It looks both fun and useful, so please consider backing this project. It's his first, and you know how Venger feels about popping cherries... only by the full moon and when I feel the loathsomeness of His tentacles wrapped around my glimmering emerald soul...
And who doesn't want to bludgeon monsters with a dwarven battle mug? Huzzah!
Only $5 for the PDF and $12 for both PDF and print.
VS
p.s. Would y'all like to see Purple Prizm in there? Let's see if we can make that happen. ;)
"and on the right the veteran Rossius, Lord of Belmontia stood surrounded by his bold horsemen"
Today's game with the Greenwood Wargamers was a live test of Jeff's Huzzah game: Gaugamela! using the Epic C&C Ancients system.
It was good to see some familiar faces on the table. Well good to see the ones around it too but Jeff kindly gave a home to what was left of my 25mm Persian and Greek armies. Now refurbished and based up for C&C they have joined with his forces and are marching off to war again, a sight to gladden the heart.
The game was enjoyable and at one point late in the day we had victory within our grasp with just a little luck but the luck didn't come, Alexander came instead!
If you're going to be at Huzzah! and like Ancients, check Jeff's game out!
SPOILER ALERT:Plot details for Super Dimension Fortress Macross are discussed.
Super Dimension Fortress Macross, released in America as Robotech, is composed of three basic elements: mechs, a love triangle, and pop music. The standard mechs, the Valkyries, are transforming planes, while their strongest mech, the Macross is the alien fortress wherein they reside. The pilot at the center of this love triangle is Hikaru Ichijo, whose affections fluctuate from the stern lieutenant Misa Hayase to the bubbly pop star Lynn Minmay. Minmay's songs, while providing hope and joy for those aboard, are also the key to intergalactic peace.
The story is set ten years after an alien ship is left stranded on Earth, and has now been repurposed for human use as the "Macross." The aliens, giants known as the Zentradi, have waged war with the humans to get their ship back. The Macross escapes with thousands of refugees from the war using a "Space Fold" that teleports them near the orbit of Pluto. Now the crew of the Macross must make an arduous odyssey back to Earth, fighting off the relentless Zentradi along the way.
Many of the standard mechs aren't as stylish as those in, say, Gundam or Evangelion, but the VF-1 Valkyrie jets are known for their smooth transformations into massive battle suits. Indeed, a great deal of the animation budget is spent on their transformations and epic space battles. While done without the aid of computers, the flashy, dizzying battles still hold up as impressive. The aesthetics of Top Gun and Star Wars are written all over this. The greatest mech of them all, however, is the Macross, whose transformation is so disruptive that it causes havok for those living aboard.
The romance in Macross can rise to the level of soap opera, especially with the indecisive back and forth between Hikaru, Minmay, and Hayase, who come in and out of states of love, hate, and uncertainty. It can be frustrating, at times, to watch these three trip over their feelings, and at others, humorous to the point of parody. It's best not to take the romance too seriously, but it remains the better of the others in the show. Claudia and Roy have a touching and tragic love that ends on a note of pineapple salad, but it remains a side story. Max and Milia's deadly rivalry is exciting, but their transition to a married couple feels very rushed. In the central love story, things are allowed to take their time. What makes this love triangle one of the more effective, is that you genuinely don't know who Hikaru will pick, as he has enough of a relationship with both to choose either. Minmay is the cute first crush who showers Hikaru with affection and warmth, a pleasant escape from military life. Yet Minmay's ascendance as a pop star keeps her farther and farther away from him. Her childish antics also have less emotional pull with his growing life as a soldier. Lieutenant Hayase is rather strict and cold with him at first. Theirs is a love that grows with mutual understanding. Hayase grows to better understand the visceral terrors exacted on those she commands in battle, while Hikaru grows more accepting of the military code that his superior follows. His eventual selection of Hayase represents his maturity away from the youthful pleasures childhood, to the meaningful fruit produced by a life of labor.
