So the IGDA just posted the 2010 winners of the scholarships. Here's the link. I still get giddy when I see my name on the net.

Maglev is proceeding nicely. After some playtesting, we've decided to redesign some of the introductory levels. It seems that the mechanic we designed for during preproduction isn't the mechanic that players find the most fun. We planned for puzzles that required the player to move magnets into specific areas in specific ways. This came mostly from the wonderful proof of concept that David Saunders, our associate producer, put together with the Hammer engine. Play testers were more interested in the experimental levels that the designers built to explore the use of magnets and magnetic volumes that the programmers designed. In those levels, the player moved themselves, floating and attaching themselves to movable magnets. There was also interest in "throwing" magnets, essentially reversing the players polarity against a magnet they held.

I believe that the 3rd person camera is the reason for the difference in what felt like fun for the player and what we designed during preproduction. The first person perspective along with the fine-tuned control of the gravity gun in Hammer/Half-Life 2 made moving magnets more fun. In fact, dynamically moving the player via attachment to magnets really isn't very easily done in Hammer. Since we are producing the game using the Unreal UDK engine and the 3rd person camera choice was made by our producer, the play experience is much different. In all, I think we're going in the right direction with the redesign, though, we don't have a lot of time for revision, so we need to hit our target with this design. Here's the video of one of our SCRUM sessions last week. We really have a great team.

Hi all,

I received a very exciting email this week. Here's the best part:

Dear Toby McCall,

This email is to congratulate you on winning an IGDA Scholarship to this year’s Game Developer Conference. Out of hundreds of scholarship applications our judges came to the conclusion that you were one of the most deserving candidates.

Whooohoooo!

I'll post more info when I get it, but the scholarship includes a main floor pass, access to presentations and workshops, and a tour of a local design studio. And if that wasn't enough, I'll be escorted around by an industry professional. Not too shabby. I'm very thankful and excited.

Stay tuned...