Let's Discuss the Perfect Pair of Headphones

We've all been in the situation where we want to upgrade from a pair of $15 Target headphones, or the earbuds that come standard with every iPhone. With so many choices and the advertising barrage of every single "gaming headset" (looking at you Turtle Beach)  it can easily get overwhelming and researching which headphones are the right choice for you can take well over four hours. Luckily, I'm here to help as I've done the research and hopefully my hard work will help you find your perfect pair of headphones as it did for us!

There are two main factors that you're going to be dealing with when you purchase a new pair of headphones: price and purpose.

1. Purpose

What are you going to be using the headphones for? Just casually listening to music? Do you need stereoscopic surround sound while you're playing video games so you know where and how far away your teammates and enemies are? Or are you a hardcore audiophile? Again, what your purpose is with using your headphones will also have an impact on price.

A huge consideration when purchasing headphones, while reviewer's personal preference plays a part, everyone - from Reddit to YouTubers like Podcastage - agree that "gaming headsets" are a huge waste of money for what they are; you can get the exact same audio quality for a fraction of the price. For example: on Amazon you can purchase a pair of Razer Kraken 7.1 Chroma headphones for $100 vs. Status Audio CB-1 Studio Monitor headphones for $79. Both have 50mm audio drivers in them and have comparable comfort and build to them.

Furthermore, surround sound headphones are pointless because A1) when the audio (specifically for a game) is mixed and created properly it will be surround by nature because developers take into account headphone users and it's capabilities i.e. watch any binaural ASMR video on YouTube. and B1) This is what "surround sound" looks like in headphones:

So instead of having one driver that handles all the sound, you have four or five smaller drivers which are all shoved in relatively the same place which makes no difference in sound staging.

 Another thing to point out is that according to Reddit gaming headsets suffer the same issue as Beats headphones where extra material is packed into them to make them feel heavier and thus, more expensive.

The best advise the internet has to offer when purchasing a nice pair of headphones (and any audio equipment) is to stick to a company that is dedicated to audio, like: Sennheiser, AKG, Audio-Technica, Grado, and even Sony.

The last thing to consider when it comes to purpose is whether you want Closed or Open Back headphones. The big difference between the two types is that with open back, everyone in the room can hear what you're listening to. However, you get a more open, natural, sound. Personally, I was concerned that the microphone would pick up the sound from the headphones and it took a long time to find a video that actually gave an example of what it would be like, until I came across the Jack Black-esque reviewer Z Reviews. Take a listen to just the first two seconds to see what Open Back headphone ownership will bring you.

For my purposes, I wanted headphones primarily for A1) better sound quality while playing video games B1) monitoring sound mixing for game development and C1) Someone else is most likely going to be in the area doing something else so Open Back headphones were not an option. When I first started looking what I ran into was already pointed out in the paragraph above so I decided to steer clear of gaming headsets. That brought us into the huge world of "audiophiles" and where price plays a huge part in what you purchase.

2. Price

Price is really up to you as the consumer and your budget is the first thing you need to determine when looking at headphones.

My price range was $100 or less and after spending four hours of watching review videos and reading review websites as of 2016-2017 one brand kept coming up over and over again as "the best headphones under $100" and that was Status Audio and their CB-1/OB-1 headphones. The line "best headphones under $100" was repeated so many times it started to sound like a paid-for advertising campaign until I discovered Z Reviews and his take on the CB-1's which is was ultimately settled my mind on buying them. The way he runs his reviews and the genuine way in which he speaks about every product is either amazing acting on his part of he is being sponsored, or him just being honest.

I love the CB-1s by Status Audio, due to the fact that they're a smaller company, rely on word of mouth advertising, and don't put a bunch of badging on their products they can keep the price down. Additionally, the padding out of the box is super comfortable, and the sound is incredible. The first test I made I listened to a song I've listened to for years and I heard notes and instruments I've never heard before which really filled out the song. Lasty, with the CB-1s you can change out the audio cable so you can make easy upgrades for whatever you need. The only negative is that after hours of use my ears get sore if I also have my earbuds in which if you're totally immersed in a game, music, or whatever you wouldn't be running the same setup so with just the headphones on they are incredibly comfortable hours on end.

I hope this helps and if you'd like to pick up your own pair of Status Audio CB-1 Studio Monitor headphones click here.

