SophiaGeorge.com
  • Home
  • Games
  • Press
  • STRAWBERRY THIEF

Tick Tock Toys Launch!

10/3/2013

 
We launched Tick Tock Toys on 28th February and it got featured on 40 different App Stores across the world!

Picture
I have been lucky enough for various media outlets to pick up on our story too:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21670695
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-21671151
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2013/mar/11/five-indie-games-to-play
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/call-for-more-women-in-the-games-sector.20375677http://scottishgames.net/2013/03/06/games-needs-girls-dare-bafta-winners-call-for-more-females-in-games-business/
http://www.develop-online.net/news/43438/Swallowtail-Industry-stereotypes-could-drive-women-away




Swallowtail Games Limited

6/12/2012

 
I’ve now founded Swallowtail Games Limited and we are working on Tick Tock Toys at Abertay University in Dundee! We started work on 22nd of October and hope to finish the game by the end of January!

Picture
The new team!

Thanks to Dare to be Digital, we already have the main game design finished, but now the task is to turn a student game, into a full commercial product. We aim to have about 120 levels, ( 15 levels for free with IAP) The plan is to launch just before the game BAFTAs.

Below is a video of me and other prototype fund companies talking about the grant and facilities at Abertay University.

BAFTA YGD at Eurogamer Expo

3/10/2012

 
Picture
I recently went to the Eurogamer Expo to take part in the BAFTA Young Game Designer workshops. BAFTA YGD is a competition for 12-16 year olds who have the chance to submit their own game idea, or game prototype to a panel of judges and be in the running to winning a bafta, and have their game made.

These workshop hope to encourage young people to considering entering the competition by teaching about games design, platform, and games engines and having them pitch an idea to a panel of judges.

I had already taken part in a huge BAFTA YGD workshop in July, which took place in Hull. That workshop in particular saw about 300 children taking part. Luckily, the workshops at Eurogamer were slightly calmer! I did a few presentations about what game engines are good for new game developers and then helped various groups of young people with their ideas.

On my downtime, I got to see the expo and play upcoming games such as Devil May Cry, Tokyo Jungle and Wii U games (where I got filmed by Nintendo!)

End of Game Dev Masters!

2/9/2012

 

I just finished my Games Development Masters at Abertay University. It was a challenging course, but I am very glad I took part. I worked on 3 different games, in different teams, and took art and academic modules.  My favourite project was definitely Space Whale, as we had a decent sized team and a fun idea.
Picture
Team Mercurial - creators of Space Whale!

The final semester game I worked on was called Epic Tale of Rock, a rhythm game for the new PS Vita. It is a joint project between Abertay and Sony Studios, based on an animation from one of their employees. Getting the game onto the Vita was hard, and one of my character had to get cut at the last minute, which was quite disappointing. 

At the end of ETOR’s development, we had to show the finished demo at Dare Protoplay at Caird Hall. It was strange being back at Protoplay and seeing all the Dare to be Digital 2012 contestants. My favourite Dare game was Pixel Story by Loan Wolf Games. I also showed off a new version of Tick Tock Toys at the Dare Indie fest, so I spent all three days on two different stalls.  

I also recently applied to Abertay’s Prototype Fund, with members of Team Swallowtail and a new programmer who I worked with on Space Whale. We have applied with our Dare to be Digital game Tick Tock Toys, which won the BAFTA Ones to Watch Award a few months ago.  If all goes smoothly, I should be starting up Swallowtail Games as a studio and continue working on Tick Tock Toys.

Game BAFTAs

20/5/2012

 
Picture

On 16th March me and my team - Swallowtail Games managed to win a BAFTA for our game Tick Tock Toys. Our game was up against "Joust" and "Dreamweaver," which are both fantastic games.

The night of the BAFTAs was a great experience. We were treated to a reception with champagne, followed by a three course meal and an after party. We were very fortunate to meet lots of game developers and contacts, and the event raised interest in our game.


Picture
Picture

ProtoPitch!

20/5/2012

 
Picture


On the 15th of March, I was invited with my Dare to be Digital team member Kristian Francis to do a pitch of our game Tick Tock Toys at the BAFTA office in London. This event was to promote the Abertay Prototype Fund – An organisation that provides grants of up to £25,000 for small companies and start-ups that are developing their own games.

We pitches our game to a panel of judges – who included Paul Durrant -the Business Development at the University of Abertay Dundee, as well as games industry veterans. Our audience was about 100 people who ranged from students, developers, journalists and more. We pitched our game alongside the two other “Ones to Watch” Award competitors – Evolved Ape and Digital Knights, who both delivered fantastic presentations.  

After the event was a networking session. This was a good opportunity to let the audience play our game on the iPad and gets some first-hand impressions. We also got some great advice from developers about where to go next with our idea. 

MProf Semester 2 

20/5/2012

 

Our tutors picked SpaceWhale for us to create in UDK this semester. My role is to make the main character (the Space Whale) which includes design work, modelling, rigging, animation and texturing.

I am also in charge of making the background for the level. I will do this by firstly creating a space background. Then, I will make lots of layers of stars and nebula, and layer them in UDK. I will then make a few galaxies for the environment. 

UPDATE: Here are screenshot from the game, as well as images of my work.
Picture
Picture
Picture

Lecture: Pablo Hoyos

12/4/2012

 
Picture


On March 30th, we had a lecture and workshop by Pablo Hoyos - Senior Character Artist at Rocksteady Studios Ltd.

The visit started with a hour long talk about how Pablo went through education to jobs in th games industry. Pablo is a former Abertay student, so it was very interesting to see his journey after graduating. Although Pablo initially studied programming, he is now an expert at art and 3D modelling. This was followed by a Q&A session.

The final part of his visit consisted of a workshop, where Pablo displayed a live demonstration of his work process for high poly characters. Although Pablo used 3D Studio Max and ZBrush (whereas I am used to using Maya and Mudbox), I found the workshop very helpful, and I learned a lot about creating high poly assets. 

Sony Liverpool

2/12/2011

 
Picture
On the 30th November 2011, Swallowtail Games (Kristian Francis, Rosie Ball, Cam Goold, Mark Bamford) and I were lucky to be able to visit Sony Studios in Liverpool. We were invited to show members of the team our Dare to be Digital iPad game ‘Tick Tock Toys,’ with the other two winning Dare teams Evolved Ape (Dreamweaver for PC) and Digital Knights (Joust for Xbox Kinect).

 After doing a brief presentation of our game, we gave a few members of the team iPads to play, so that we could ask for some honest feedback and tips. We were then given a tour of the studio and got to see upcoming games and artwork.

Although the day was short, it was an amazing opportunity to meet successful games industry employees and see how a professional studio functions.



Games Marketplace

21/11/2011

 
Picture
Another one of my modules at the University of Abertay is the ‘Games Marketplace’ module. In these series of lectures, we learnt about various facts about the games industry, as well as current trends. At the end of this module, we had to write an essay based exam, based on the topics we studied. One of the questions was about how quickly improving computer technology can affect games genres.

For example, we were required to be very knowledgeable about different business models, including how games are traditionally sold, as well as newer models like subscription models and free-to-play.

<<Previous
Forward>>

    Hello!

    SOCIAL MEDIA
    twitter
    instagram
    linkedin

    OTHER
    wikipedia
    ​cv

      Contact Me

    Submit
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.