Macross is very much a musical. To distinguish itself from the other mech show, Mobile Suit Gundam, and other spaceship odyssey show, Space Battleship Yamato, it needed a new stand-out element. That element was J-Pop, to be sung by newcomer Mari Iijima as Lynn Minmay. Her music, initially, serves as a comfort for the many refugees lost in space. They are mainly bubblegum pop songs, "My Boyfriend Is A Pilot", "Zero-G Love", and the theme for her film "Xiao Pai Long." We soon learn, however, that this music has an adverse effect on the Zentradi, who were a race created only to wage war. Music or displays of romantic affection shock and weaken them. The apex of this achievement occurs when Minmay's songs are broadcast to all the pilots and Zentradi during an all-out space battle in episode twenty-seven. This battle is so exciting because you get a sense that humanity is on its last legs, with all of Earth's population annihilated, and the Zentradi forces greatly outnumbering the humans. It's all so terrible that even Hikaru's plane is taken down. Minmay's music is their only advantage, as she sings through her every song as ships explode around her. The last is a "Bolero" infused march of "Love Drifts Away", during which the Macross lunges its way into the interiors of the main Zentradi ship, firing all of their missiles and winning the war. At the same time, Hikaru rescues Hayase, the last woman on Earth, as they realize their love for each other and cruise away to see the Macross landing on the horizon. It really is a perfect ending, and much of what occurs afterwards is unnecessary filler that can be skipped.
Macross got its first film in Macross: Do You Remember Love? It is a compilation film that summarizes the best highlights of the show. The Adolescence of Utena remains the gold standard for this, as it remixed all of the strongest elements of the show into a standalone plot, while surpassing its source material in beatific artistry. While it is preferable to have seen Revolutionary Girl Utena before watching Adolescence, the movie stands enough on its own to make that unnecessary. The same can't be said for Do You Remember Love? This is regrettable because the animation in the film is a full realization of character designs that were limited by a television budget. It also adds the new song, "Do You Remember Love?" which is played during the spectacular final battle, and has become a flagship anthem of the series. All of the mechs are purely handrawn, and the film is stuffed with so many, that it is probably the most ambitious mecha film on that scale alone. The drawbacks are that the movie tries to stuff in too much with character development terribly stunted or skipped, though I'll give it points for the juggle. In any case, Do You Remember Love? is an aesthetic firework, a rare gem of animation never to be seen of in the mecha genre again
It's a shame that so many subsequent entries in the Macross series have yet to get a Western release. Macross 7, Macross Zero, Macross Frontier, and Macross Delta will remain within Japanese borders, due to arcane copyright issues between Harmony Gold and Studio Nue. The best of these entries remains the OVA Macross Plus, which thankfully has a Western release. It deals with a love triangle of three childhood friends, now split apart. Two of them pilots and one a manager for Sharon Apple, a pop star A.I., and one of the first virtual idols in fiction. Plus continues the Macross tradition of strong characterization and glamorous battle animations. The animation, it must be said, did for anime what The Prince of Egypt did for Western cartoons, in its innovative mixing of computer animation with traditional, now standard in anime today. Plus is also scored by Cowboy Bebop composer Yoko Kanno, whose grand reputation fits right in with this musical series. Macross 7 takes place not long after the original, with Max and Milia as side characters, and their daughter taking a major role. The main character, though, is the guitarist Basara, who wants to utilize rock music to end conflicts. While Macross 7 isn't as critically well-recieved, the soundtrack remains highly popular, and is worth a listen. Macross Zero is prequel to the original series that explains the origin of the transforming planes, while bringing back Roy as a supporting character. Macross Frontier is a tribute to all the prior Macross shows, with Ranka singing "My Boyfriend Is A Pilot" to Alto practicing the hand motions of Dyson from Plus. Frontier is the third best Macross show, with Kanno returning to score, and rivalry between the two very cute singers, Sheryl Nome and Ranka Lee. The only downside is that all the mechs are computer animated, which may look great in Rebuild of Evangelion, but not so much here. Macross Delta is the latest installment, and perhaps the most divisive, as it utilizes the modern moe idol aesthetic seen in Love Live and Idolmaster, while introducing magic. It may have its fans, but it's a far cry from the science-fiction space opera that started it all.
