Steps into uncharted territory.

I’ve finally started official development on a game I’ve been working on for about two years.
The game will be build upon the (open source) Quake 3 engine and I’ve gathered a team of people who will help me visualize this completely new concept for the PC, where we’ll be trying to release for the most common OS’s, such as Windows, Mac and Linux.

The aim of this project is to try to create a game on mostly open source software tools (such as Gimp and Blender) and see if a marketable product can be produced, but also to get the developers professional experience in the field of gamedesign.

The game itself will be aiming to the, as I dubbed it, “Wii audience”: People of all ages, who want to get into a fun game without learning a complicated control scheme.
The plan as of now is to work towards an Alpha in the first quarter of next year. With that, we’ll be visiting some companies to see if they would be interested sponsoring the game (with the help of in-game commercial assets). When we got a few of them on board, we can start working towards a fully playable beta, if not the full game.

When the full game will be released, depending on the popularity, there will be monthly updates as to keep adding to the existing content.
Since the game will be free for download, I’ve also scooped up the domain www.downloadthisgame.com, which will be serving as one of the main download sites on release.

Further more, progress on the ETQW modification (Wheels of War) is also coming along great.
We’ve been able to get a great team together, and currently I’m getting myself updated on the new engine, especially the process of modeling terrains with 3DS Max, which is a strong prerequisite when mapping for ETQW.
The next few weeks I’ll be keeping a log on how progress on both these projects is getting along.

Posted at 1pm on 11/07/07 | no comments | Filed Under: Projects read on

I love Brighton.

Phew, finally in England.

I’m staying in Brighton at the moment and it seems to be a very nice place: Lots of cool people, good environment (beach nearby, wooyay) and a freelance job; What more can a man ask for? (besides beer, women and plenty of money…)
Currently I’m staying with a friend and once I got a decent job going, or have a little bit of pounds-saving, I’ll be starting to look for my own place.

I’m still trying to get accustomed to the English habits (read: Going to a pub almost every night, not saying “Have a nice dinner” when people start eating, and trying to look to the right side of the road when crossing), but that seems to be something that you get used to along the way.
As of now, I’m very busy to get myself a fulltime position as a leveldesigner, but since there’s the saying “Being at the right place, at the right time”, I’m especially happy that at least I’m at the right place now; I only got to wait for the right time */me checks clock*

The only thing I’m missing at the moment is my good ol’ computer; I had to leave it at home, as I was unable to take it with me on the airplane. Because of this I’ve also had to put my current game on a temporary hold, but I guess that time can be well spent finishing the gamedesign document and looking at ways to properly implement the in-game ads.
I’ve also joined a modteam (as the lead leveldesigner) for the game Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, called Wheels of War, but as noticed; I’m also currently unable to do anything useful for that. Then again, the mod is still in its starting phase, and I guess by the time we’re working towards an Alpha, I’ll be having access to my ‘puter again.

Posted at 11am on 10/01/07 | no comments | Filed Under: News read on

About

This is Nosoup.net, home of NoSoup4U.

So why can’t you have any soup? Well, it’s actually only my online screen name I’ve been using since 1998 and has been freely taken from a Seinfeld episode.

My real name is Roy van Es, I live in the Netherlands and I’ve been playing videogames since I was about six years old.
It all started with the good old’ Atari 2600 (Combat still rocks my socks to this day) and, while I swiftly became intrigued by videogames, I moved on to a VIC-20 so I could start to modify games myself (oh, how I loved the days of “hax0ring” a game with the help of the Run-Stop button).

I soon realized the limitations of the VIC-20, and my parents were kind enough to sponsor my trip to the superior world of Commodore 64.
When I wasn’t playing Lazy Jones I was very busy modifying the several games I had. To this day I still regret selling my C64 (the money was put towards a Super Nintendo), and have since then reminiscenced with my backup cassette full of bleeps and crackles of long lost ‘games’ (and I define ‘game’ very freely here, because some of my *cough* projects back then only involved the player typing in his/her name, followed by maybe some extra personal details, so it could result in a nice “[Insert name] has been an ugly penguin for [Insert age] years!” being spammed all over the screen).

