Team KAIZEN has been accepted to run a project on grassroots-investing site Kickstarter! (http://www.kickstarter.com)

For the uninitiated, Kickstarter takes people like us (needing investment) and, instead of hooking us up with 1 or 2 big time investors (who would, in turn, have a financial or stock stake in our company), hooks us up with thousands of smaller investors that pledge anywhere from 1 dollar to $2,000.00 in return for rewards from us.

Notice I said Pledge–we have to meet a minimum number of pledges by August 15th at 10:30 PM Mountain Time ($35,000.00) or none of the pledge people will pay anything. So, please check out our site on Kickstarter HERE! (Or just check out the widget below–which ever works for ya!!)

Now I bet you are thinking, what the heck is up with the headline and what are my incentives to invest? Well, here is our tiered reward system!! Remember, if you buy a certain tier, you also get all the rewards for less expensive tiers–it adds up!

$1.00
A thank you letter and kept in the loop on future TK and Add-A-Tudez developments.

$10.00
Previous reward plus, if you have a Twitter account that is not based on inappropriate content, we will follow you and send a Follow Friday shout out to our followers mentioning you!

$15.00
Previous rewards plus a special mention right here on the KAIZEN Blog!

$20.00
Previous rewards plus a download token for a free download of the theme song to Shattered Soul off of the iTunes music store, as performed by the now-defunct LA rock band My Evolution.

$40.00
Previous rewards plus a limited edition Inspired Insanity shirt. Inspired Insanity is AEC’s slogan.

$60.00
Previous rewards plus your name in the final credits of Shattered Soul (the full game, not the tech demo).

$120.00
Previous rewards plus a custom one-of-a-kind necklace designed by Great Falls’ own Cyndi Hughes of Turtle Mountain Designs.

$500.00
Previous rewards plus a ticket for a tour of our studio once it opens in Great Falls. There is some stipulations here: this is only for the tour and NOT for travel, food or lodging. Also, if we have a dev kit on site and the manufacturer asks us to not let the general public near it, then the tour can’t include rooms that have dev kits in them. Finally, attendees may be asked to sign NDA’s (Non-Disclosure Agreements), all a NDA stipulates is that attendees won’t be allowed to share any company secrets they see without prior written approval from us.

$750.00
Previous rewards plus your name hidden in one of the environments (such as a street being named after you).

$1,000.00
Previous rewards plus your likeness being hidden in our game. This can be through you being a non-playable character walking down the street or a photo of you on a billboard advertising a fictional product.

$2,000.00
Previous rewards plus one of the playable characters’ middle names being named after you or chosen by you. Only 20 slots available.

Thank you very much everyone! Let’s rock this!
Josh, Trevor and the TK Crew

Check it out!!!! They are covering our win in the Digital Media Learning Competition! Like what you see? The support us by going over to http://www.dmlcompetition.net/pligg/story.php?title=128 and casting your vote for Discovery Pier so we can also snag a People’s Choice Award!

Please vote for us! ]]> http://www.teamkaizengames.com/dev-news/reimagining-learning-2010-competition-winners/feed/ http://www.teamkaizengames.com/careerpositions/character-modeler/ http://www.teamkaizengames.com/careerpositions/character-modeler/#comments Thu, 20 May 2010 08:02:44 +0000 James Scharmack http://www.teamkaizengames.com/careerpositions/character-modeler/ Job Description

Team KAIZEN is looking for insane individuals to be Character Modelers. Character Modelers will need to be able to create AAA quality Character Models using a variety of programs and hardware configurations.

Responsibilities

A) Do all work necessary to produce Character Models for Team KAIZEN’s projects in coordination with the animation team, other modeling teams, art teams, animation lead, animation and modeling supervisors, Art Director and Lead Game Designer.
B) Check to ensure lack of errors (such as texture/map issues).
C) Help correct errors and/or address requests for alteration by either the Art Director or Lead Game Designer.
D) Other duties as needed.