The influence of Macross on anime is also quite visible. We can assume that Hideaki Anno was a passionate fan. Captain Nemo from Nadia: Secret Of Blue Water has a striking resemblance to Captain Global. Shinji's dream in Neon Genesis Evangelion, where previous scenes in the anime are repurposed to explore his psyche, echoes a similar nightmare the Hikaru suffered after a battle left him in a coma. Macross Frontier seemed to acknowledge Evangelion, by making Alto's pilot suit look similar to Shinji's blue plugsuit. Music also plays a strong role in Evangelion's copycat. Rahxephon. They even brought Yoko Kanno for the soundtrack, and while Macross had a love triangle, Rahxephon had what felt like a love pentagon. Macross has also been an influence on the future funk genre of internet pop, that samples Japanese pop songs of the 80's and 90's and remixes them with modern funk. The artist Macross 82-99 takes his name from the series, naming one of his songs after Lynn Minmay, Night Tempo has remixed the Macross song "Silver Moon, Red Moon" and the YouTube channel "Artzie Music" routinely uses Macross clips in their future funk music videos.
Macross was created by Takamori Shoji, who is also responsible for isekai-mecha fusion, The Vision Of Escaflowne and the original designs for many of the Transformers, such as Optimus Prime. Kawamori was partially inspired into pursuing mechanical design by the Apollo 11 mission, but "When he saw the moon landing on television as a child, he was frustrated. he wanted to go to the moon" (Anime Jump). From that dream of spaceflight came another dream true to the spirit of what Apollo represented: the elevation of our species for a more common good. While the message that love and music will save the world comes off as hokey, it speaks to a deeper truth, that these things are part of what make life so enriching, and the world worth saving. It speaks to common humanity that may not end war, but can shrink our fears. I think now on the words of Dr. Yury Pelyoshonok, who having grown up in the Soviet Union, remarked on the impact of hearing the Beatles in that oppressive regime, "The kids lost their interest in all Soviet unshakable dogmas and ideals, and stopped thinking of an English-speaking person as an enemy" (BBC News).
Cut-win: Cut-win is a new URL shortener website.It is paying at the time and you can trust it.You just have to sign up for an account and then you can shorten your URL and put that URL anywhere.You can paste it into your site, blog or even social media networking sites.It pays high CPM rate. You can earn $10 for 1000 views.You can earn 22% commission through the referral system.The most important thing is that you can withdraw your amount when it reaches $1.
The payout for 1000 views-$10
Minimum payout-$1
Referral commission-22%
Payment methods-PayPal, Payza, Bitcoin, Skrill, Western Union and Moneygram etc.
Payment time-daily
Short.pe: Short.pe is one of the most trusted sites from our top 30 highest paying URL shorteners.It pays on time.intrusting thing is that same visitor can click on your shorten link multiple times.You can earn by sign up and shorten your long URL.You just have to paste that URL to somewhere. You can paste it into your website, blog, or social media networking sites.They offer $5 for every 1000 views.You can also earn 20% referral commission from this site.Their minimum payout amount is only $1.You can withdraw from Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer.
The payout for 1000 views-$5
Minimum payout-$1
Referral commission-20% for lifetime
Payment methods-Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer
Payment time-on daily basis
CPMlink: CPMlink is one of the most legit URL shortener sites.You can sign up for free.It works like other shortener sites.You just have to shorten your link and paste that link into the internet.When someone will click on your link. You will get some amount of that click.It pays around $5 for every 1000 views.They offer 10% commission as the referral program.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.The payment is then sent to your PayPal, Payza or Skrill account daily after requesting it.
The payout for 1000 views-$5
Minimum payout-$5
Referral commission-10%
Payment methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
Payment time-daily
LINK.TL: LINK.TL is one of the best and highest URL shortener website.It pays up to $16 for every 1000 views.You just have to sign up for free.You can earn by shortening your long URL into short and you can paste that URL into your website, blogs or social media networking sites, like facebook, twitter, and google plus etc. One of the best thing about this site is its referral system.They offer 10% referral commission.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.
Payout for 1000 views-$16
Minimum payout-$5
Referral commission-10%
Payout methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
Payment time-daily basis
Linkrex.net: Linkrex.net is one of the new URL shortener sites.You can trust it.It is paying and is a legit site.It offers high CPM rate.You can earn money by sing up to linkrex and shorten your URL link and paste it anywhere.You can paste it in your website or blog.You can paste it into social media networking sites like facebook, twitter or google plus etc. You will be paid whenever anyone will click on that shorten a link.You can earn more than $15 for 1000 views.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.Another way of earning from this site is to refer other people.You can earn 25% as a referral commission.
