GCSA Studios

Lights Still On?

// August 30th, 2010 // No Comments » // News

Negative. I say again, be advised that you are the only GCSA asset in that area.

Sorry for the near month of radio silence. Flanders and I have been quite busy. Unfortunately, not busy with anything GCSA related. As I mentioned in the previous post, he moved to the high desert. This makes meeting with him in person even harder than in the past. Some say he’s nothing more than a web-based AI at this point. On the plus side, he did learn some very valuable systems administration skills! ::Drumroll:: Flanders learned how to change his router’s local IP address! Woot!

What am I up to, you ask? Well, I moved as well. I now live in sunny Orange County, Florida. As you can tell from the dust around here, I haven’t done anything GCSA related in over a month. I’ve been busy rigorously renovating my new residence. Long time safari buddy, Adam Simpson, helped. You should be friends with him. He’s the real Next Design Star, dontcha know. But once I’m settled in, GCSA functions will resume. I may devote more time to GCSA-JPL than GCSA Studios, but just keep checking this space.

The soldiers we need them to be…

Cody and Miller are holding things together back at GCSA headquarters… with new gadgets! Cody just got himself a shiny new laptop! It’s identical to mine, model #: [redacted]. As for Miller? By this time tomorrow, he’ll have “the next generation of does” in his hot little hand. Thanks to my leet hacks though, my Droid1 is nearly even with his DroidX in terms of performance. A reunion for all of us is inevitable and it will likely involve us playing DJ Hero2 with Miller on guitar, Flanders on microphone, and myself on turntables. Cody is above such nonsense. He’ll be building a Lego fort. In any case… when this happens, and it will, a video will be shared with you all.

Gamma station, this is Fermion RSO…

In closing, just


until Halo: Reach! We hope to see you on Xbox Live!

By Sharp and Flame,
Carter

Mistakes Were Made

// July 22nd, 2010 // No Comments » // News

Listen to the road… See what it’s telling ya…
- Cody Carpenter

Last weekend was epic win.
As you may or may not know, Flanders is moving to the desert. He is either going on a spiritual retreat amongst the steppes with little more than the chirps of cactus wrens to keep him company, or he is going to college for video game design. I don’t remember, but in any case, he is moving away from the Southeast. Since he may not be back for a while, Flanders wanted to visit Orlando, FL one last time before moving. He asked Cody and I to join him on his 5 day journey. Alas, we couldn’t due to school. He went with his BFF Jill Alice.

You’re probably aware by now that we at GCSA aren’t exactly the smartest folks in the world. Cody and I didn’t realize that Flanders’ 5 day trip included a weekend until it was Friday and he was there. Upon realizing our oversight, we immediately packed our bags and made plans to depart bright and early to surprise them in the happiest place on earth. We harassed Flanders with ominous messages here and there telling him to be on the look out for a surprise, but never alluded to what it was.

Saturday afternoon, we raided Flanders’ hotel. Smiles were had all around and the mission was complete; all that remained was for us to have an epic weekend in Orlando. Evening was setting in, and after visiting at the hotel for a while, we picked up my girlfriend, Alicia, and the 5 of us were off to eat at Planet Hollywood.

What do you want to drink with your meal? Bacardi.
Are… are you sure? For your whole meal? Yep.

After dinner, we all retired and the next day we spent the rest of our time together at Downtown Disney. Cody bought Legos. More money was spent on Legos than what a park ticket would have cost. Mistakes were made. But all in all, after 36 hours and 750 miles, our spur of the moment plan was totally worth it.

By Sharp and Flame,
Carter

Happy Bungie Day

// July 7th, 2010 // No Comments » // News

GCSA crew sporting Bungie-only armor

Monolith

// June 10th, 2010 // No Comments » // News

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more…

One day, not too long ago, Flanders and I were working on [Dimensional]. As we were bashing away, we were struck with an idea for yet another new game! We are very excited about this. We are more excited for this than we were for [Dimensional], during its beginning! Before I break down our new plan, let me give you some back-story.

As some of you may know, I have an old arcade cabinet that I basically rescued from the clutches of obsolescence. There are pictures “after the jump” as they say. But the important thing to note is that I have recently upgraded this machine (formally dedicated DigDug) into a 2 player machine that I can use to execute whatever I like, even unsigned code. Starting to get the picture?

GCSA has created websites, games for PC’s and Nintendo’s Wii, short films, music, posters, etc. With our love for nostalgia, it was only a matter of time before we created content for a medium that effectively died out in the late 90′s: arcade machines!