Let's Review! Call of Duty Black Ops III Beta

Let's Review! Call of Duty Black Ops III Beta

This year, Call of Duty fans are receiving the gift that is Black Ops III (Blops 3) from Treyarch. As FPS players have come to expect, the release has been preceded by a Beta which took place from August 19th - August 23rd for PS4 owners and from August 26th - August 30th for Xbox One and PC players. Initially I had been told that in order to participate in the Beta you had to either receive a key from a friend or pre-order Blops 3. With the added exception for PC being, you need to own CoD Ghosts, Blops 2, or Advanced Warfare. Much to my empty wallet's delight, the PC beta turned out to be free for anyone since the only CoD I own for the PC is CoD 4: Modern Warfare. So, on Friday August 28th I jumped into the PC beta and I had an absolute blast. Let's review!

The Good

• Wall running and power sliding. I really enjoyed the double jumping and slamming mechanic in Advanced Warfare. In addition to carrying over the double jumping mechanic (it is slightly tweaked though), Treyarch added wall running and power sliding (to replace dolphin diving) and it was definitely the right choice. In additional movement options opens up levels and allows what would be a traditional one directional lane to be traversed in four different ways. It is great. It's also interesting to see how the mechanic is balanced. The player has a power bar which gets used whenever the double jump or power slide and the double jump height/duration is influenced by how long the player holds the jump button down. Hold it down the maximum time allotment and the player will jump really high but use all their power. Timing also plays a part as the player can time the second "jump" and turn it more in a floating stall into a ledge grab since the exo suits are gone and players now have this sort of cyborg thruster suit.

• Pick 10 system. I absolutely loved it when the pick 10 system was introduced and I'm glad it's making a return in Black Ops III. It gives players more freedom and customization over their player classes than the majority of other FPS games and even older CoD games.

• Specialists. Like the wall running and power sliding, Blops 3 introduces "Specialists" into the game which is like having an extra kill streak for no extra cost. Each specialist has one offensive and one defensive pointstreak (you can only use one at a time), which accrues throughout the entire match, as opposed to the actual kill streaks that reset when the player dies. The specialists add some much needed character/character customization to the multiplayer since they all have call signs and they talk to each other at the beginning of each match. It is kind of weird that the multiplayer player character isn't physically customizable or influenced by the perks (see ghillie suit in Blops 1). I had the opportunity to play as "Prophet", "Outrider", "Battery", and "Nomad". "Prophet"'s offensive point streak is a rail gun that fires electric projectiles which apparently can hit multiple enemies, but I was unable to accomplish this feat myself and his defensive point streak is "glitch" which allows the player to teleport back to where they were 30 seconds previous to using the skill. "Outrider"'s offensive point streak is a bow with an explosive arrow and her defensive skill is like wall hack vision. "Battery"'s offensive point streak is a multi-explosive grenade launcher and her defensive ability is armor invincibility. "Nomad"'s offensive weapon is H.I.V.E., another rocket launcher type weapon but instead of firing explosive rounds it fires a proximity mine of bugs that swarm and kill enemies that set it off. His defensive skill detonates a big cloud of smokey lightning when he dies and then revives him; it's useful against players that aren't familiar with it, but once you've played for a while it's easy to just camp and kill "Nomad" twice. Of course, the point streaks are balanced so they stop when the player is killed, the player runs out of their limited ammo, or the time duration of the point streak ends (whichever happens first).

• The guns. I spend most of my Call of Duty time in CoD 4: Modern Warfare mainly for modding purposes so it's really refreshing playing a modern CoD (hah, get it?) where there are more than four guns in most of the weapon categories and a wider range of customization options/slots which do more than add a sight or stability to the gun.

• The unlock/reward system. If it's one thing CoD games do well, it's getting the player to continue to play the game trying to unlock items as if they were playing an MMORPG. In addition to the usual fair of unlocking kill streaks, specialists, player cards et al., perks, weapons, and attachments; the level up system is split into character level AND weapon level. In order to unlock attachments for weapons you have to level up said weapon by using it to kill enemies. It's just a simple change, but in addition to giving players a reason to level up regularly, players now have a reason to use different weapons other than they're not a high enough level for the really good weapons.

• New killstreaks. There are many updated versions of classic kill streaks like the explosive rc car, UAV, counter-UAV, and care package. However, a lot of the classic airborne kill streaks are hybrids. For instance, there is a killstreak called "Hellstorm" which is kind of like a combination of the Predator Missle from MW2 and the Mortar Team from Black Ops. Another killstreak of note is R.A.P.S. which are tiny AI explosive robot balls that function like the Dogs from Black Ops; except they explode. It's also interesting that they are dropped down from a drop ship in the spot where you're standing when you call them in. They also seem to come in, in two waves.