The payout for 1000 views-$14
Minimum payout-$5
Referral commission-25%
Payment Options-Paypal,Bitcoin,Skrill and Paytm,etc
Payment time-daily
Adf.ly: Adf.ly is the oldest and one of the most trusted URL Shortener Service for making money by shrinking your links. Adf.ly provides you an opportunity to earn up to $5 per 1000 views. However, the earnings depend upon the demographics of users who go on to click the shortened link by Adf.ly. It offers a very comprehensive reporting system for tracking the performance of your each shortened URL. The minimum payout is kept low, and it is $5. It pays on 10th of every month. You can receive your earnings via PayPal, Payza, or AlertPay. Adf.ly also runs a referral program wherein you can earn a flat 20% commission for each referral for a lifetime.
Clk.sh: Clk.sh is a newly launched trusted link shortener network, it is a sister site of shrinkearn.com. I like ClkSh because it accepts multiple views from same visitors. If any one searching for Top and best url shortener service then i recommend this url shortener to our users. Clk.sh accepts advertisers and publishers from all over the world. It offers an opportunity to all its publishers to earn money and advertisers will get their targeted audience for cheapest rate. While writing ClkSh was offering up to $8 per 1000 visits and its minimum cpm rate is $1.4. Like Shrinkearn, Shorte.st url shorteners Clk.sh also offers some best features to all its users, including Good customer support, multiple views counting, decent cpm rates, good referral rate, multiple tools, quick payments etc. ClkSh offers 30% referral commission to its publishers. It uses 6 payment methods to all its users.
Payout for 1000 Views: Upto $8
Minimum Withdrawal: $5
Referral Commission: 30%
Payment Methods: PayPal, Payza, Skrill etc.
Payment Time: Daily
Shrinkearn.com: Shrinkearn.com is one of the best and most trusted sites from our 30 highest paying URL shortener list.It is also one of the old URL shortener sites.You just have to sign up in the shrinkearn.com website. Then you can shorten your URL and can put that URL to your website, blog or any other social networking sites. Whenever any visitor will click your shortener URL link you will get some amount for that click.The payout rates from Shrinkearn.com is very high.You can earn $20 for 1000 views.Visitor has to stay only for 5 seconds on the publisher site and then can click on skip button to go to the requesting site.
The payout for 1000 views- up to $20
Minimum payout-$1
Referral commission-25%
Payment methods-PayPal
Payment date-10th day of every month
BIT-URL: It is a new URL shortener website.Its CPM rate is good.You can sign up for free and shorten your URL and that shortener URL can be paste on your websites, blogs or social media networking sites.bit-url.com pays $8.10 for 1000 views. You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $3.bit-url.com offers 20% commission for your referral link.Payment methods are PayPal, Payza, Payeer, and Flexy etc.
The payout for 1000 views-$8.10
Minimum payout-$3
Referral commission-20%
Payment methods- Paypal, Payza, and Payeer
Payment time-daily
Wi.cr: Wi.cr is also one of the 30 highest paying URL sites.You can earn through shortening links.When someone will click on your link.You will be paid.They offer $7 for 1000 views.Minimum payout is $5. You can earn through its referral program.When someone will open the account through your link you will get 10% commission.Payment option is PayPal.
Payout for 1000 views-$7
Minimum payout-$5
Referral commission-10%
Payout method-Paypal
Payout time-daily
Short.am: Short.am provides a big opportunity for earning money by shortening links. It is a rapidly growing URL Shortening Service. You simply need to sign up and start shrinking links. You can share the shortened links across the web, on your webpage, Twitter, Facebook, and more. Short.am provides detailed statistics and easy-to-use API. It even provides add-ons and plugins so that you can monetize your WordPress site. The minimum payout is $5 before you will be paid. It pays users via PayPal or Payoneer. It has the best market payout rates, offering unparalleled revenue. Short.am also run a referral program wherein you can earn 20% extra commission for life.
Ouo.io: Ouo.io is one of the fastest growing URL Shortener Service. Its pretty domain name is helpful in generating more clicks than other URL Shortener Services, and so you get a good opportunity for earning more money out of your shortened link. Ouo.io comes with several advanced features as well as customization options. With Ouo.io you can earn up to $8 per 1000 views. It also counts multiple views from same IP or person. With Ouo.io is becomes easy to earn money using its URL Shortener Service. The minimum payout is $5. Your earnings are automatically credited to your PayPal or Payoneer account on 1st or 15th of the month.
