V∆MPSP!RE Wins!
So a few weeks ago Mourou had the privilege of participating in the Develteam Summer Game Jam. It went kind of like the previous 49 hour animaion competitions that we’ve participated in. We were given a theme to work with in order for it to qualify and the theme was “Dual Mode Retro”. This meant that the game had to be either 2D or 2.5D (retro) and had to have two completely separate modes of gameplay (not minigames). Well, we came together and ultimately settled on my idea for a reverse shooter mixed with stealth platformer. The result was rather awesome (with quite a few bugs and things that didn’t make it into the build we submitted). Regardless, our game, V∆MPSP!RE, made it to the top and was voted 1st Place by the Develteam community! We have defeated the competition and taken home a gold (and some Steam games).
This marks Mourou’s first foray into indie game development. Watch the video of me playing it below and see what you think. We all work fulltime jobs while doing this completely in our spare time over the course of two weeks. Enjoy!
Follow the link on YouTube in order to download and play the game for yourself. In the coming months we will be tweaking it in order to release a mobile version to the Windows Phone 8 store. If it does well there, we may even port it over to other platforms as well.
Ultimate Survivor Alaska’s Interactive Maps
Recently, I had the tremendous opportunity at Neo-Pangea to refresh my hands at 3D sculpting and pseudo-realistic illustration. My poison of choice? Mudbox and Photoshop. I sculpted Alaska’s terrain for a new series on the National Geographic Channel – Ultimate Survivor Alaska. There are eleven maps in total and they live on their interactive website located here: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/ultimate-survival-alaska/interactives/interactive-map/
They upload a new map each week when a new episode airs (Sunday night) so stay tuned to see them all!
A Virus Named TOM + PS Vita = Holy Matrimony
A long awaited confirmation for my dreams to come true is here: A Virus Named TOM will be making its way onto the Playstation Vita later this year. I am utterly stoked for this as I own a Vita and can see our game just making perfect sense on the device. The amount of games out for the Vita is still rather slim (allbeit only in its second year of existence), so AVNT will be nothing short of a healthy addition to the device’s roster. In order to celebrate this madness, AVNT will be going on sale at 50% off for the entire 28th week of its run, (Feb 15th – 21st). So, if you haven’t already purchased the game, hop on over to avirusnamedtom.com or boot up your Steam software to grab a copy today.
Kuiper’s Sail – Silver ADDY Award
Great news everyone. My Senior project at Huntington University – Mourou’s first film, Kuiper’s Sail, has just won a Silver ADDY Award for Animation / Special Effects in the Fort Wayne, Indiana chapter of the American Advertising Federation. Super stoked about the award, but I wasn’t the only recipient. It seems Huntington University has brought in quite a bounty of awards this year – over a dozen! Congrats on all the students and their fine work. It’s great to see our little program gaining more and more recognition every year. Click the link below for the full list of awards including their respective films.
List of Huntington University winners: http://foresterfilms.com/addys/
Timelapse Artwork and Animation
Hey everyone. In lieu of posting new artwork, I have decided to post a special treat. I found these long recordings on my hard drive of me drawing various artworks for Livestream, as well as a stream for one of my Pincho sprites. I decided to speed them up crazy fast and fit them into short 3-minute time spans so that you can see my process from start to finish. I particularly enjoy the animation video, as there are not too many out there going from the beginning to end of an animation. Please take a look at that one and maybe peruse some of the illustration ones as well. Crazy fun stuff! Let me know if you like these and I will make it a point to record any future illustrations like I did on these. Enjoy!
(playlist for the 6 timelapse videos should be attached to this video)
もうろう 