POID - Promenite Studios LLC

Title: POID

Genre: Action, Puzzle

Date: October 2009 - February 2010

Release Date: July 2010 on iPhone / iPod Touch App Store

Hardware: iPhone / iPod Touch

Language: Objective-C with OpenGL ES

IDE: XCode v3.1.2

Team: Dan Commo, James McBride, Joe Merhej

Pitch:

Do you remember when game consoles had a wood finish? Do you remember when two paddles and a ball was all you needed for a fun time? One stick... one button... That's all you needed. But now you own an iPhone. Relive those glory days in STYLE! On that iPhone! Heck, even share in the retro fun with your friends and family!

Main Features:

• Minimal but responsive touch controls
• Simple yet addictive game concept
• Multi-player or Multi-fingered

POID Official Website:

http://www.promenite.com/poid.htm

Screen Shots:

Coming Soon...

Smart Tower Defense iPhone/iPod Touch - Senior Project

Title: Smart Tower Defense

Genre: Tower Defense

Date: December 2009-February 2010

Hardware: iPod Touch / iPhone

Language: Objective-C with OpenGL ES

IDE: XCode v3.1.2

Team: James McBride, Justin Mortenson

Screen Shots:

Tag: Upgrading a tower

Tag: Title Screen

Smart Tower Defense PC - Senior Project

Title: Smart Tower Defense

Genre: Tower Defense

Date: October 2009 - February 2010

Hardware: PC

Language: C++ with OpenGL

IDE: Visual Studio 2008

Team: Pierre Borges, Roderick Hossack, James McBride, Justin Mortenson, Matt Mundy, Deborah Nethery, Jamie Pittman, Jon Skelton

Pitch:

Your prized green house is coming along great! You've found new clients to buy your products and all is starting to come into view. However, you start to notice some bugs here and there. But wait there's more... and now weeds have started to grow in your prized tomatoes. Don't panic, EZ Green is here to help keep your product healthy and your clients happy! Attack those bugs with our special insecticide and roach motel and keep those weeds at bay with our weed killer and towers. If those weeds and pests get to your green house, it's game over!

Story:

You play as farmer Bob, protecting your green house from the attack of pests and weeds trying to invade. Set up towers in order to keep these invaders at bay and gain money in order to upgrade your defenses from the ever-increasing attacks. However not everything can go as planned, and eventually your green house will be overrun by these pests. What to do next? Visit the EZ Green website for further instructions on how you can keep your greenhouse going!

Main Features:

• Ever-increasing difficulty of enemy waves
• Upgradeable towers in order to defend your greenhouse
• Opportunity to connect to the EZ Green website to promote the product

After-Thoughts...

This opened up a different difficulty I haven't had to experience yet, which was working with a large group of individuals, most of which I've never worked with, in order to create a game on time. We also had the challenge to figure out a game that would work with our made-up product for DeVry's senior project which turned out to be a greenhouse controller that controlled different aspects of a greenhouse. However since the same project last semester was a greenhouse simulation, we didn't want to do the same thing again so instead came up with this different promotion in which you could advertise through a simple and fun game of tower defense.

The PC version was actually the prototype version, in which I personally worked with Jamie in order to create the NPC, Wave System and Pathing classes used in the game. I also worked with Deb in order to create the Game Manager. Overall it was a success and laid the framework in the first eight weeks for when Justin and I had to port this over to the iPhone in order to complete it in a different language.

There were a few issues that arose from the PC version, mainly being that keeping people motivated in a large group was a challenge. Usually we worked in eight week projects. but this was our first 16 week project so people started to slack off. This was addressed with weekly meetings but in the end everyone tried to pull together to get the alpha build for PC done. We did designate who would do what parts, and from that we were able to combine it together without too much hassle. We were all pretty comfortable with C++, so this game was not taken as the challenge it should have been initially.

Screenshots and Videos coming soon...

Mar de Muerte - GSP 410 Project

Title: Mar de Muerte

Genre: Adventure

Date: July - September 2009

Hardware: PC

Language: C# with XNA Game Studio v2.0

IDE: Visual Studio 2008

Team: Andrew Dieppa, Michael Gwynn, James McBride

Pitch:

You are a fresh pirate on the open seas. Take control of your crew and discover the world's treasure while surviving the perils and challenges of the sea. Get out there and become the rich legend you were born to be!