• Safeguard. I prefer objective based game types. Most FPS games feature a mix of deathmatch and objective based scenarios, but the CoD series do it the best. Domination is an awesome evolution of king of the hill, Hardpoint is a fantastic evolution of roaming king of the hill, CoD games of course have the bomb planting/defusal game types made famous by counter-strike, there's even CTF and even Killed Confirm adds a much needed twist on traditional team deathmatch. Black Ops 3 introduces Safeguard. A mode similar to Push Cart in Team Fortress 2 where players on the attacking team stand next to a robot in order to get it to move to an objective point on the other side of the map while defenders try to stop the attackers and disable the robot. The fact that defenders can shoot the robot in order to disable it is a super fun addition over traditional Push Cart mechanics. From my experience with the game mode, it still needs some balancing. When the robot reboots after being disabled it takes a few seconds to stand up and begin moving again which puts the attackers at a disadvantage waiting for the robot's animation state to change while defenders can get in free shots on an active, immobile-no-matter-what, robot. Also, on some of the maps the route the robot takes is ridiculously short which makes defending almost impossible and renders an entire half, or more, of the map irrelevant. The only map that really worked well in the beta was "Hunted" the tropical cabana/resort map. Furthermore, the game type is round based and starts out having a time limit of four minutes and then decreasing every round. As the game goes on it makes it increasingly more difficult for the team that attacks second to win based on the mechanics alone. Personally I think the time should be increased and the routes the robot takes remapped so it takes the little VIP longer to get to the end-point as this game type tends to end quicker than the rest. As a side note, when you're an attacker there is no frontal collision on the robot, but there is from the behind so you can very easily get trapped in sticky situations that cost you a frag. Lastly, I should not that one person I played with complained that the robot shouldn't reboot on his own and it being able to do so makes the game type "broken". I disagree, it takes the robot a while to reboot and expecting players to stand next to it while it's immobile about in the open is ridiculous since, on average, only half of a team will play the objective.

The Bad

• The Specialists are kind unbalanced right now, but this is mainly influenced by how I personally play. Each specialist has the option of using an offensive or defensive pointstreak. As I mentioned in "The Good", during the beta I was able to play as "Prophet", "Outrider", and "Battery". I only saw other players play as (in order of most common to least common) "Outrider", "Prophet", "Ruin", "Nomad", and "Reaper". Both "Nomad" and "Reaper" required high levels to unlock and boy are they worth it. "Nomad" has a grenade launcher similar to "Battery" except these robotic locust type bugs swarm out of each grenade and seemingly chase down enemies to kills them/act as a proximity attack if the shot does not hit an enemy immediate. "Reaper's" offensive point streak is a gatling gun that seemed to have an infinite time limit and only stopped after the player was killed. Furthermore, I only saw the offensive versions of "Ruin", "Nomad", and "Reaper" and I only saw two people use the defensive version of "Prophet" and "Outrider". Does this mean players would rather get a boost in their killing abilities or that the reward for using an offensive capability far outweighs the pros for using a defensive skill? As far as I can tell for the beta, it's the latter.
• I also encountered two people playing as "Spectre", one of which just ran around knifing people the entire time.

• The recoil, aka my terrible aim. I'm used to playing Call of Duty games with a game pad on a console and I've never had recoil/aiming issues in the past. With Blops 3 on the PC though, using a keyboard and mouse was extremely frustrating. My mouse sensitivity never felt good because it was either too high or too low thanks to most of weapons having weirdly wild recoil. To add insult to injury it seemed like everyone else in the matches I played had laser-like precision 24/7. Does this mean I don't know how to play FPS games on PC? I doubt it considering I still play Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Chivalry, Borderlands 2/Pre-Sequel, Payday 2, and PlanetSide 2 on the PC with no problems. With all this being said, I'd like to point out I did not get a chance to use every single weapon in the game so this could boil down to the weapons I was using, but it felt like a general mouse cursor speed problem most of the time. Also, I had a lot of lag issues (see below) so this could have also contributed, but again, the overall movement and then trying to keep the cross-hair where I wanted it was the problem.
• After switching from keyboard and mouse to a gamepad I had a lot easier time getting my usual average 2-1 KD ratio. Some balances do need to be made because some of the faster firing weapons, specifically the Vesper (a low accuracy, highest rate of fire SMG) and the Dingo (LMG) which have relatively low accuracy don't seem to actually be effected by said stat and players seemed to be able to fully fire them with laser precision.

