Hallow Games

West Virginia video game development

Site Updates

Website Relaunch and New Focus

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Welcome to the new Hallow Games website!  I recently took down the old one and replace it with this one!

This site is mobile responsive and has the blog housed on the site instead of on an external site.  One of my goals is to blog about all my game related projects more often and you will see now that the blog on this site is much more integrated into the design then the old one was.  I plan to post a blog post on this site weekly about what I’m working on, at the minimum monthly from this point forward.  Stay tuned for more updates!

Google Cardboard and the Future

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I think that Google Cardboard is important for Virtual Reality because it makes VR affordable.  Cardboard is a lot cheaper than buying an expensive headset and the hardware you need to render those experiences.  Even though it may not be the best VR experience, it is very useful to those that want to preview the technology and it is very affordable for developers who want to experiment with the technology.

This semester, I took an app development class and for my final project in the class, I have the pleasure of working on an app for Google Cardboard!  I am very excited to see what is possible with it and I plan to do a lot of work on this app over the coming holiday break.  Keep your eyes peeled because once I get some good screenshots, I plan to add them to the Games section of the site to show off!  I don’t want to spoil anything about the app and it is extremely early to guarantee any of my ideas are going to make it into the final app, so I will end my post here.

Unity Projects and Updates

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I can’t believe that this summer has been going so fast.  I swear yesterday I was in May!  Anyway, there have been several changes since I last posted in March of last year.  I gave up on the Quriocity Games name and I want to focus more on Hallow Games because it is easier to spell and it has my name in it.  So I also got a new host, new domains, and changed all the names on the website around April 2015.  Today I just took a lot of the blog posts from the original site and added them to here so that I have them if something were to happen to the old website, since I have abandoned it and haven’t updated it since 2013.

Now that all of that is out of the way, I can talk a little about what I really have been working on: Unity.  I know that Unity 5 was just released a few months ago but I have been mainly doing things in Unity 4 because there are so many more tutorials, videos, and books about it, that I wanted to stick with it and figured I could learn the basics in the old engine.  However, I plan to move to Unity 5 soon so I don’t fall behind.

I have several smaller projects planned mainly so that I can teach myself how to do different things with Unity and that this will eventually allow me to work independently or work with a team on a full and/or commercial game.  I don’t know how hard it will be, but I also plan to put my smaller projects on this website in a Unity web player just to demonstrate what I have done and compile a portfolio for others to see what I have done with Unity in the past.

Check back in a week or two to see a new post about my first project and maybe be able to play it on the website.  Enjoy the rest of your summers everyone!

Current Up-To-Date Links (July 2015)
Main site: http://www.hallowgames.com
Blog site: http://hallowgames.blogspot.com (View-able on main website)

Hello World!

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Hello Everyone!

It has been almost a year since I have made a blog post about my game development, but I am very eager to get started again!  I have decided to now post things here in my new blogspot site(quriocitygames.blogspot.com)  and you will also be able to read all my posts on my new websitequriocitygames.com.

I looked back briefly at my previous posts and saw that the last thing I posted about PolySphere was how I was preparing for the final show of the game to the independent study board.  The final presentation of the game was a success and I was able to get the school to allow me to use one of the laptop computer labs to showcase my game to anyone who wanted to play it during my school’s creative arts night.

Even though it was a success, there were several elements of the game that I was not able to fully implement.  One of the things I had to cut out that night was alot of the story elements.  The game worked perfect on my Windows 7 laptop I had programmed the game on.  However, the school’s Windows XP computers in my programming class and the Windows Vista laptops I used during the creative arts night gave me issues with implementing video playback into the game.  Because of this, I ended up having to cut out several cutscenes I had made and most of the voice acting I had put in the game.  My current latest build of the game now lacks those things but the game is fully playable.

