Friday 12 February 2016

DevBlog #7 – A New Addition Joins the Atom Republic Team and Flawless Real Talk’s music to be featured in Atom Universe


Hello and welcome to another edition of the DevBlog. Last time, we sat down with our CEO Tanguy Dewavrin and was giving a little insight to how Atom Republic started. This week we’ll be turning our attention back to Atom Universe to fill you in on what’s been happening around the Studio.

 Meet Daren White, Programmer and C++ Guru.




Last week, we welcomed Daren White to the Atom Republic team, specializing in Gameplay programming and C++ (check with Daren). Daren brings a whole wealth of experience to the team and has worked on such games as, The Outrun Series, Mortal Kombat, FIFA and more.

“I've been working in the games industry since the early days of home computers (remember when video games were played on tape cassettes?). I've worked on a variety of hardware from the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum up to more modern systems such as PC, consoles and mobile devices. During this time, I've had the privilege of working on many great game titles such as the Outrun series, the Roland series (Amstrad CPC), Mortal Kombat, Turrican, FIFA, and have even been responsible for making the game for a children’s TV show (The Adventures of Captain Zeelig).”



“I'm looking forward to helping optimise the game code, and to working on some of the sub/mini games hidden throughout the world. Also, I'm excited about bringing a social experience to the world of Virtual Reality, especially with all the new VR headsets arriving on the market soon.”

“The other aspect of my work is the learning and skill improvements side of things. This is particularly relevant here with the Unreal Engine and am pleased to be offered the opportunity to upgrade my skillset to include programming in Unreal Engine.”

This Week’s Developer Activity:


Art;


  • Implemented a variety of music and posters to the Arcade Plaza.
  • Looked into collision bugs in the arcade plaza.
  • Improved the UI for the scoreboard and store for the Bowling Alley

Design;


  • Working on implementing the shop interface for the Bowling Alley and making it communicate with our back end servers. Allowing us to store bowling related information in the cloud that can be accessed in game.
  • Focused on cleaning up the front-end UI within the avatar customisation section, so it is more user friendly.

Programming;


  • Looking into issues on the Avatar/Player menu system, making sure that the player can select different categories and function.
  • Working on the server scalability. Allowing us to easily create new servers automatically as demand rises and monitoring the performance of the various machines.
  • Credits system. When logging in a player can now receive a daily bonus of Atomz and extra bonus when logging in on consecutive days.
  • Working on UI for the online list and in-game text chat
  • Improving sitting functionality for avatars

Production;


  • Updating the details on the Atom Universe Steam Store page, to reflect what’s going to be in-game when we’re ready to launch on Steam Early Access
  • Updating our market materials to show off how awesome Atom Universe is going to be

Community;


  • Maintaining and updating the content calendar for future updates for the community and plotting world domination.
  • Organising Atom Universe’s music and creating a schedule for the rotation tracks.

Flawless Real Talk’s music to be featured in Atom Universe



“It” Factor. Superstar. Celebrity. Many are manufactured, but few are born with it. Alberto “Flawless” Martinez is a natural artist. A native of Providence, Rhode Island, Flawless was surrounded by music at an early age. Tagging along with his stepfather who worked for a tour bus company, it gave him the chance to experience what life on the road was like. “I was already in love with music, but being on the road showed me what kind of hard work it took to take things to the next level.”

Growing up in a small town inspired the young star to begin focusing on his future goal of becoming a recording artist. “Rhode Island is very small and my town is even smaller. Everyone knows everyone. It forced me to work harder to get out and get more exposure.” Fusing his love for hip-hop and R&B, the 16-year-old began recording and writing original music with the help of a local producer. As he began to take over the local scene, he realized it wasn’t enough.