• The game crashes. A lot. I'm not sure if it's because of my own hardware or just the nature of beta builds themselves. From what I can find from internet commentators and forums, the game crashes more when you're in the menus, but for me it's only crashed during games. I also assume the console versions are more stable since CoD's target release platforms are the PS4 and Xbox One.

• Besides the crashes, I've had tremendous issues with lag. Normally I would chalk it up to slow internet on my end. However, I don't have lag issues like what I ran into in Blops 3 in any other multiplayer PC games.
• The stuttering/lag seemed to be a product of the game itself being a beta build as the weekend progressed I encountered less games that lagged. It still happened from time to time so I believe it was due to other players' connections. If everyone's average ping was under 100 the match was fine, if anyone had over 100 ping then the game would stutter considerably.

• The irony of the crashing and lagging issues is that I run into both problems in a great little game called Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. So we can conclude the beta build of Blops 3 is structurally as good as the best a small indie studio can produce for their released game. Of course, Blops doesn't have the same collision, hitbox, spawning, screen tearing, or total game instability that Chivalry features. Why bring this up? When games first start their journey to being released they are a broken mess and devs spend countless hours trying to fix enough of the problems without producing more. Most games are a slight breeze away from completely falling apart like a house made from a deck of cards. It bodes extremely well that the beta version of Black Ops III is holding together so well.

• Melee attack debuff. Previous CoD games features a one hit kill melee attack which is now gone unless the player has a specific combat knife weapon equipped. The only way to get a one hit melee kill while having a gun is to allegedly melee an enemy in the back, otherwise it's a two hit kill - the same system used by the Halo franchise. The old system was better.

• The pick 10 system. While the pick 10 inventory system is absolutely great, it does have one glaring issue. In order to double up on perks, a third weapon attachment, equipping a primary weapon in your secondary slot, or second lethal grenade you have to also equip a wild card for each extra you want. Each wild card also takes up one of the 10 pick 10 slots. So this effectively means if you want a third weapon attachment, for instance, it will cost 2 out of your 10 slots to obtain one extra item. I understand the need for designing it this way, but it really isn't worth it.

The Ugly

• The graphics. I've had graphical issues with every single Call of Duty Game I've played on the PC - Modern Warfare (though it's old and the asset resolution may just be poor compared to todays standards), Ghosts, Advanced Warfare, and now Black Ops III. The graphics card I use is a factory overclocked (superclocked) GTX 560 so it comes with Nvidia's "GeForce Experience" which I use to optimize all of my games. Everything else I play looks great, but for some reason I can never get Call of Duty games right. Even manually changing the graphics in-game does little to improve things and causes massive performance issues. This is all the more confusing when you consider that the GTX 560 is at least 27 times better than the Xenos graphics chip in the Xbox 360, yet Black Ops 1 on my 360 looks better, overall, than any of the last three CoD games on my PC. Plus, there are no graphical performance issues on the 360. I have to assume it's because the Call of Duty developers (Treyarch, Sledgehammer Games, Raven Software, and Infinity Ward) optimize the game for consoles and let the PC gamers fend for themselves since most "PC Gamers" have monster rigs running multiple high-end graphics cards, etc. which allow for super extreme realistic graphics at 60 frames per second.

Derek holds a Bachelor's Degree in Game Design and has three years of game development experience. To view his other work please visit www.dereksinex.com or his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/JDKevlar

How-to: Character Development

How-to: Character Development

When it comes to narrative design and story-telling/writing I often hear complaints that people are never taught where to start, or they aren't given an instruction manual for creating characters and a story. Just like with a lot of creative processes, there isn't an exact step-by-step process everyone follows to create great characters or stories. However, a great place to start is by emulating the greats.

Most people can come up with a story, world, etc. Unfortunately, most fall short when it comes to creating great characters with depth. I'd like to suggest a "mentor text" for developing your characters: Dragon Ball Z (DBZ).

Dragon Ball Z is an anime (also a manga) series that originally aired in the 1980's and 90's that benefited from an extremely long run. Unlike other contemporary long-running anime, the writer(s) of Dragon Ball Z actually decided to develop most, if not every, character making each one unique and wonderful despite their Lawful/Chaotic alignment or the fact that 80% of the characters looking strikingly similar.