Payout for every 1000 views-$5
Minimum payout-$5
Referral commission-20%
Payout time-1st and 15th date of the month
Payout options-PayPal and Payza
Linkbucks: Linkbucks is another best and one of the most popular sites for shortening URLs and earning money. It boasts of high Google Page Rank as well as very high Alexa rankings. Linkbucks is paying $0.5 to $7 per 1000 views, and it depends on country to country. The minimum payout is $10, and payment method is PayPal. It also provides the opportunity of referral earnings wherein you can earn 20% commission for a lifetime. Linkbucks runs advertising programs as well.
It's that time of year again, Easter always heralds the start of our annual Naval Campaign and this year we are focusing on early WW1, which is a great excuse to get Project Jutland out of the boxes again and of course add some new ships to the collection.
Thankfully this time rather than doing a load of prep myself prior to the Campaign I am using the book below to guide us through our journey.
The book was a download from Wargames Vault and is highly recommended, it has two levels, the tactical tabletop based element (report below) and a higher level Campaign Event element. I have decided to introduce the world to T'Yarkshire Ferret Newspaper, this esteemed publication will bring you the gossip and tittle tattle of the Campaign Events whilst the more traditional blog format below will bring you the blow by blow game reports. Make sure you have a good look at Ferret for the latest stories.
The Könign Luise (or as close as I have in my collection)
With the game reports I will be reporting what happened in our games, if you purchase the Campaign book you will find that each game has numerous potential paths that are determined by dice rolls or Campaign Events so each time you play the scenarios they have the potential of being different.
Game 1 - Chasing Königin Luise - 5th August 1914 In early August 14 with war imminent Jellicoe and the Grand Fleet put to sea, encouraged by the King with the following message, (they were of course further moved by the message from The King in the North Geoffrey Boycott see the latest edition of T'Ferret) "At this grave moment in our national history I send to you, and through you to the officers and men of the Fleet of which you have assumed command, the assurance of my confidence that under your direction they will revive and renew the old glories of the Royal Navy, and prove once again the sure shield of Britain and her Empire in the hour of trial"
The Könign Luise was a liner that had been hastily converted to a minelayer and she had been out at sea around 30 miles off Harwich laying mines when she was sighted by two RN destroyers who were on patrol HMS Landrail and Laurel and the chase was on. I gave the Könign a couple of deck guns to liven things up.
The game starts at 11.00 am, the two destroyers are heading East 10,000 yards behind the Könign Luise. With a top speed of 30 knots to 16 in the Destroyers favour the boilers were stoked and the game begins. Visibility is 12,000 yards but there are a number of squalls in the area where visibility is as low as 2,000.
HMS Fearless to the rescue
11.15 following a radio message from HMS Landrail the nearest supporting unit, a Active Class Light Cruiser Fearless appears out of the gloom 12,000 yards East of the Könign.
11.23 First shell hit of the war as the front gun from HMS Landrail lands a hit on the deck of Könign.
Strike One to Landrail
11.37 The Germans haven't been asleep though and 5 Torpedo Boats V1,2,3,4 and 6 appear at full speed 12,000 yards West of Könign heading towards the Minelayer.
German reinforcements arrive
11.45 A squall settles over the table reducing visibility to 5,000 yards, initially leaving only the two destroyers and the Könign in sight of each other, shot continue to be traded, the Minelayer is struck a couple of times but without any critical damage. HMS Laurel is unlucky though as one of the shells from Könign finds the base of her funnel reducing her top speed by 4 knots.
12.00 visibility increases to 7,000 yards bringing the German Torpedo Boats into visible range of the British Destroyers.
First blood to the Germans
12.07 The Germans sink the first ship of the game as V1 puts a round into the Magazine of the Destroyer HMS Laurel, without warning the ship explodes sinking rapidly.
12.15 Visibility increases to 9,000 yards.
12.23 further German ships arrive in the shape of the light cruisers Breslau, Regensberg and Rostock 10,000 yards South of the Könign.
British Light Cruisers
At the same time 12,000 yards to the east of Könign two British Light Cruisers in the shape of Lowestoft and Southampton steam into view.
12.30 Meanwhile it's all getting a bit messy in the middle of the table as the close range destroyer action continues around the burning wreck of the Laurel. It's not all going the Germans way as a hit on V1 from HMS Fearless starts a fire on board the German Torpedo Boat.
