Through my adventures of Computer Science and my voyage through learning about electrical engineering, software architecture, modelling, and animation, I have been testing everything in various real-time engines to satisfy my curiosity. One of the bigger test scenarios have become so interesting that I decided to make a game out of it.

The idea sprang from nothing more than a character model that I was required to do for the Game Institute (tm). It was just a model with some skinning, but I wanted to try and animate it and put it into a real-time engine. The model is a tiger-bird hybrid, and the idea of flying and hunting interested me, so I started programming some effects and controls for flying. Everything of course got pushed aside because of other courses and I forgot about it for a while. I have so many ideas sometimes, it is a bit hard to keep track of them all. I write them down and then they are forgotten.

A year later and I'm sat with more time on my hands now. This project is small but requires good programming on the controls and the AI. The work, that has to be done, is affordable enough that I can produce it myself. The world requires vegetation and terrain, and some wild-life. Everything requires sound-effects and atmosphere. I need some very solid controls on the actual character and some good collision handling/animations ( falls, crashes , catches and take-downs ). Last, but not least, I need some cut-scenes to lead the player in and immerse them (All my fav games have some good cut-scenes!). Story is everything, and even though I can't afford voice-actors or mo-cap animations, I can definitely create lively cut-scenes using the graphics and sound I can muster up for my requirements.

I have everything planned out and half the assets done. The rest should come swiftly as I get into routine, and I look forward to the first tests!

I will keep posts here on GameDev, partly as a diary and partly as a way to get critique and new ideas. Test-versions might also come up for better feed-back, but I'm still green and, I must admit, shy to what the internet might spout in my face about my baby ( why should it matter, though? The point is to have fun ).

It's not gonna be 50 hours a week, 30 is more likely. I have a full-time job to attend, a search for a new job to keep up and pheromones to apply to a hungry female of my species. Time-frame is about 2 months of work and I intend to keep as close to the deadline as my head will allow.

-Alpha