The two characters we will be focusing on today are Nail, a short-lived Nemekian character and Vegeta, one of the main characters and in my opinion one of the best characters ever created/written.

Vegeta

While every other good character in the series is an "every-man" who's motivation is to just be a good person (something more of us should strive for) and already have an understanding of who they are as a person the second we meet them, Vegeta adds a much needed spice to the good vs evil sauce that DBZ is covered in.

When Vegeta first shows up on the scene he's ballin' around the universe enslaving or destroying planets for the evil Lord Frieza, a transgender alien that consequently destroyed Vegeta's Saiyan home world and enslaved Vegeta's entire race. The situation is utterly smothered in irony as Frieza is a prince of his race destroying or enslaving every civilization he comes across which is exactly what Prince Vegeta was doing before Frieza showed up. Prior to Frieza Death Starring Planet Vegeta (Yep, the ruler of the Saiyans is named King Vegeta, his son is Prince Vegeta, and the Saiyan home world is Planet Vegeta. Narcissism much?), the Saiyan race sent out their babies in space pods to extraterrestrial planets in hopes the babies would grow up and enslave or destroy said planet. Pretty much the plot to Invader Zim. After Vegeta's planet explodes he and the remaining adult Saiyans decided to just continue doing what they've been doing forever, just in Frieza's name. Eventually the few Saiyans that are left happen upon Goku -- one of the babies shot out into space who ended up less like Zod and more like Clark Kent's Superman because he bumped his head when he crash landed on Earth. Since this is Dragon Ball Z, all of the Saiyans are evil and Goku and friends are good, fights ensue and eventually the only Saiyans left alive are Goku's half-breed son Gohan and Vegeta. Vegeta retreats to heal as the remaining Earth warriors peace out to Planet Namek to retrieve the titular Dragon Balls and bring all their friends back to life including Goku. Now, in the DBZ universe the afterlife is basically just a place where the characters can train and get stronger, then get brought back to life from the Dragon Balls or by running across the great wall of China.

This abridged back story for Vegeta is important because he goes from being an evil henchman to a clever warrior hell-bent on betraying Frieza, who has decided to collect the Dragon Balls and become immortal, and stop Frieza's reign of terror. Vegeta eventually accomplishes his quest by forming an alliance and bonding with the Earth Warriors while on Planet Namek and essentially becoming an anti-hero. However, Vegeta's character growth while on Namek is more than just begrudgingly teaming up with "the good guys". When he first lands on Namek Vegeta still has the personality of "kill first, ask questions later" he had when he arrived on Earth. However, over the course of his time on Namek and bonding with "the good guys" he begins showing mercy and sometimes acting selflessly in order to help out the Earthlings and Goku.

This is the biggest turning point in Vegeta's character development because the writers throw Vegeta into adverse situations and at first the only way to win is for Vegeta to team up with the heroes, but he begins to enjoy their company and their lawful good actions/personalities begin rubbing off on him making Vegeta a better person as the series goes on. This is called character growth. This personality transformation is very gradual over the course of the entire series and it doesn't completely change Vegeta's personality. He's still very much remains methodical, competitive, and self-serving. But his character growth allows him to act in the betterment of man-kind, form positive relationships with his teammates, a wife, and child. He even shows weakness, hopes, aspirations, and dreams because he's both jealous and crushed when Goku, a fellow Saiyan, achieves the legendary "Super Saiyan" power level before him. Since Vegeta's underlying desire is to be the strongest warrior in the universe, he takes any opportunity to gain a leg up which is evident by allowing himself to be "brainwashed" during the Buu Saga only to reveal he did it on purpose to gain more power and he's actually still a good guy.

But what if I don't have the luxury of developing my character over the course of 243 some-odd episodes in a seven year span?

Nail

Despite being in only one or two episodes of the Planet Namek saga during DBZ's run, Nail shows a wide range of character depth and is an excellent "master text" case. When we first meet Nail it's through his interaction with the Earth Warriors and Vegeta. He's apprehensive of the Earthlings, but treats them as good guys because his fellow Nameks do. On the other hand, when Vegeta shows up, the duo are ready to duke it out to the death until Nail senses five other threats and the Namekian leader asks him, Vegeta, and Earth Warriors to stop the five threats. The all oblige and Nail puts his distrust of the off-worlders aside to deal with the bigger threat. Sadly, Frieza shows up to murderize some knowledge out of the the Namekian leader so Nail disobeys orders to turn around and protect his leader. Unfortunately, this selfless act is partially in vain as Frieza kills almost every Namekian, but Nail sacrifices himself so a Namekian child can flee and help the Earth Warriors activate the Dragon Balls.

