New Ether One Trailer - 'The Restorer' Live

Hey everyone!

So just a quick one today - as most of you may know am the co-founder and Creative Director of White Paper Games. We are currently developing our first game, Ether One, and have just released a brand new trailer that focuses on new game play, mechanics and environments.

If you get a chance check it out and let me know what you think.

More info for Ether One can be found on our Steam Greenlight page via the link here.

Thanks

Ben

Wot I Have Been Up To: Indie Game Development

Over the past couple of years I have been working hard with a team of 6 incredibly talented game developers to establish our very own game development studio (White Paper Games) as well as develop our very own IP (Ether One) into a fully functioning and exciting PC game.

After I finished my Masters I really wanted to do something that allowed me to have a certain amount of creative control over a project and I felt that if I had gone to work in a larger studio this wouldn’t have happened for a long time. This may all sound impatient (and I may very well have been) but I had all these burning ideas inside of me that I desperately needed to get out. At the time I squashed these crazy ideas down and focused on finding a job within the industry so I could pay my bills and rent and actually live a comfortable life. That was until one night I was having a conversation with my friend Pete (who had been a peer during my MA) who was having the same thoughts as I. Two plus two equalled four and we realised that this was an opportunity to actually create something that we could call our own.

It was then that White Paper Games was born.

Pictures from our Prototype Fund final meeting in London

Two years later we are in the thick of it developing our first title Ether One, we have gained substantial funding through the Prototype Fund to aid the project, I have spoken at Develop and been in its 30 under 30 for 2012 and our game has been in the press on several occasions gaining some much needed love and support. We employ an additional 4 developers making us a team of 6 and we all share the single goal and vision for our first game and the studio. We have studio space in the centre of Manchester in a great and creative location (sharing the office area with some potters and some architects) making it great for truly creative work.

The White Paper Games Team

If I was to say that things have worked out alright then I don’t think I would be lying. Yes, I don’t have much money and yes, I do have to do up to 60 hours a week and extra work teaching at degree level to pay the bills but at least I have this opportunity.

When I am old I can tell people that I took that risk.

That I and my friends dared to follow that dream and we had a damn blast whilst doing it. With that said I don’t think I could have gone down this route without the support of the guys over at the studio as well as my family (and everyone else’s families).

Me speaking at Develop Conference 2012 in Brighton

We are hoping that Ether One will be released sometime this year before the summer is out through a variety of digital distributors and I hope even more that people out there like the work that 6 guys poured their hearts into making.

 I hope that comes through in our work.

Ether One Beta Screenshot

If you are interested in the work that we have been doing you should check out ether-game.com and whitepapergames.com for loads more info on what we have been up to.

You never know, it all may just work out fine and only time will tell. 

NJ (Our Sound Designer) is excited about our new chairs!

Guess who is back…

It has been a year and a half since I last wrote a blog post on No Rules Required. Normally I would try and justify the reason for not committing to my own creation, giving you reasons for why I have been on this hiatus. Yet this time I do not want to.

I have realised after spending the last year and a half building up White Paper Games with Pete and teaching games design at Futureworks that excuses do not get you anywhere (even on a blog) and that in fact it is best to own up to your own failures and weaknesses so that you can learn from them and move forward.

With this in mind I have decided to do just that with my blog by utilising my paper based journals as influence for my writings making it easier to commit to writing about design, games, ideas and education.

To kick start this new blogging spree I have also decided to throw a few catch up posts out there entitled ‘Wot I have been up to’ that will be looking at a few aspects of my career, achievements and challenges over the past year and half that I feel are worth discussing.

All in all I feel positive about this new venture and I feel that No Rules Required is once again going to be a larger part of my life, my company and, most important of all, my ideas and designs. 

It has been a long time...

Hello there everyone...

My last post on No Rules Required was an apology for why I haven't been posting so much. The reason, apart from working very hard to complete my Masters, is because I have been busy setting up my own game design studio White Paper Games and designing our first title named Ether. 


The past few months have been pretty tough with working at a day job and for White Paper Games but everything is finally coming together well. We have started production of our demo that hopefully we will have ready to show you around September time and maybe some screen shots even sooner. We have also been trotting around the UK and attended this years Develop Conference which was a great chance to meet people in the industry and make some new friends.

So yet again I apologise for no posts but would like to reassure you all that this is still my personal blogging site and that I will be uploading weekly blogs relating to both my academic career and my adventure with White Paper Games.

So if you haven't already you can visit us at www.whitepapergames.wordpress.com, follow us on Twitter and join our group on Facebook to see what is going on and what we have been up to!

Update on lack of posting

This is just a quick post to explain why I haven’t been keeping up to date with No Rules Required recently. As you may know I have been playing around with various different ideas and have been sticking my thumbs in too many projects to actually focus on any particular one properly. In terms of my work approach this hasn’t been very productive and although I have been working continuously I haven’t managed to progress fast enough or deep enough with any one project to feel like I am achieving anything.

So with this I have decided to place to the side any projects I was currently tinkering with to start a new project with a couple of peers that I worked with during my Masters to actual create something that is professional and exciting.

In terms of information I sadly cannot divulge anything to you till we have something solid to show, but what I can say is that as soon as we have something set up to view I will be posting a link on here. As for posts of my work and articles on here or Gamasutra, unfortunately they will be on hold as all my time and effort is going into this projects design, although I do have a few interesting articles stored up in my brain for you.

Ciao 

Whats that Mr. Box? You can pick things up now?

Small post today with good news! As you may know from my last post I have been tinkering with the idea of small puzzle game involving balls, triggers, platforming and doors. Well I was pondering one of my mechanics which originally was the ability to pick rigidbodies up with your mouse and move them around and realised the problem with this mechanic is that I have used this in a number of other projects before. Knowing this I knew that I really fancied something different with the same objective as the drag/drop. So after many hours trying various scripts and asking for help from the lovely people on many a forum I have managed to make a square pick up a ball by a click of a button!


This may not seem like much to an experienced programmer but in terms of where this projects is now heading I practically have all the tools to really create something fun. This new ability limits the players to only pick objects up when they are stood infront of them. They can then move them around the game play area and drop them where they would like to.

Check the small demo out below to see how it would work with my current ideas.

Another room in a 2D style rather than 2.5D

I made an extra room in the game and changed the camera to orthographic so that the visuals were 2D rather than 2.5D.

Again like before for better quality check out YouTube.