A Brief Introduction

Blogging aye, well here goes… my names Adam Jarvis, I’m 19 and come from a small, sunny, bubble town formally known as Harpenden. However my current location is now De montfort University, Leicester. Compared to a very relaxed year out of education, earning a bit of money, passing the stupid amount of tests required to earn my full motorcycle license and general dossing about, I now spend the majority of my time working hard for my course Game Art & Design, or alternatively on the usual nights out drinking lots or late night sessions smoking whatever.  ANYWAY… so why did I choose this course, well after many wasted enjoyable years of playing games with friends, family and complete strangers online, it seems game art design would be the perfect course to prepare me for a career in the games industry doing something I would actually enjoy, level design being my ideal specialist area. Level design is something that appeals to me more than say character modelling or creating endless amount of inanimate objects. I guess this interest began after playing on some real iconic maps which really can make a game brilliant! whenever I remember the days playing Counter Strike, cs_office or de_dust 2 (my two favourite maps) immediately spring to my mind, the same with Battlefield 2 or even the old Mario games on the Gameboy, picking up the game after years of not playing it I was surprised to as how much of the game world I could actually remember. 

I think that level design is very important in immersing the player into a game. Creating realistic architecture, landscapes and environments.  HOWEVER, that was before my first experience using Autodesk 3dsmax.  To be honest, I found the first few game production lectures very difficult and seriously doubted my position on the course, trying to get used to using the software was a nightmare. But after downloading a free and completely legal version, (thanks to the awesome team at Autodesk giving students FREE software) lots of practise, trial and error, I finally started to get familiar with the program and actually enjoyed using it, rather than feeling the need to punch my laptop really, REALLY hard every 5 seconds. A job with id software would amazing, particularly working on titles such as Rage, games with a very unique appearance and style really appeal to me. I guess coming from a fine art background, I love to play games which have a strong art direction. Some of my favourites over the years include Limbo shadow of colossus and ICO. For a PlayStation 2 title, SOTC looks absolutely stunning, however this beutyoften came at a sacrifice of frame rates. I was very excited when Kenji Kaido announced that a re-mastered version of both games will be released, just need to get my hands on a PlayStation 3!