12.37 in the general Melee in the centre there is a narrow miss as the leading German TB narrowly misses HMS Fearless only for the next in line to strike her.
12.45 The fighting in the middle is getting nasty as the photo below shows, V3 has a none exploding magazine hit whilst V6 stumbles ahead blindly with her Bridge destroyed whilst the Germans pour fire on the slow moving Fearless who is getting underway post collision.
12.52 Torpedoes are in the water and heading towards the slowly accelerating Fearless, she is a small ship combing the tracks so all the odds are in her favour.
13.00 in what turned out to be the final turn as Visiblity drastically reduced again due to a Squal and the Germans took their first loss, the V3 was unable to extinguish an on board fire which raged out of control.
But at the same time even with all the odds in her favour Fearless was struck in the rudder by a torpedo causing massive damage and flooding she too quickly sank.
But it wasn't all good news for the Germans as they lost a further two Torpedo Boats in the post action phase, one failed to deal with damage sustained in the fight, the other had sustained so much damage that she was unable to make it back to port and had to be scuttled by her crew.
So in a quite bloody first encounter the British have lost a Light Cruiser and a Destroyer whilst the Germans have lost three Torpedo Boats, next time will see us cruising round the sights of Heligoland Blight.
Back in the early 2000s I was an owner of a Pocket PC, I managed to persuade my grandparents to buy me one when I was about 16, I owned, to begin with an HP Jornada 525, later on I had a NEC Pocket Gear 2060, then I had an Axim X5, before finally settling with an HP IPAQ 2495, this probably spans the years of 2002 to 2007, so that's a lot of devices in a short space of time.
Anyway, the reason I had so many of these things was because as a 16 or 17 year old I managed to find my way into reviewing games for Pocket PCs at a website now long defunct called PDArcade.com, in fact, eventually I more or less ran the news side of the site by the time I was 20. The site was pretty popular back in the day and we made a lot through ad revenues and I got a share of the pot.
Anyway, sites like PDArcade existed because PDAs were a major platform, albeit a niche one, for video games. There were other websites dedicated to PDA gaming reviews such as pocketgamer.org, forums dedicated to discussing Pocket PC gaming like, if I recall, pocketmatrix.com, and even Pocket PCs particularly marketed as gaming Pocket PCs, such as, I think some of the ASUS models. Peripherals existed like control pads to make gaming even easier.
And then, of course, there were software companies, often producing really, really impressive titles. PDA gaming, developer side of things, was a return to the days of 8-bit because games, that were selling 10000s of copies were being made by tiny teams of programmers. PDA game development also was a work of real creativity because often Pocket PCs did not have that much storage space. Some companies really excelled at being able to produce games that looked amazing, perhaps at times reaching close to game boy advance and they did so without the size of game going beyond 20mb.
There was also a thriving emulation scene and at the end of its era the top Pocket PCs were able to play, without problems, all 8 bit, 16 bit and even 32 bit systems- that's quite something, considering that we are talking 2007 being able to play PS1 games released only 5 years previously- it would be like today playing a PS3 game on an iPhone using the hardware of the iPhone.
Perhaps if there is interest I will post some more on this subject, because I might well be one of the closet experts out there on it. I must have reviewed close to a hundred games for Pocket PC and played even more. The pictures in this article give you an idea of the kind of thing you could find on Pocket PC.
Prices varied and top rate games reached up to $30 I think, but generally a top tier title would be something like $14.99. The place to buy games were the now defunct websites handango.com pocketgear.com and of course directly from the developers. Usually you bought the game on PC and then transferred it over to your PDA but it was technically possible to to everything from the PDA.
There was a lot of innovation, creativity and excellence in the short lived Pocket PC gaming system. Of course there were ports and a lot of the pictures show this, but alongside ports, developers pushed the limits of the system. Some memorable and excellent companies producing high quality were Hexacto, Ziosoft, PDAmill, Momentum games, Crimson fire, eSoft Interactive and many more.
Title: 3D artist Focus: Environment design Type: Full-time, permanent Last day to apply: 17th of June 2018
Frictional games are filled with terror, intrigue, mystery, and emotion. We want our environments to reflect that, from the shape of the landscape to the smallest rock, while subtly guiding players and helping to enhance the gameplay.