Apply

As those of you who follow my Twitter account (http://www.twitter.com/ZookeyTK) have probably already found out, I traded in Final Fantasy 13 without beating it. I know, to many people, that’d be a shock–people are used to hearing me preach my love for certain Final Fantasies (including 7 and 10–as well as their sub-stories told via additional games and films). 13 was to be the grand return of Tetsuya Nomura and his crew to the FF series proper, and I was excited for it for many years. Before I dive into the reasons why I gave up on 13, let’s post 2 concurring opinions:

HarmonixSean (Sean over at Harmonix, he’s their community manager–and this was posted on his Twitter http://www.twitter.com/HarmonixSean):

I think if it weren’t called Final Fantasy but were called like Cabela’s On-Rail Fight Simulator no one would be arguing its merits.

Tycho from PennyArcade (www.penny-arcade.com):

Imagine my surprise when discovering that the dude with a chocobo literally roosting - roosting, sir - in his afro is the only character I have any affection for. I don’t understand the thinking behind giving me lead characters, which the narrative can slowly alchemize into gold. Why don’t you give me gold characters, and then refine them into platinum? I mean, if we’re absolutely dedicated to transmutation? God, I hate these fucking people. I don’t give a shit what happens to Sulky, Twat, Twit, Pip, and Marm. Sometimes, I kill them on purpose.

We have at times considered the plight of the games reviewer. Forced by the mechanism to consume games, because more games are coming, cresting the hill, and these games must be consumed also - but at least someone is compensating them for their time. I considered loading it up last night, just as I have every night since I got back, and I could make no cohesive argument for why I should do that and not something else. It’s horrifying to think that I had defeated Uncharted 2 by this point, traversed a full narrative arc, in the time it took me to hate Final Fantasy XIII.

Funny thing is, I like PennyArcade, but I **RARELY** agree fully with what Tycho says. Even if I agree with most of it, there’s usually some barb of a comment I take issue with (obviously, not enough of an issue to not love PA). This is one of those rare times. Outside of Sahz (the man with a Chocobo roosting in his afro), there isn’t any likable characters in FF13. And, like Tycho, I sunk in more time in FF13 than I did Uncharted 2’s first play through before realizing how crappy of a game it was. It was like I was reading my personal insights, but penned by someone else! Beyond that, here’s my laundry list of things to hate in FF13:

A) Linear as hell. When the reviewers said this, it sounded familiar to comments made about Final Fantasy X. When X came out, it was linear, but on purpose–there was a story to tell and the game designers put you on a track to see the sights and hear the sounds they meticulously created for you. Final Fantasy X got good reviews, as did Uncharted 2 (currently accepting it’s millionth Game of the Year practically) and God of War 3 (which is sure to rake in another million GotY’s)—all linear. I had no idea what they were saying with FF13 being linear and bad–now I understand. What they mean is that, instead of letting you explore in any fashion, you are put on a slot car track and just expected to run and get into pre-determined fights. You can’t stay in an area to try and level up your character—you just keep moving forward, and the set pieces are very bland. In games like Uncharted 2, NaughtyDog worked hard to create beautiful environments. In FF13, much of it feels cookie-cutter, not only on itself (you can run into many areas of a map and get confused–it looks practically copied-pasted upon itself) but also a lot of other sci-fi media. The treasure boxes, for instance, look like they’d be more at home in Star Wars than a Final Fantasy. The end result is the game trying to train you to hold up on the analog stick for an implied reward of a video showing more of the story.

B) No leveling up. Like I said in A, all the fights are pre-determined. Other Final Fantasies, you could stay in an area and keep getting into fights until your characters become stronger. In 13, not only are you limited to these pre-determined fights, but your characters don’t even have levels!! To become more powerful, you earn CP points. These points are spent on a board called the Crystarium–which is very similar to Final Fantasy X’s Sphere Grid. Not only are you limited in the fights, but if you happen to gain a surplus of CP points, there is story-driven blocks on the Crystarium!! This means that, until you hit a certain story segment, you can only power up so much–I have had times where I had reserves of several thousand CP points I couldn’t use–and to make things worse on this check out C:

C) Unbalanced as hell. I wouldn’t mind this if the Crystarium didn’t have those blocks in it. However, I will have my characters either fully maxed out (for the time) or extremely close–and most fights will be easy–but there is some fights that are uber tough and there is no way I can become more powerful for them. The final straw where I quit 13 was a normal enemy–this enemy had an attack where it unleashed a gattling gun on me. I had full health and a shield (not to mention an ally frantically healing me on the side) and, through several tries, I was successfully killed each time–with atleast 5 seconds left in the attack. If this was any other Final Fantasy, the fault would be my own because I didn’t level up enough. However, when I am only allowed to power up so much–and I did EVERY fight that came my way to make sure I wasn’t short-changing myself, this is complete crap.