I am announcing, here and now, that the next GCSA game will be a 2 player fighting game for arcade cabinets. Once completed, and only once completed, the game will be ported to PC and possibly to the Wii. The product is in development now, and hopefully we will have a working beta running on my system in the next couple of weeks. Right now, progress is being hampered by Flanders and Miller not providing me with requested in-game images. Please direct all relevant messages to their respective inbox. Below are the pictures I mentioned.

By Sharp and Flame,
Carter

The Autopsy of Games

// June 1st, 2010 // 2 Comments » // News

The following post is the sole work of Alex Flanders and does not reflect the views or opinions of any other GCSA member. Issues raised in this post are to be viewed as nothing other than political satire.

Allo lovelies! This is Flanders here with a post that I’ve been meaning to send out to everyone for quite some time.  For those of you who don’t know, I love video games. It’s the truth! I would quite honestly do things which are probably illegal in the US to some of my favorite games… if only I could. Anyways! I’m here to talk to you about what makes a game great. Why? Because we at GCSA strive to give you the best that we can in everything that we do. Since we have been working on several video games, I figured I’d share with you what I personally believe makes a great video game and what I hope to see in our products!

To me, the very best part of a video game is the story. If the story doesn’t have me hooked within the first hour or so, I’m done. I need something that I can sit down and play because I want to find out the ending. Because I want to know what happens to the characters that I’m playing as. Because I want to know which stupid castle the bloody princess is at and how she managed to get kidnapped by salad toppings! But, I digress… Nearly all of my favorite games are due to the story. Alan Wake. Read Dead Redemption. Fallout 3. Mass Effect. Mass Effect 2. Kingdom Hearts. Bioshock. Suikoden V. Dragon Quest 8. Final Fantasy X. Star Ocean: The Last Hope.  All those games have excellent stories! From the very first cut scene you are drawn into the story. You are introduced to characters that are likable, and soon the game takes on a world of its own. I love the types of games that you can fully immerse yourself into. Those are the very best.

Of course, that’s not to say that I haven’t played my fair share of games that I love, but have stories are completely asinine. Take Halo for example. My all time favorite FPS. I own every Halo game to date! Even… HaloWars… which we won’t talk about. I love it. Why? Because the gameplay is addictive and fun. I can hop on with my friends, and we can play it and have fun no matter what. While I have played some games with excellent story and terrible gameplay, it is very rare. Having an excellent story can only take you so far if the gameplay is atrocious.  There has to be a balance there.  Something addictive. Something easy. Yet something that has many layers beneath so that you are always learning something new. Some new way to tweak your movements. Some new skill which will let you do something you thought was impossible.

The final part of any great game is the music. I can’t tell you how many times I will play a game and the music just doesn’t fit what is happening. One of the best music things I can think about is during Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Right as you step out of the bunker and see the White House destroyed… The music was just perfect for that setting. While most people don’t realize it, the music plays a key part in a video game. It adds to the level of immersion and completes the game as a whole. Not to mention, music helps you to associate with a game as well. I can’t hear the song Beyond the Sea without thinking of Bioshock.

One last thing is the awe factor. There are just some moments in gaming history which you see and you know you will never forget. For me those are moments like in Fallout 3 when you step out of the vault. Assassin’s Creed when you perform your first leap of faith. Bioshock when you first see Rapture. Halo 3 when you finally find Cortana. Red Dead Redemption when you are sitting outside, watching the sun rise above the mountain plains. Those are moments which just take your breath away.

Click to enlarge

We at GCSA are striving to incorporate all of these features into our games, and we hope you can see the grand results when we post them. For now, I will leave you will a small tidbit, a rough concept drawing for a fighting game that we are working on.

This fighting game is going to have a deep leveling customization option. As you can see, my character has already unlocked the Dark Spawn costume. Miller’s character has his own unique leveling up system as well which we believe stays true to his character. Furthermore, we hope to have a deeply routed countering system which addresses issues which we know that you guys will enjoy. All in all, we expect to have about twelve characters, not counting transformations and each character has their own special ability such as my character’s dark void and soul grasp all the way to Miller’s summon guitar and electrical shockwave. As a special treat, we also hope to have special unlockable costumes. Want Carter in an Ash Ketcham outfit? So do we! Want me in a dark lord outfit!? Well…that’s my basic outfit. Want me in a Kaiba outfit? Done! Want Miller in a box? We have that to! So you see, it is fun for everyone!

Because I Can,
Alex