“Knowing that we can compete with them and hold our own is cool.”īoth Reed and Ellis credit their professors and say they’re grateful for the opportunity to be part of the animation program at BYU and to have real-world experience in a studio-like format something they feel has already set them up for success after graduation. “It’s really cool to see BYU up there with these very specialized schools that are focused on animation and game design,” said Reed. BYU was also named the number five school in the world for game design, joining a list that includes institutions such as New3dge in France and the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. The game was completed as a capstone project for BYU animation students and was subsequently recognized by the Rookie Awards as one of the top games of the year. “It’s not a combat game, but there are defense moves the Shepherd uses so finding the balance in creating the game was challenging because we wanted to create something that would appeal to a variety of players.” “We spent a lot of time watching how people would interact with the game and learning how different people would play it,” she said. In the game, users play as the Shepherd and leverage strategy and puzzle-solving skills to guide lost sheep to safety.Įllis said designing a video game requires laser-like focus on the core experiences of the game and forced her and her team to think creatively about how the game would progress, how to equip the main character with tools to ward off attackers, and ultimately, how a user could succeed in the game. “When the animation program started asking for ideas for a video game, I decided to pitch it and other students really liked the idea and it started taking off from there.” “I’d been wanting to tell a story with a new take on the Grim Reaper since the summer of 2018 but I wasn’t sure what the right format would be I wondered whether it could be a book or a TV show or some short animation,” she said. The concept for the game stemmed from an idea Ellis had been mulling over for years. The game is available for free and can be played on a PC. Game players leverage strategy and simple puzzle solving skills to guide the sheep to safety. The Shepherd guides the sheep to safe spaces, fending off vicious wolves and other dangers that lurk in the dark. In the game, users play as the Shepherd, an eternal being that rescues and protects lost sheep in a mythical land called the Inbetween. Scheduling everything and keeping us on track was my responsibility.” “The concept art had to be done before the models and the models had to be done before the animation. “There’s a lot of moving parts, and there’s an order to designing a game like this,” said Reed, who noted that his role as producer was to keep everyone moving in the right direction. They estimate thousands of hours went into the game from concept art, 3D modeling, computer programming, special effects, and music. Ellis and Reed collaborated with roughly 50 other students to bring the game to life – an arduous project that began in the summer of 2021. So I’ll be reading as much of that as I can before the PCBs arrive and soldering starts.Liminus: The Silent Guard is an interactive computer game directed and produced by BYU students Emily Ellis and Gabe Reed, respectively. I’ve got hold of a copy of How To Program The Z80 by Rodnay Zaks, which is supposed to be one of the best books of its time. Sure, it may not be the most sophisticated program out there, but it demonstrates to me that the tools work! It then adds 23 and 100 and takes away 35. Which I then programmed in to and run on īasically, it loads register A with 23, loads register B with 100, loads C with 35. I have also run my first ever Z80 assembly language program! However, I’ve been looking in to the LED matrix boards a bit more, and working out how I’m going to connect them up (short answer – use breadboards to complete the challenge, but get PCBs made up for long term mounting.).Īs the breadboard Z80 runs Microsoft Basic, I have been using that to test out a few bits in terms of orientation of the matrices and the best way to drive them. Until the batch of PCBs arrive, I am kind of in limbo land. But nothing really specific or bloggable. That’s not to say I haven’t been doing anything. So, after a flurry of activity, blog posts and updates at the start of the month, things have got a bit quiet.
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