D) Eidolons. Eidolons are the summons in the game. When you encounter one, they cast Doom on you (which roughly gives you 200 seconds to live) and you have to fight them. Most of them have alternate things you can do in battle (such as heal wounded people) that will impress them more and, once fully impressed, the battle ends and they join you. These fights are also unbalanced as hell–both of the ones I faced were required by the story and both required me to go grab Trevor’s guide to the game–the info given in the story (while somewhat helpful) wasn’t enough. I absolutely hate games that try and make you buy the guide!! As if their cheap tactics wasn’t enough, they seem to lose a lot of power once you get them. Even Trevor noticed that the Eidolon’s (in battle alongside you) are flashy, but not very helpful–it was far more convenient just to have the team out hacking away–so I know it wasn’t just me being mad about the fight I had to go through to get them. Odin’s (one of the Eidolon’s) fight is so out of balance the guide actually suggests you go into the game settings and slow down the battle speed!! Trevor is a veteran of Final Fantasy–he beat Emerald Weapon in Final Fantasy 7 (an insane optional boss fight) as well as the optional over-the-top fights in Final Fantasy X and XII–not to mention Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts II. He’s used to tough fights. He even had to change the game settings to have a chance against Odin!! That isn’t challenge, that’s unbalanced. It’s like breathing underwater–it isn’t challenging for someone who doesn’t have gills, it’s downright an unrealistic expectation!

E) You can only play as one character. In other FF’s, you play as a whole party, in 13 you’re forced to play as one character (for most of the game, you aren’t even allowed to pick which character!). If this character falls in battle, (EVEN if the other two are still standing!!) it’s game over. I can hear a chorus of you out there, “What about Phoenix Downs??”–I asked the same thing. Apparently, whatever character you play as develops an allergy to them or something–as they’ll only work on your team mates. If you fall, they won’t use one on you. (For those of you wondering, Phoenix Downs are an item in all Final Fantasies and they bring dead party members back to life). What is especially frustrating is that the last FF game Nomura’s crew worked on, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 for the PSP, had this problem solved. For the first time in FF, you could pre-equip a Phoenix Down, which would cause a glowing feather to be above the player. If the player died, then the character was immediately revived and the feather disappeared. Excellent fix–great gameplay mechanic! So, why in the name of all that’s good and just did they break a working idea? And, further more, why can’t you just cycle to a different team member if you die? Throughout the game you play as all of these individuals at one point or another, so it makes no sense!

F) Irritating characters. I said it before, and Tycho said it beautifully–but man these characters suck! I like Sahz–but I just wish he was in a different game! Lightning has severe anger problems–the more you learn about her the more you learn to completely dislike her. Vanille isn’t bad per se, but her perky character style has been repeatedly done in FF for who knows how long, so she has practically no weight in the story to me. I look at her and see, atleast partially, Rikku from FFX, Selphie from FF8 or Yuffie from FF7. Hope is so irritating I want to actually reach through the screen and kick him–and I’m a non-violent person!! Snow has an irritating hero complex that makes him seem very waxy and Ken-doll like–the opposite of what Nomura usually achieves.

E) No money from battles. You do shopping at the save points–or, rather, you WOULD if you could get some dough! Apparently, Cocoon and Pulse (the worlds of FF13) are experiencing a greater recession than we are! Every other Final Fantasy you get a small amount of change from battles–as you fight more, not only do you become more powerful but you bolster your wallet. Here, you randomly find money–and you find it so sparingly that the stores become completely worthless.

F) Very few towns. Towns are an RPG staple, you are going to save the world and the towns introduce you to the people you are standing up for! The makers of 13 said towns are too hard to do in hi-def. Hmm. White Knight Chronicles, Tales of Vesperia, Star Ocean 4, Eternal Sonata, Fallout 3, Oblivion, Borderlands and even Demon’s Souls seem to disagree with that! (I know, Demon’s Souls doesn’t have vibrant towns–but it has more to it than 13 does!). No one said making a modern RPG is easy–but if you sit back and talk about how it’s impossible then your competitors will waltz right by you.

