing systems within the game?

Design a Week #3: Melee QTE

Secondly, slight change to the rights on these designs. Instead of being public domain, I've moved them to a more appropriate coverage plan, which is attribution share alike. What this means is:

• You are free to copy, distribute, and transmit the work
• You are free to adapt the work to whatever you are doing
• You are also free to make commercial use of the work as well
• However, You must also attribute the work in the manner specified by myself
• If you do alter the work, you may distribute the work only under the same or similar license.

/end legal stuff. The idea here is someday, in the future, if I wanted to pull these together into some sort of compendium or tome for my own use, I'd still have some grounds for doing so. Additionally, with the attribution to myself, or to Bull City Creative in this sense, I can see us being rather flexible.

Anyway, with Lee poking his head into this blog now, hopefully updates will occur more often than the once a week I've been bringing. New fatherhood can definitely be a hectic time, as so much I've heard. I hear that in the first few months of a child's life, they are still trying to determine their form, and are constantly shape-shifting into objects within their vision. You must always check for duplicates of items in every room, lest you confuse your infant for a second couch.

- Rob

Well, look what the cat dragged in...

As the other half of Bull City Creative, I figure it's about time I make myself known. I have a newborn at home and a full-time jobby-job so I've been a bit of a non-entity over the last month. I've been busy working at perfecting the diaper change/dodging getting peed on combo. It's a work in progress.

At little about me: My name is Lee Williamson, I'm a North Carolina native who has lived in Vancouver BC, Portland Oregon in addition to a few different cities here in NC. I've moved back to NC back in 04 and I'm currently residing in Durham with my lovely/awesome/patient wife and lovely/awesome/not so patient/newborn son. I have worked in the computer games industry for 10 years as a character animator, marketing artist and more recently a prop/environment artist. I'm currently employed as such by a Morrisville based computer games company developing titles for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii, 3DS and a few other "next gen" consoles.

I'm pretty new to blogging so the next few months will be my sussing out of how to most effectively use this outlet. At this point in time I think I'll stick to "hey check out this neat website/artist/software/robot/etc."


I'm looking forward to getting this outfit off the ground. I'm fortunate to be partnered up with a very talented and driven Rob Newns and am excited to see our project(s) come to fruition. I am confident good things will become of Bull City Creative.

And another week comes around.

Another week, another design. This time around the concept is memories, and how to build a game mechanic behind the recording of them.

Design a Week #2: Memories

I've been working on what the next few weeks may hold for this, and I have some ideas in mind. One thought is the whole process of gamification. I wouldn't say I'm an advocate for the gamification of everything in life, but there's an interest there. There's definitely parts of life that could be improved by adding even something as simple as a points system, that's for damn sure.

Next week won't be any design on gamification, but they'll be coming. Up on the block for this next week's design will be an idea I've been kicking about for quick time events, and trying to get the player to feel more invested in what the character is doing during it. I doubt I'll figure out the solution to QTEs in a single week, but I'd like to try my hand at them.

- Rob

Bringing you designs!

So here we are, a week later with a design to show for it. The idea behind this design was specifically medicine, and its a high level for a game between medical students and professionals. I wanted to find a way for professionals to get in touch med students from across, all the while providing a fun atmosphere for the students.

Design a Week #1: Medicine

Now, I will be honest. This is one of my earlier weekly designs. I do have a backlog to put up, so you'll be seeing those come out in the next few weeks. Mind you, that hasn't stopped me from writing one a week, as I have to keep the backlog up.

Additionally, as far as copyright goes, these are all published at Scribd under public domain. I'm pretty golden with these ideas being used and being taken out of my control; if you're thinking of doing so, just give me a heads up. I'm really more interested in keeping my skills in design sharp, but I'd love to hear from anyone who wants to run with these postings.

Stay tuned for next week!

- Rob