Spoiler alert: the good guys end up winning and they bring back all the Namekians to life. However, instead of just dying after getting his face smashed in by Frieza, Nail makes Piccolo -- a Namekian from Earth who happens upon the scene well after Frieza flies off after the Dragon Balls -- fuse with him in order to raise Piccolo's power level. This essentially traps Nail's mind and spirit inside of Piccolo for all of eternity making him the only Namekian not revived by the Dragon Balls. He makes this choice knowing full-well the consequences, but he does so because he believes giving up his free will and life will be enough to stop Frieza from destroying the universe.

Derek holds a Bachelor's Degree in Game Design and has two and a half years of game development experience. To view his other work please visit www.dereksinex.com or his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/JDKevlar

Genre Discussion - Casual

Casual

            Casual/Social/Facebook is my least favorite genre, but I definitely understand its merit from a cultural and business stand-point. Casual games are a great way for consumers to jump in and get a fun/easy introduction into the world of games. However, due to the ease of development and naivety of the target audience for these games (i.e. first-time players), this genre has become the land of "shovel-ware". The landscape of casual games is oversaturated with terrible games geared towards making a buck off of micro-transactions instead of actually giving the player a fun experience. This has caused most of the games in the genre to be based around a carrot-and-stick formula where consumers can only play for a limited amount of time, but can use real-world money to essentially buy more gameplay time. Thus, the majority experience of these games has become less of a gaming experience and more of a drug dealer/drug user experience.

            When making a good mobile (casual/social/facebook) game, the developer is put into a Catch 22 situation. The best casual games I have played are made by hobbyists and any revenue they earn from their games are in the form of opening advertisements. However, a company is probably not going to earn a return on investment, let alone a profit, with this method. So I suppose jamming micro-transactions down consumers throats would make a casual game "good" because you're more likely to earn a huge profit. With that in mind, I may disagree with it personally, but the game still has to be fun enough for people to pay for those micro-transactions.

            Regardless of the business model, any good casual game features easy-to-learn repetitive mechanics, usually cartoony visually appealing and "happy" graphics, and small spurts of reward to keep the player addicted and coming back; give the player the illusion of being able to win and they'll keep coming back. Essentially, everything that makes a casino game "good" also applies to the mobile genre.

            The best examples of mobile/casual games are the top rated games on http://www.newgrounds.com/. The game/series that sticks out the most to me is Bloons Tower Defense (which is now hosted/sponsored by Kiwi Games). The difficulty is extremely balanced so that players of any skill can win on easy, but the enticement of the high difficulties and variety of maps/tower combinations keep you coming back for more. Additionally, Bloons feature super bright, cartoony, graphics with super cute monkeys to attract players in. In a world of gore and explosions, it's a nice change of pace to see a monkey pop a balloon with a dart.

            The casual market has great potential for developers to experiment and create a unique experience. Any game that accomplishes this with a functional/high quality mechanics is a "best example of casual/social/facebook" game.

            In opposition to the idea of experimentation and doing something fun and unique with a mobile game; the "shovel-ware" games of the genre are definitely the worst examples. Poorly made, cash grab games, are the worst examples that give the genre a bad name. I'd like to accuse "Candy Crush" as a worst example because it's almost impossible to beat a level without purchasing a micro-transaction for "more moves" and one way to earn in-game currency (other than just paying real money) is to invite your facebook friends to play the game. As a person who does not play casual games, I find these invites extremely annoying and any game that uses this kind of free marketing to suck in more players almost like a pyramid scheme is terrible. However, my nephew plays "Candy Crush" on his mother's tablet and being a "gamer" uncle, I have helped him beat levels in the game. The game itself it actually really fun because it's a colorful move/match/elimination game. If it weren't for the facebook spam and un-avoidable micro-transactions; the game would be awesome.

For further information about the mobile marketplace being the new home of shovel-ware, watch the Extra Credits episode "Shovelware".

