Finished Master’s thesis

My thesis is about computer games, more specifically to which degree a quest game with a linear story can support meaningful choices for players, using the Xbox 360-game Fable 2 as an example and subject for analysis. (One thing’s for sure, I will never play Fable 2 ever again!) It was quite a new experience writing a long theoretical analysis when I both am more practical and have studied in a much more practical way. I feel that most of the thesis’ work was done in the last few weeks, and that I could’ve done more. But I bet everybody who has written a thesis most likely feel the same way. I was lucky to have kind people to support me, proof read and in general calm my nerves. Especially Sindre has been remarkably patient with me and endured my stressful mood.

When the thesis’ hand-in day finally had passed, I was suddenly free to do (almost) anything I wanted. I spent some weeks catching up on sleep and life. I could finally dig up my dear Wacom tablet, which has been missing me so much that it whimpers for my attention hoping I’d surrender and scratch it behind its ear with the pen. It was a great feeling to finally have time to draw and design web sites again! I redesigned my (so far) modest and limited portfolio, AcornArtwork.com, and hope to expand it and improve my drawing skills. I also plan to teach myself more in web design, especially JavaScript, Ajax and perhaps .NET in order to get more meat on my bones when applying for a job.

I’m now in the process of looking for and applying for a job. A very exciting and unknown road lies ahead!

Pong, gamemaking at the University of Oslo

This semester, to my joy, Ping (Program, Information- and Networks-technological Group), a student union at the faculty of Informatics at the University of Oslo decided they wanted to gather students to create computer games. Cleverly, they named this group Pong. (It’s clever because Ping Pong is recognized as the very first (successfull) computer game ever created).

Some of Pong’s members.
Can you find me?

We gather once in the week at Ping’s premises, are randomly split into groups and have three weeks to come up with a game concept and create a computer game out of it. After three weeks, we are randomly split into new groups for another game. The games are programmed using the library Allegro in the programming language C. Most of us are informatics students, with expertise in different areas; programming, artmaking and sound engineering. I signed up for artmaking.

Obviously our games are very simple, because all of us are full-time students, and we only have three weeks per game. The program page at Pong’s website is somewhat updated with .exe’s of our finished games. We even have a forum, but it’s not very active (as only a few of us have registered ourselves there).

Game #1: Rima Training Program (download game)

Screenshot from
“Rima Training Program”

The idea is based on bottle/can sorting machines. You control a ninja with the mouse and the customer on the left are inserting cans and bottles which comes out on the conveyor in front of you. Click (ninja punch) on the bottles at the right time so they fall into the corresponding boxes (green, red, blue). As you advance in the game, the conveyor belt will increase in speed. If you successfully sort bottles correctly, the bar below starts to fill up and you will get a power move (removes all bottles at the belt). If you loose or miss too many bottles, you lose a life point. When there are no more lives left, the customer gets furious, start hitting the machine and it’s game over. In this game I made most of the artwork except the customer, the bottles and life points.

Game #2: Ninja Juggler: Castle Defense

Screenshot from
“Ninja Juggler: Castle Defense”

Control the ninja juggler with the left and right arrow keys, and press Space to throw bombs. Try to hit all the witches, dragons and vampires that passes your castle. The ducks in the pond below you are your lives, and if you hit an enemy more than once, you get an extra bonus. All artwork were made by me.

Game #3:

.. Coming ..