G) To upgrade or to buy? Technically, in response to E, you could get money from selling current equipment. A lot of Final Fantasies had that as another option–and it did help. However, 13 tries to combine this commerce approach with an upgrade system where you can find spare parts and use them to make current weapons stronger. Since I wasn’t finding money, I decided to do just that. Very soon, my weapons (which were all either the first or second weapon my characters found) were more powerful than the ones on sale in the stores a full 10 hours into the game!! At that point, why have more than 1 weapon? Why not just have the upgrade system and only have the stores for healing items? If I really wanted to buy the new (and, presumably, cooler) weapons I’d be shooting myself in the foot! This whole thing seemed rushed and under developed–which, again, is rare for a Nomura game. This man, and his team, usually hit it out of the park!

H) Some beauty with a lot of bland. The character models are beautiful, but a lot of the rest of the game is very bland and unremarkable. This is in stark contrast to Nomura’s last proper Final Fantasy, FFX. FFX launched on the PS2 and is still breath taking. In 13, there’s a part where you see ships on a lake–when I saw it, with the bland sky (that actually looked to be obviously made up of giant squares) and practically nothing vibrant happening, my thoughts traveled to FFX, in which you cross a similar lake. There was more life in the background and FFX felt more populated and vibrant–13’s lake scene felt like it was very early in Beta (pre-release).

I) The Paradigm System. This is a system you change mid-battle to tell your other team mates how to behave. Sounds cool at first–until you realize each behavior only has a limited range in what it can do. So, to be effective, you end up have to change many times throughout an even somewhat challenging battle.

J) Healing people can’t attack. If you change the Paradigm system so someone is a Medic, they can only heal. In previous Final Fantasies, Medics could attack badguys, even if only with weakened ability. In 13, they are helpless. What is even more irritating is when the game forces you to play as a character who practically can only be the medic (such as Hope)–at that point you are just repeatedly tapping X in battle whilst the AI characters have all the fun.

K) TP system. TP (can’t remember the actual name) replaces magic points in 13. In most Final Fantasies–people are given magic points and each spell costs a different amount. To regain magic points, people can be given Ethers, and the more they fight the higher the magic points cap is raised (and, thusly, the more magic can be used before an Ether is needed). In 13, only the lead character has TP and can only have a max of 5. It never gets higher and is only replenished through getting good combos in battle. Thankfully, most magic doesn’t use TP, only hard hitting ones like Quake (which attacks all enemies via Earth magic) do. However, a lot of 13 is based around the spell, Libra–which uses 1 TP and the idea is it reveals all the secrets of an enemy. Libra is required on Eidolon fights to even have a chance of knowing what to do. The fun part? Libra **NEVER** works the first time!! Every single time Trev and I had to use it, we had to cast it twice–giving up two full TP points when one should have sufficed. TP is just an attempt to fix a working system. There was nothing wrong with magic points and Ethers—but the team behind 13 felt they had to go add complexity where it wasn’t needed. On top of that, the whole Libra situation just punishes players for trying to follow the established rules of the game.

L) The bland riding sections. There is sections in 13 (I only ever played 1 section, but the tutorial hinted there’d be more) where you ride atop a giant robot and walk around. Sounds fun right? Wrong. Enemies can’t hurt you while you are riding it, and stepping on them is enough to kill them–so this devolves into the same as normal map-traversing in the game–holding up on the analog stick for an implied reward at the end. They tried to add a gameplay element by saying you could attack with your arms up to 3 times before needing to power up–but if enemies can’t hurt you and you can just walk on them, what’s the point? Also, to recharge the attacks, you just smash down fences–how’s that supposed to recharge a robot? The whole thing reeks of bland game design—there wasn’t even a split second of fun in it. It’s hard to describe how boring it actually is–because if you tell someone they’d be driving a big robot chasing bad guys they’d think it’d sound like a sure fire game plan–it sounds fun–but the execution is so horrid that the fun was drained out.