Derek holds a Bachelor's Degree in Game Design and has two and a half years of game development experience. To view his other work please visit www.dereksinex.com or his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/JDKevlar

Let's Level Design! UE4 DM-Temple: Gray Boxing

Production

DM-Temple - Team Deathmatch Multiplayer Map built using UnrealEd 4

Hello and welcome to our new Let's Level Design tutorial series. In this episode we cover how to gray box; the first step in creating a level in UnrealEd 4.

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Derek holds a Bachelor's Degree in Game Design and has two and a half years of game development experience. To view his other work please visit www.dereksinex.com or his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/JDKevlar

Let's Level Design! UE4 DM-Temple: Pre-Production Game Document

Pre-Production

DM-Temple - Team Deathmatch Multiplayer Map built using UnrealEd 4

Hello and welcome to our new Let's Level Design tutorial series. In this episode we cover how (and why) to create a basic Game Document which is used in pre-production.

Text-Version of my Game Doc:

DM-Temple

Unreal Tournament 4 Team Deathmatch Map

By Derek Sinex

Gametype

            DM-Temple is a fast-paced First-Person Shooter Team Deathmatch map created using Unreal Tournament 4. Players will spawn around the map in key locations, collect weapons, ammo, and power-ups in order to gain an advantage over their enemies. The first team to X number of points (via digital frags) is the winner of the match.

Story

            The Iron Guard, a militarized conglomerate has un-earthed powerful ancient technology while excavating a Necris Temple. The release of this technology has caused a power rift and a legion of Necris has set upon the Temple in order to eliminate the Iron Guard threat; as well as, secure the powerful artifacts. Meanwhile, the Iron Guard soldiers refuse to go down without a fight and are determined to exterminate the Necris forces and claim the artifacts for themselves.

Gameplay

            The gameplay of DM-Temple focuses around both vertical and horizontal movement. The level features sever split-levels and multi-stories. Each of these elevations features a variety of weapons, ammo, health, armor, and power-ups to encourage player exploration and tactical positioning in order to defeat enemies. The map's purpose is to keep every player moving. To accomplish this, the most powerful or sought after items in the level are located exposed areas of the level in order to deter players from camping. As well as, strategically placing items to guide players so they move up and down stairs, down drop down holes and wall jump during combat to make play more exciting.

DM-Temple Paper Map

Visuals/Effects/Audio

            The visuals of DM-Temple are very reminiscent of the Egyptian maps from Goldeneye007 and Perfect Dark. However, since the setting of the level takes place in a world infested by the Necris Black Legion, the map will combine traditional Egyptian and Necris textures, geometry, and static meshes; depending on what it available. DM-Temple will feature only the built-in effects in UE4. Plans for dynamically moving geometry have been made and may be incorporated in the event these plans would improve the overall gameplay experience. The level will feature music, sound effects fitting on a Team Deathmatch map, and we will be using audio assets that are already included in UE4.

Reference Images

http://www.battlefieldforever.com/hackers/priv/wreck/pd_egyptprogress2.jpg

http://www.laleetsgarage.com/pics/goldeneye/ge_temple_classic0011.jpg

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/goldeneye/images/0/05/Images_1.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20101128040158

http://s464659611.onlinehome.us/education/Nuckollsfund/04/images/unity2.jpg

Asset List

Name	Priority	Completed
None at this time		No
		No
		No
		No

Feature List

Name	Priority	Completed
None at this time		No
		No
		No

My Professional Portfolio - http://tinyurl.com/kmsztl4
Follow me on Twitter - http://tinyurl.com/o3n5l2g

Follow Press Select Interactive on Twitter - http://tinyurl.com/pgfbvk8 

Derek holds a Bachelor's Degree in Game Design and has two and a half years of game development experience. To view his other work please visit www.dereksinex.com or his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/JDKevlar

Let's Level Design! UE4 DM-Temple: Paper Map Finalization (Part 3)

Pre-Production

DM-Temple - Team Deathmatch Multiplayer Map built using UnrealEd 4

Hello and welcome to our new Let's Level Design tutorial series. In this episode we cover the critical thinking behind creating a multiplayer map in Unreal 4 (specifically player spawns and item placements to maximize gameplay flow), review key Photoshop tools, and how to use them to finalize a paper map.

My Professional Portfolio - http://tinyurl.com/kmsztl4
Follow me on Twitter - http://tinyurl.com/o3n5l2g

Follow Press Select Interactive on Twitter - http://tinyurl.com/pgfbvk8

Derek holds a Bachelor's Degree in Game Design and has two and a half years of game development experience. To view his other work please visit www.dereksinex.com or his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/JDKevlar