This is where you come in.
We are now looking for an experienced 3D artist, who will focus on environment design for our upcoming games. This means working closely with our gameplay programmers / designers, and using modelling, texturing, and design skills to create memorable, interesting, and functional environments for our players to experience.
What will you work on? We are quite a small team, but we consider it our strength. As an environment artist you will get to work on everything from props to high-level design. This means your contribution will greatly influence how the final game looks, plays, and evokes emotions.
Here are some of the things you will be working on:
Collaborating with designers to create level layouts, combining both gameplay and an artistic perspective.
Taking levels from whitebox to a polished product.
Creating basic models that make up the levels, such as walls and floors.
Modelling props of various complexity, both with and without the help of concept art, and often having to take gameplay concerns into account.
Constructing particle systems, both by drawing textures and using parameters in our editor.
Combining various techniques to create special effects, such as flowing water or fire.
We also encourage working outside of your area of expertise, and always learning new things. The more areas of development you are willing and able take part in, the better!
For some examples of our environments, please check the video above!
What are we looking for? The person we're looking for is creative, driven and self-sufficient. We have recently set up a central hub in Malmö, Sweden, and hope you can move over to our seaside city sometime in the future.
You have to be a European resident to apply.
Here are some essential skills we require:
Good understanding of composition and player guidance.
Ability to challenge yourself, make bold creative decisions, and try non-conventional things.
A critical approach to your work, with the ability to take a step back and reflect.
A strive for structure, efficiency, and clarity.
Strong self-drive and ability to organise your own work.
Interest in and ability to do research for interesting prop and environment solutions.
Love for working on a variety of tasks.
Fluency in English.
And here are some more techie skills:
Excellent skills in 3D software. Modo preferred.
Familiarity with Zbrush/Mudbox/similar.
Excellent skills in Substance.
Excellent skills in Photoshop or similar software.
Familiarity with issue-tracking software.
Experience in classic/non-PBR workflow.
Basic rigging and animation skills.
If you want to impress us:
Love for horror, sci-fi, and narrative games.
A major role in completing at least one game.
Great free-drawing skills.
Experience in level design.
Strong game design skills.
Experience kitbashing/working with modular sets.
What do we offer? We make games, because that's what we love. But we know there are other things we love, like playing games, taking part in sports, or spending time with our families. We believe a healthy balance between work and life reflects positively on your work, which is why we don't encourage crunch.
We also offer:
Flexible working hours.
Opportunities to influence your workflow.
Variety in your work tasks, and ability to influence your workload.
Participation in our internal game Show & Tell sessions, so you'll have input into all aspects of the game.
Social security and holidays that are up to the Swedish standards.
An inclusive and respectful work environment.
An office in central Malmö you can use as much as you please.
Fun workmates, game and movie nights, and other outings!
Apply? Apply! If all of the above piqued your interest, we would love to hear from you! Send us your application 17th of June the latest - but the sooner, the better! Please attach your:
Cover Letter
Why should we hire YOU?
CV
Portfolio
Link or PDF
Preliminary work test
See the test below
Examples of works that have inspired you or blown you away
PDF, screenshots preferred.
Please note that we require all the attachments to consider you.
Send your application to apply@frictionalgames.com!
Preliminary work test After 3 years of failed experiments, Professor Kim finally managed to reverse gravity. However, the professor died just as he succeeded, and the whole thing ran amok.
The player enters the research facility where the experiments took place. As they go through the level, they gradually learn about what the professor was trying to achieve. At the end they're met with a revelation, and see the disturbing results of the experiment. As they reach the end, the level must loop in a way where the player finds themselves near the entrance, where they first started.
We are looking for a simple design, done as a rough 3D sketch/white box. You are free to write notes and do paint-overs on top of the 3D.
This test is a first step in the evaluation process, showing us your basic skills, so we are not looking for you to spend a lot of time on it. Imagine this as a quick proof of concept you would present before doing a pitch or a design.
We will evaluate your artist vision, creativity as well as level design skills.
Put everything as a collection of images into one folder on Dropbox, Drive or similar, and send the link to us.
Privacy Policy By sending us your application, you give us permission to store your personal information and attachments.
We store all applications in a secure system. The applications are stored for two years, after which they are deleted. If you want your your information removed earlier, please contact us through our Contact form. Read more in our Privacy Policy.
