What is finished? Nothing posted on this site is ever really finished. In the old days, a story was done when it hit the evening edition – cast in stone, for better or worse. Now that publishing is instant and changeable, there’s always a new development to update you lot with; another mod to add to a list.
Today, the contestants of Make Something Unreal Live are deciding for themselves what finished means. In less than 24 hours’ time, the four student teams will present their six-month genetics-themed prototypes to a panel of industry judges, and one team will be laurelled with a commercial Unreal Engine 4 license. All four teams are bright and ambitious. But how far is it safe for them to push their games before something breaks?
Static Games today fiddled doggedly with a new faux cell-shaded art style for mutant chicken tycoon game Mendel’s Farm. The brave, last minute visual rework is a fine reflection of the game’s deadpan tone, but currently looks a little odd when the isometric camera is scrolled all the way out. While half the team iterated on that, the other half was found fighting to implement new UI screens ahead of tomorrow’s final presentation:
Gaurav Pant was to be seen bouncing jubilantly from the walls of his booth earlier, as Team Summit successfully demoed the long-awaited second level for their primary-age puzzle-platformer, Beings:
The Epigenesis gang showed off a new build of their FPS fall-sport, in which playtesters were already using new physical landmarks to navigate around the abstract pitch. Also spotted in today’s video are the beginnings of a weather system with the ability to change the course of play, if only the team can push out another build in time:
Polymorph developers Kairos Games, meanwhile, were polishing off three things at once – jumping animations for neon-feline protagonist Axis, a timing-based minigame for ability acquisition, and an all-new Challenge mode designed to show off the 3D platformer’s mechanics in isolation. I fear for their fingers:
Jeremy’s still at Gadget Show Live, if you can believe that. Return tomorrow for the meeting of Mendel and Molyneux in the final. And for more of this sort of thing, visit the Make Something Unreal Live tab.