As there aren’t a lot of prototyping companies around, we often get invited to speak at conferences and events. Next to spreading the word about the importance of rapid game prototyping, we also try to stress that not all prototypes have to be fun and games.
Prototyping Racing Games: Road/Path Tool vs EasyRoads3D
Prototyping Racing Games: Road/Path Tool vs EasyRoads3D
A good racing game flies or falls with the quality of the race tracks. Crafting those manually takes a lot of time. Time you don’t have when you’re rapidly developing a prototype, so we’ve taken a look at some tools to help us create fun race courses on a very short notice.
Indoor Positioning: Recreating a Smartphone’s 3D Path
Indoor Positioning: Recreating a Smartphone’s 3D Path
We tried to figure out if it’s possible to reconstruct a smartphone’s three-dimensional path using only accelerometer and gyroscope data. This could be used for instance to draw a race track in a room by walking around, while waving your phone as a brush to draw the track.
Looking for two New Team Members
Looking for two New Team Members
Good news everyone! We’ll soon be moving into our brand new office and it turns out there’s more space there than we need for our current team, so we’re looking for two more people to join us. Next to filling up the room, you’ll also be working on some very cool prototypes.
Technology Research 2013
Technology Research 2013
For PreviewLabs, keeping up with new technologies is of the utmost importance. Balancing the actual prototyping with doing research isn’t always easy, so we put our intern Peter on the job. Here are some topics he will look into so we can build better prototypes for a wider array of platforms.
Game Connection Europe 2012
Game Connection Europe 2012
When you’re forced to cut a meeting short after thirty minutes, it’s very important to skip out on the details and only talk about the essential stuff. We’ve been brushing up on our elevator pitches, so come see us at Game Connection and we’ll explain to you how prototyping can improve your work.
Using Iggy for Flash Animation in Unity3D
Using Iggy for Flash Animation in Unity3D
Recently, we have been looking into technologies that allow integration of Flash animations in Unity3D prototypes and games. This seems to be very useful to create complex 2D animations in Flash, and play them in Unity.
Panic! Announced for PlayStation Mobile
Panic! Announced for PlayStation Mobile
Panic!, a game by Thumbs Up has been announced by Ripstone as one of the launch titles for Sony’s forthcoming PlayStation Mobile platform, and we’re proud to announce we have developed the prototype for the game!
PreviewLabs Hires Again: Game Prototyping Programmer
PreviewLabs Hires Again: Game Prototyping Programmer
Help wanted! At the moment PreviewLabs is getting swamped and in order not to drown in code, e-mails, to do lists or a hazardous combination of the three, we’re looking for a talented lifeguard that also knows his way around rapid game programming. Swimming certificate not required.
Unity 4 Announced
Unity 4 Announced
Announcements about updates of Unity3D, our primary working tool, are always a big thing. We’ve taken a quick look at the additions the company is planning to make and although most big changes are targeted at studios who make full quality games, there are some elements that can be of interest to us as well.
ActiveCollab 3.0 Timer Issue: Resolved
ActiveCollab 3.0 Timer Issue: Resolved
To monitor the exact time we spend on a project we use a system called ActiveCollab 3.0. A planning tool with a broken timer however is no good at all, so we’ve looked into a solution to solve a cumbersome timer issue generated by an automatic update of the software.
The Festival of Games 2012
The Festival of Games 2012
You won’t find many major international players on Festival of Games, a smaller games industry event held in the Netherlands, but it’s a great way to catch up with some of our Benelux colleagues and to check whether Heineken has magically turned into a real beer yet.
Status Update
Status Update
Have you ever been so busy writing code you have forgotten what it feels like to write actual words? There’s so much going on right now that we’ve not been able to keep you updated, but we’ve summarized it below. Who needs eloquence when you’ve got bullet points?
Unity Essentials Books Giveaway
Unity Essentials Books Giveaway
Give and you shall receive is what the Bible says and although we’re sure it’s a very good read on turning water into wine, it won’t do you any good when learning how to program. That’s why we’ve decided to give away the gospel of Unity3D to six of our faithful readers instead.
3 Most Popular Posts of 2011 – and Other Website Statistics
3 Most Popular Posts of 2011 – and Other Website Statistics
Keeping our blog up to date is great fun and while some comments are very insightful, we have to commit a lot of time to it. As the year comes to a close, we think it’s an ideal time to check whether our writing efforts really pay off in terms of page views and visitors.