NHSGA final project

[WarHampster]

I got back from the game development course around a week ago... just put some videos of my final project on YouTube. From the video's description:

My two-week final project at Carnegie Mellon's National High School Game Academy involved creating a third-person tank game controlled by a Wii-mote, displayed on a surround-screen output device, and utilizing the Panda 3D engine. A member of a team consisting of five programmers and two artists, I helped develop a game in which the player must navigate a partially procedurally generated level, exterminating mutated plants and harvesting minerals to acquire ammunition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPtu5xfpsAw

Sorry for the crappy cell-phone video quality

Overall the course was worthwhile. The lectures were a bit conservative (in terms of design philosophy) and business oriented, but what the hell... I met some great people and made some interesting games.

Edit - more pictures from the demonstration:

[Gnome]

Lucky. All we learned in the one I went to (awhile ago) was how to buy an expensive template and use a commercial editor to make a very generic game.

:-|

[WarHampster]

What program did you go to?

The NHSGA wasn't perfect by any strech of the imagination... we spent half our time modding Neverwinter Nights 2 (the worst game ever made. trust me, don't touch it) and completing various useless asignments. We didn't have "real" programming classes either, the teachers basically just told us exactly how to do the homework. I made a point of sleeping through programming lectures so I could figure things out for myself

For the final project we were given a design doc and had to put the game together with little guidance, which was a pretty awesome experience.

[Silverwind]

I got back from the game development course around a week ago... just put some videos of my final project on YouTube.

Wow, the game looks really cool! I especially love the novelty of having your side view projected onto another screen. Is Panda an engine you'd like to work with for future games?

The NHSGA wasn't perfect by any strech of the imagination... we spent half our time modding Neverwinter Nights 2 (the worst game ever made. trust me, don't touch it) and completing various useless asignments. We didn't have "real" programming classes either, the teachers basically just told us exactly how to do the homework. I made a point of sleeping through programming lectures so I could figure things out for myself

lol! That's like when I took a course on Web Design for Business and it turned out to be a workshop on Dreamweaver.

I completed the course with doubled enthusiasm though, as I realized I knew more about web design than the tutor!

[WarHampster]

Wow, the game looks really cool! I especially love the novelty of having your side view projected onto another screen.

Thanks! The video didn't capture this very well, but the game was actually projected on three screens. The player would stand on a platform in the center of them.

Is Panda an engine you'd like to work with for future games?

I'm not a skilled enough modeler to work with a 3d engine on a solo project. Panda is set up pretty well (with some annoying differences from OpenGL to make things confusing) so I would definitely use it in another team project.