Appetite for Construction: Designing Video Games

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Its been a long time since I have posted anything on my blog. Family, Facebook and Pinterest and that work thing have all been competing for my time. Ive found that Pinterest has really taken over for what my blog had traditionally been. Now when I find interesting images on a site I pin them to one of my boards rather than taking the time to make a blog post. Perhaps the blog will be a place where I can do some more creative writing?? Time will tell! I can finally talk about what I am working on for the first time since last year. CA has been working with Microsoft on the multiplayer portion of Halo 4. Im really honored to be working on the franchise that inspired me to get started in the games industry. When I played, Halo:Combat Evolved on the Xbox console I distinctly remembering 2 things. The first was that I loved playing an FPS on a console. The second was the thought that If I could be involved in working on something so creative I would be really happy. Well that time has finally come and Im really looking forward to this fall when the game hits the stores!! Its 11/6/12. One day after my sons birthday! Im stoked!!

Monday, January 9, 2012

Happy New Year! My obsession with all things WW1 has continued into 2012. Gruesome, tragic, and ideologically flawed, the Great War captures my imagination like few conflicts do. I think it is in large part due to my fathers collection of history books that I read about WW1 at a really young age. This led to a morbid fascination of the ghastly nature of trench warfare. I still recall this picture vividly, it was my first introduction to human skeletal anatomy.

In the history book I had, the version of the photo was cropped to just show the soldier's remains. I would stare at the skeletons face and try to imagine what the man looked like in life. Did he know he was going to die? Was he wearing a helmet? I wondered if his arm was raised in defense or was it a coincidence that it came to rest covering his throat. I noted the awkward position of his left leg. I wanted to know his story... To this day I am still wondering. Here are some links to some excellent documentaries on specific battles that I have found to be interesting viewing while I am working.
Line of Fire Cambrai 1917
The Somme - From Defeat to Victory
Battle of the Somme - The True Story
A young Indiana Jones imagining of a gas/ flamethrower attack..
Big budget Passchendaele in 11 parts.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Some really cool articles on bizarre and monstrous tanks. I think it was the many trips that I took as a kid to the armor museum at Aberdeen proving ground that greatly influenced me. This is a 2 part article on Dark Roast Blend, an interesting site that has lots of oddities. The second is a British blog Pro Vehicles that features cool articles on unusual vehicles from around the globe.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Silent UK

I found this blog after reading an article about the airplane grave yard that they visited in California. An impressive 200+ planes are there for parts. Too bad I didnt know about it when I was out in Cali. I would have paid it a visit! One of these days I will get around to posting the pictures I took of an demolished Lockheed Martin manufacturing facility near the Burbank Airport. They were taken with infrared film, back in the 90's so I had to scan in the negatives. This was a laborious process!

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Atlas Obscura

I read an article on Atlas Obscura about a creepy island that was haunted by the spirit of a young girl. One of the islands residents was convinced that the only way to ward off the spirit was to hang dolls in the trees near the spot where she passed. They still hang in the trees, 10 years after his death by drowning. An appropriate story for October...

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Soviet Arcade Machines!

The Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines
I dont know why I never thought about this before. Maybe as a Cold War kid I thought that Russians didnt have any free time. Apparently they had some and they appeared to enjoy arcades much like we did. Here is a site dedicated to 70's and 80's era Soviet Arcade machines. They are awesome to me in their own way. Im wondering if they had pinball machines. Surely they must have!!

Thursday, September 29, 2011

New Cool Reference Links

Im always on the lookout for interesting sites to link to for my reference section. Today Im adding a link to Ashley Woods the illustrator known for his Metal Gear Solid concepts among other things. Ive always been a fan of his World War Robot series. The second link is one from Peter Essick a noted nature photographer

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Amy Heiden Photography

I came across Amy's site while looking at interesting pictures of decaying buildings. She had some really nice pieces that I found wonderful to look at. I particularly enjoyed her Cold War era shots because I spent so much time researching similar sites for the Black Ops maps Grid and Crisis. Im going to add her site to my references section so that I can check back on it periodically!

Saturday, September 17, 2011

PAX 2011

In the better late than never category, here are some pictures from PAX 2011. I had never been to this show before, and I didnt know what to expect. It was fantastic! So much more fun than E3. Crimson Alliance showed really well and we had a lot of fun putting it in the hands of the many gaming enthusiasts we met. Here are some pics from the show of various folks playing the game!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Damnation preview for the Halo Anniversary release!

Here is a video of the work of our very talented art team!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Soviet Military Map meets Half Life 2

It never ceases to amaze me what lengths fans will go to... A fan of Half Life 2 created a Soviet Military style map of the fictional City 17. I love the aesthetic of the Soviet stuff and I really enjoyed Half Life 2 so the combination is perfect for me. Of course I cant read any of the labels, but Cyrillic is just cool looking so I dont mind...

Link goes to the original article on Kotaku!

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Game Trailers gameplay footage from Crimson Alliance

We all worked really hard to get the dramatic lighting effects at the end of this one :) from Game Trailers....

Tags: GameTrailers.com, Crimson Alliance - SDCC 11: Kill Party Gameplay HD, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Latest Crimson Alliance Trailer....

Here's the latest trailer for Crimson Alliance. I worked on this game for Xbox live arcade for the better part of last year. Its going to be available in September!

Tags: GameTrailers.com, Crimson Alliance - SDCC 11: Exclusive Gnox Trailer, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Friday, July 15, 2011

Gruesome Cover Art

I was doing a similar looking head for the BlackOps Commie Zombies level that I was working on. The joke was going to be that there would be a number of Cosmonaut helmets on a table and one would still have a head in it! Unfortunately we ran out of time and I didnt get to finish....with this shot as reference I might have to go back and knock it out!!! The picture comes from a really cool blog called Monster Brains!!