Story:

In this sea adventure game, you pilot your own crew through the seas, discovering treasure and danger around every turn. In this pirate version of Oregon Trail, you'll have to learn how to navigate the seas, protect yourself from diseases, survive the harsh weather conditions and battle other pirates in your conquest to find the ultimate treasure, the Ruby of the Sea.

Main Features:

• Randomly generated weather conditions and diseases
• You chose your own crew and ship title
• Simple controls to pick up and play

After-Thoughts...

Starting this project with two other classmates I've never worked with, I have to admit I'm proud of how this game turned out. The weather and disease state machine worked wonders and the cities were designed great thanks to Michael. Dieppa pulled in in the last bit to help bring audio into the game, making it the best game of the class I'd have to say for our final presentation.

We did have a cut back quite a bit from our initial design like most games have to do. We certainly over-scoped the idea, turning it into a demo more than a full game. We were able to design the first mission which was a delivery mission, however we originally had at least one other mission to be chosen at the start of the game which was a bounty mission. After a few weeks, we started to feel the pressure and decided to cut back so what we had would be quality as oppose to two broken missions. We also ran into interesting issues with camera and boat movement, seeing as how they didn't add up. However through a final realization, that issue was overcome and our game now has an interesting view of movement which I'm glad to have been able to figure out.

All in all, there is more to add to the game in order for it to be complete. However for the time we had to finish it and with a new group, it was a great experience. We had to cope with our different attitudes and experiences to see how everyone would fit in the group and how everyone could benefit to completing the game. I believe we accomplished that and in turn have come away with a good feeling about it.

Screenshots and Videos coming soon

Dreams - GSP 360 Midterm Project

Title: Dreams

Genre: Point-and-Click Adventure

Date: January-March 2009

Hardware: PC

Language: C# with XNA Game Studio v1.0

IDE: Visual Studio 2005/2008

Team: Justin Haimes, James McBride, Deborah Nethery

Pitch:

As the storm rages outside the empty mansion, our heroine awakes. She has no idea who she is, no idea where she is. With only your wits you must help her explore her surroundings, interpret her dreams and find the truth to her life. Step inside and discover the truth… found inside Dreams!

Story:

You play as Krystal, a girl who awakes in an attic of an old Victorian-style mansion without her memory and no way out. In order to recover her lost memories and escape, she must search for find items not only in reality, but within her subconscious dreams as well.

Main Features:

• Simple point-and-click interface
• Engaging mystery story
• Simple but fun puzzles

After-Thoughts...

Seeing as this was our first venture out into XNA, I'm still mildly impressed with what we could accomplish in less than 8 weeks. This was also our first of many small group development classes, but from it I found the strengths and weaknesses from being in a group. This was a big learning experience and a test our skill and patience.

There are many things we could improve upon with this game. From the small time period, we couldn't get text to work so we ended up using static images for each text box. This took up a lot of time and memory to do and since then I've learned to display text. We also would have done a better job in coding standards with inheritance. The way we designed each level could be improved greatly knowing what we know now, as well as the manager for the main game.

There are also things that I want to take away from this game for future development. One being how we pre-loaded images and used them. This technique worked great for pre-loaded images and it's good to have it on hand for later. I have to thank Deb and Prof. Sushil for that!

Deb and I look forward to improving upon this game after graduation, so stay tuned for updates!

Our official Wiki for it: http://suburbanbandit.pbworks.com/

Screen Shots:

Tag: Title Screen

Tag: Password Puzzle

Tag: Drag/Scramble Puzzle

Videos:

Coming soon

Where it starts

This is James McBride and you've found my personal blog of game previews I've helped develop over the past few years. Each blog post will highlight one game project at a time, providing basic information overview of the games and screenshots of actual game play. All material on this site are copywrite of their respective owners including myself and other developers on the project. If you have any questions, comments, or anything you need to know please feel free to email me at the email provided on my profile.

And so it begins!

~James McBride