So my hay days of C64 hax0ring were ended by the new reign of the Super Nintendo which took over the household.

I bought my first PC in 1997 when I went to live on my own, after finishing my high school and having traveled through Australia for a year.
I quickly became engrossed with the first Quake (which was the household game for LANs, shortly followed by Duke Nukem 3D), and shortly after discovered that I could design my own maps with Deathmatchmaker (I still wake up in cold sweat thinking of the horrible procedures I had to go through to build a proper map with that editor).

Thus my modifying-games-spirit had been awakened once again and I noticed how my architecture-study could be nicely incorporated in creating my virtual environments (what’s better than to test the flow of your building while deathmatching through it; although I wonder if any real estate agents ever considered rocketjumpable window heights to be an all-time seller…).

I started to play online about the release of Quake III: Arena and, halfway through the release, I got addicted to the Q3F modification, a remake of the popular Quakeworld Team Fortress mod for the first Quake.
Accidentally (or isn’t it?! *cue scary violins*) I also took a break from my architecture study as, after three years, I realized I wouldn’t be happy with a job where the actual creativity when designing a building was being limited to only five percent, whereas the remaining 95 percent consisted of either endless debating on the material being used for the wiring canals/draining pipes/[insert your own boring object], or slashing the best deals with the contractors, financial advisors and city counselors.

I indulged myself into the various aspects of creating a game, specifically the so-called first person shooters, and created my first, publicly released, series of maps for the Q3F modification. The Q3F Minigames (as the series of six maps was dubbed) were a collection of maps that were aimed at lower player counts (two to eight people) and instead of deathmatch/capture the flag game types, the pack was focusing on different game types for each map. My favorite map of the pack is still Q3F_mg_rockethill, where the player has to reach the top of a sloped ramp while constantly having to dodge rockets which are fired from the top of the hill.
I also created a few CTF maps for Q3/Q3F, but most stayed unreleased and were used to either make myself used to GtkRadiant (and Q3F’s complex entity system), or to test out different game play variations; a lot of which served me as a base for the fifteen mini-game maps I finished up for the Enemy Territory modification, ETF: the ETF Minigames.
I’ve also been busy getting myself up to date with the latest engines (specifically Doom 3/Quake 4/Prey and Half-Life 2), and one of the current results is the port of a CTF map for the Quake 4 modification Q4F (yet again another Team Fortress mod).

I’ve also been working on some private projects for some… years, one of which is a port of the popular eighties arcade game, Elevator Action, on the HL 2 engine.

At the moment I’m 29 and I finally made the decision to try to make a living doing what I enjoy most: Creating levels/virtual environments. I finally finished up my portfolio and from here on I’ll be trying to secure myself a job with a game studio; preferably as a level designer, but currently willing to take on anything which will get my foot into the industry.
So, to sum it all up: This site will serve as a showcase for the different things I’ve created, but also give a peek at the current projects I’m working on.

For now I’m focusing on designing levels for first person shooter games and besides that, I also like to create all sorts of other things such as object models, 3D animations, websites, and short movies.

I’m self-taught in most things I’ve learned so far and it’s been a fun experience along the way. I’m currently proficient with several 3D-packages, such as 3DS Max, Lightwave, Blender3D and, level design specific, the Radiant and Worldcraft/Hammer editors.
I’m also able to use several other tools such as Adobe’s Photoshop/Imageready/After Effects, Macromedia’s Flash MX/Dreamweaver MX and, after following several dedicated courses and studies over the year, I’ve become an expert in using Notepad ;).

For a more visual representation of who I am and what I’ve been making the past few years, have a look at my portfolio.

For more information you can contact me either by email at My Email Adress (obfuscated for spam bots) or on IRC.

Catch you around,
Roy ‘NoSoup4U’ van Es.

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