May/June Newsletter

03/07/201903/07/2019
by Joshua Heng

Hi everyone,

The past two months have gone by quick! With exams for everyone in our team, we have been very busy. Despite this, lots of work has been made on our game Kedian Interspace…

Kedian Interspace

We have been focusing on the game mechanics and programming, with these nearly being completed. Now the aim is to develop our artwork, sound effects and music to a high standard, after which the game will be released in a public beta.

We are hoping to release this beta in the next month or so. Our original release date was the 14th August, our company’s first birthday, but this may need to be delayed due to other commitments of all the developers.

Find out more about Kedian Interspace

Illumination

Our other game Illumination has also been coming along well. This is a simpler game than Kedian Interspace, which some of us are working on at the same time. The public beta and release dates are looking the same though, with us hoping to release the beta within a month.

Public Betas

As part of our vigorous testing scheme, once we have ironed out all the bugs we can, we release the games as public betas. This means that anyone, including you, can download the game early and help us in the game development process by bringing any broken features to our attention.

Once these betas are released, we’ll post another blog post, but if you would like to get involved, you can join the Vanadium Games Testing Programme by clicking here. This is the same testing program as we used for The Stacks, so if you already enrolled then, you won’t need to again.

Join the Vanadium Games Testing Programme

More about the Team

Another two blogs have been released in our Getting to Know the Team series – Owen’s and Morgan’s. They provide a summary of what their role is within Vanadium Games and their interests and hobbies.

Check out Morgan’s introduction

Check out Owen’s introduction

All in all, the two months of May and June haven’t seen much progress. However, many things have been being developed in the background between our other commitments. Once we start finalising our art and music, we will be able to post these on our various social media accounts: Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, so follow these to keep updated.

See you next time!

Josh

Bimonthly Newsletter

March/April Newsletter

02/05/201902/05/2019
by Joshua Heng

Hi everyone,

In our second bimonthly newsletter, we cover the events of March and April. We underwent changes for our team and logo whilst also making significant progress on our games. We additionally attended an event at the beginning of March where we showcased The Stacks…

Team Changes

In April, another person joined the team – Owen. He’s been doing lots of work for the art of Kedian Interspace and has fitted into the group well.

Harry has temporarily left us as he has been very busy with other projects, but he will join again soon once he has a bit more free time.

We have also started a blog series where each member of the team introduces themselves. There is currently only one out for Josh, but other people will be releasing theirs soon.

Click here to visit Josh’s introduction

New Logo

The logo of Vanadium Games

We decided to create a new logo as we felt that our old one didn’t resemble us well. Morgan took the lead on the task, and we went through several versions before we finished on one that we all agreed on.

We eventually decided on one with a cog – representing game development – and two electrons, representing the element Vanadium.

Morgan wrote about the various stages of design here

Coolest Projects UK

The Vanadium Games team at Coolest Projects UK

The start of March saw us travelling to Manchester for an event called Coolest Projects UK. This was a convention of young people showcasing what they had made with technology, and we had many visitors to our stand.

This was a brilliant opportunity to gain new players of The Stacks. We printed leaflets and produced a slide-show narrating the story of its development.

We also met new people and were inspired by other projects. Whilst we didn’t read the prize for the ‘Coolest Project’, it was still a great and unforgettable experience.

We wrote a blog post about this event here

Kedian Interspace

Concept art for an alien from Kedian Interspace

Our game Kedian Interspace has had significant progress – we have been creating many sprites and developing game mechanics. On the 15th April, Josh and Morgan met up for the whole day to decide some key parts of Kedian Interspace such as the style of all the art and turret design.

Find out more about Vanadium Games Day

Illumination

We have also begun work on a new game called Illumination. It aims to be a minimalistic and simple game where the player has to create circuits to light up certain light bulbs. Some members of our team are working on this in addition as working on Kedian Interspace, which will take a while longer to finish and release.

Social Media

An image of our Instagram account

We have continued posting to our various social media accounts to market our games. We focus on Instagram, as we feel that that is where most of our target audience are active, where we now have over 400 followers

March and April have been eventful months with lots of changes being made. The next two months might see less work being done, with exams looming for many members of the team, however, we hope to still make progress on Kedian Interspace and Illumination.

See you next time!

Josh – Lead Game Developer

Blog

Vanadium Games Day

17/04/201917/04/2019
by Morgan Gray

On the 15th April, Josh & I met up for Vanadium Games Day where we focused on making progress of Kedian Interspace. The main aim of this was to decide on some of the key aspects in person.

Vanadium Games has already given us some great experiences including exhibiting our project at Coolest Projects. In our second game, we are learning a number of new principles in our project including our online account system and in-game currency.

An image of Josh & Morgan — Josh & Morgan who attended Vanadium Games Day

We produced a large amount of concept art for our new game Kedian Interspace and are now beginning to create the final sprites and tiles. There are a large variety of different assets which we hope will create an engaging, multilevel game.

An image of Morgan planning the look of turrets — Morgan planning the style of the turrets for Kedian Interspace

We have decided to make an accounts system to allow users to sync game data between different devices – Josh was developing the system using PHP and had to overcome many challenges such as encrypting and hashing confidential data.

An image of Josh programming the Kedian Interspace accounts system — Josh working on an accounts system for Kedian Interspace

In conclusion, the 14th of April was a brilliant day where we managed to get lots of work done for Kedian Interspace. Follow our social media accounts (Instagram, Twitter and Facebook) to keep updated and to be the first to know when the first betas come out!