In 2010, Flawless packed up his belongings and moved to Atlanta Georgia in hopes of expanding his brand in a thriving market. Only two months after, Flawless won Hot 107.9’s “Birthday Bash” competition to open up for Ludacris and Rick Ross in Philips Arena for a sold out 20,000 fans. He began to receive recognition from all major outlets in the Atlanta area opening for all major artist in the city. In 2011, Flawless opened up for Tech N9ne (Strange Music), and the Independent monster caught wind of the up and comer before watching his set. Following that night, Tech N9ne invited Flawless on a 48 city nation-wide tour called “The Lost Cities Tour.” Since then Flawless has been striking across the country on countless tours building his brand and “Flawless Family” as he refers to as his fans. His experience including “The Lost Cities” tour with Tech N9ne includes, “Rolling Stone” tour with Stevie Stone, “Flawless Experience” tour, “HallowStrange” tour with Caskey (YMCMB) and Prozak (Strange Music), along with openings for Joe Budden, Joel Ortiz, Wu Tang, Fabolous, French Montana, Waka Flaka, and More. With his current material, Flawless will be known as the pioneer who paves the way for a new sound in hip hop that will reach multiple generations. True fans of lyrics, hip-hop and R&B are in for a real treat. His single “Doctor” epitomizes his ability to captivate his fans through his story-telling lyrics leaving them wanting for more. This young sensation brings his music to life painting a picture only a true artist can paint. With a musical show second to none, we all can agree he is Flawless.

Featured Tracks include: Doctor, FanMail,Watching Over Me ft David Reyes,Celebration ft RAW,On My Own ft Gifdid, When I'm Gone ft RAW, Pressure 4 Record Label

Team Flawless Entertainment



 Official Website | Facebook | Twitter | Soundcloud | YouTube

2 comments:

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  2. Awesome DevBlog!

    It's very nice to hear about Darren joining the team. Sounds like he has a lot of very good development experience. That's cool that he had previously worked on Mortal Kombat as that is one of my favorite games. Also, I love how he made that game for a children's TV show too. I'm looking forward to whatever mini-games he works on and excited to hear him mention VR as I am very interested in that aspect of the future of Atom Universe. In addition to offering his skills as a C++ programmer, I think that it's great that Darren has an opportunity to learn programming with the Unreal Engine which I have heard is new for many former PS Home developers.

    I like seeing that summary of this week's developer activity which I hadn't seen before in these DevBlogs and very much appreciate this being shared with the community. I think that provides some very nice insight into what the team is doing. I like how that portion of the DevBlog is broken out into different sections. Sounds like some great progress is being made on the Arcade Plaza. It's interesting that collision bugs are being worked on in there as we've seen issues with that in the Alpha as well. I like hearing about the store in the Bowling Alley which indicates we will be able to do some kind of shopping there! I really like the points under the Programming section. I think what is mentioned about server scalability is very important because when the game goes to the general public there will be a lot more users than we have had participating in the Alpha and of course we want AU to be able to handle the load of a lot of users. We have chatted about stress/load tests amongst the Alpha testers and many of us agreed that was important. It's good to hear that there will be some kind of monitoring in place to determine if new servers need to be added (hopefully dynamically). I like hearing about the credits system & the bonus Atomz being awarded for signing in consecutive days is something I recall being suggested on the forums and so that's great to see that being implemented. The UI for the online gamers list is something that has been discussed during the last few Alpha Meet Ups and so I'm glad to hear that is being worked on. Same goes for the text chat which has come a long way during the Alpha, but I know there is still room for improvement with it. I feel that is probably one of the most important social features. I had seen the updates to the AU Steam page and liked what I saw as far as getting Early Access to the Arcade Plaza. I'm very anxious to play around with that space as something new that we haven't seen in the Alpha. I think it's cool that there is a content calendar and LOL at "plotting world domination" :P

    When it was previously announced that Sky Jonez was going to be a featured artist in AU as mentioned in Dev Blog #4, I was very excited as he was the 1st hip-hop artist I heard being featured in AU. I remember how Flawless RealTalk was featured in one of Sky Jonez' songs which will be featured in AU, "Dreamer" and so it's great to hear that Flawless Real Talk will also be a featured artist in AU too! :D

    This was a very informative DevBlog and a pleasure to read! :D

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