I could continue working on the game but since DarkGDK is pretty much a dead game engine and the game libraries are outdated. I have decided that I am finished with PolySphere for the time being but I may comeback in the future and maybe remake the game the way that was originally intended story-wise just to see how it turns out.  Thanks to everyone who helped me complete the game including my voice actors, and support from my entire high school and independent study board.  Without your support I would not have been able to figure out how to develop the game completely and I am very grateful for all the help I got from my programming teacher Ms. Diane Mauk.  You all are still mentioned in the credits of the game, which I may publicly release sometime in the future.

Anyways, lets get back to the present now.  Between May 2013 and now, I have done very little programming at all.  If you are reading this you probably noticed that I now own a domain name and I completely designed a new website for Quriocity Games.  This was well overdo if I was ever planning on being serious about being an indie game developer and now I hope to be able to focus on future game projects.

As far as the future is concerned, I have been looking at several routes to take my game programming to the next level.  I still haven’t made an absolute decision but I wanted to list below my current options I am considering (I will probably end up doing a little bit of all of them at some point):

–Android Programming – I have had several app ideas and since I have seen the success of Flappy Birds recently, it really shows how a simple idea can be downloaded by so many people.  Really it seems like everyone today either has a smartphone or tablet, and developing on the Android platform would give me a huge audience of possible players to play my game/app.

–Windows App Programming – Microsoft has made it very easy to develop apps for Windows 8/Phone and there is less competition there, so I am considering that option as well.

–PC Programming – This has always been my preferred route and where I have always wanted to go.  I feel like games on PC or the main consoles really give you deeper gaming experience and make you feel like you are actually in the world.  Adding to that is the release of the Oculus Rift sometime this year (virtual reality headset) and that will truly bring games to the next level.  I really think if I started making another game now with a good engine, It could be one of the first games to support the Oculus Rift during its launch and potentially be very successful that way.

All of these options really interest me, but what it really comes down to is what really makes me happy.  My dream is to be able to be an indie developer full time someday.  However, I know that I couldn’t do it alone and that for the time being this is only gonna be my hobby unless I can make something really successful and find a way to be self-sufficient without the need of an additional job.  Anyways, thanks for reading my blog and I will update you as soon as I make up my mind on what I am going to do!

We Are Up and Running!

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Welcome to the new website!  I know its not much but it is a great place to put up information about the project I am leading and what I am trying to do.  If you have not yet, take a look around and read all the pages.  I know its not much, but it is all I need for now.  As more people join my team, I will be giving them access so that they can post updates on what they are doing in this feed as well.

I have spent the past year thinking off and on about what I want to name this game company.  The best I could come up with is what you see on every page, the Quriocity Games (pronounced curiosity).  Some others I was considering include Common Sense Entertainment (This is a rating board, and something Thomas Paine wrote), and Dolphin Games.  The only issue I may have with this name is that Sony has a music program named Qriocity, which may be confused with my name.  If it ever becomes an issue, I will change it then, but for now I like Quriociy Games.

My current project and main focus right now is PolySphere.  Whether this will be the final name or not I don’t know, but for now that is what it is called.  I will be posting updates probably weekly on what I am doing with it for anyones enjoyment and I hope that any other starting programmers or game programmers will find this page and blog interesting and useful.

I have alot that I am doing in the game, as I am writing the source code, creating the game worlds, and I have planned all the details of the game.  While I am sure you wanna hear all them, I am going to keep them to myself and you will have to check here to see them.  Not only will I update this feed weekly, but I am going to have at least one weekly screenshot so you can see what I am adding in the game.

I can not do all the work alone and if anyone would like to help this is what I need.  I am looking for the following:

  • Anyone who can write music, who can play instruments, and/or knows the best ways to record music and save it on a computer
  • Any artists that have experience with 3D Object creation and/or are good at drawing on a computer
  • Game Testers – Your job will come later but I will need you once I get a Beta Build, hopefully in December.  Game Testers will be looking for bugs in the game and they will be required to write reports on the errors they encounter and/or problems they have.

So if you have an interest in anything above, please feel free to leave a response in the Contact Us page.  Make sure you include what you are experienced in, examples of your work, your name, and e-mail address where I can contact you and we can discuss details.

Thanks alot for checking out the site and check back every few days for updates and new information I will be revealing about my project!