I’m sure, if I thought about it longer, I could write more about how I hate FF13. However, I think I successfully got the point across. This pains me a lot to say too–I love FF7–it’s the game that inspired me to be a writer! I also love FFX, and I still have a lot of respect for Tetsuya Nomura and his team. However, I do feel FF13 is a blemish on the good name of Final Fantasy and Nomura’s career–a blemish he’ll surely overcome–Nomura is the man!! (one of the many reasons I am learning Japanese is so I can someday thank him for making FF7). I do feel that going multi-platform probably hurt FF13 significantly, and a lot of the bland or under-developed elements probably have this to thank for it (most people don’t realize how much extra work it takes to make a good multi-plat game, which is why the Bioshock series is one of the few that does multi-plat right. Start a Bioshock game some time and count the studio logos that pop up and you’ll get an idea!). However, going multi-plat alone can’t explain all the faults of FF13–some of them (such as the odd battle design and inability to use Phoenix Downs on yourself) are more game design related and not, “We have to drastically cut this game up to fit on 2 very different systems” related–so it’s perfectly plausible that these tainted elements would have been in the game had it retained PS3 exclusivity. I do believe though that all these elements, both poor game design related and massive cut backs related, conspire together to make for a fact that pains me to say: I believe the Final Fantasy series has jumped the shark.

What we aim to do is pitch Great Falls as the epicenter for the independent video games industry. We are working on making a tech demo of our game, Shattered Soul, which we will use to win a multi-million dollar contract with a major publisher to bring jobs and opportunities to our town–we will then use this momentum and work with the Great Falls Development Authority (www.gfdevelopment.org) to bring even more studios and companies here, giving Great Falls a new business and economic frontier!

Please vote!
http://www.refresheverything.com/gfgames

First of all, thank you to the numerous groups and individuals who helped us bust a move in February–you all rock!

Second, time to really shine! Let’s make March our month!

Josh

Go to www.refresheverything.com/gfgames and vote for us! Out of 729 competitors we’re currently 66th–and we once jumped 131 spots within 40 minutes so these remaining 56 spots WILL be a cake walk with YOUR HELP! You have been following us for a while, help show the world what the TK crew and its’ fans can do!

Josh

More and more, people have been asking me, “How do I make it in the game industry?” Kind of a hard question to answer in one sense, I am still trying to make it myself–and, while TK has a good map forward and we are on a good course towards making it, the reality is we are still in the process. However, I hope to be of some assistance so here is my rundown of important things:

For General Game Design

A) This first one is important for any member of a game design studio! Grab a notepad (or keep tabs mentally, if you think you can retain it) and draw a line down the middle. On one side, write, “What I like” and on the other write, “What I don’t like”. Play as many games as possible (each game having a different sheet or group of sheets). Whenever you are struck by something enough to write it down, don’t just write it! Look at it after you wrote it and ask yourself the questions most people don’t, “Why did I like it?”, “Why did I hate it?”, “Why did it resonate with me the way it did?” If you liked something, try to break it down as much as possible and get to the basic building blocks that built the experience you liked–then think how you can make it your own when designing your own game (through additional gameplay, art and story elements created by you). If you hated something, don’t just say, “It sucks”, sit for a while and try to figure out what exactly bugged you about the element. Then, try to figure out how you would turn it around and turn it into a positive element if you were in the game designer’s shoes. What would you change to turn a frustrating, repetitive or boring element into a blockbuster set-piece worthy of showing off in the commercial? Thinking this way will be hard at first, but over time you will slowly begin to develop your own style and critical thinking skills that are important to creating unique and exciting experiences in games.

B) Talk with as many different people as possible. By this, I mean develop relationships with Programmers, Concept Artists, 3D Artists, Animators, Game Designers, Marketers, Business People, Average Gamers and anyone else you can possibly meet. The more you understand human behavior, the more you can work fluidly in a team. Also, if you are planning on creating a project with a group of people it will help immensely when trying to get new talent to join you if you ’speak their language’ a little bit. For instance, a lot of Programmers have a hard time joining indy projects because, 9 times out of 10, they end up being one of the few hard workers committed to the project. However, if you are proposing to one that he/she join your team and you are upfront about the work done so far, the work in progress and the map ahead, you just told them that you understand their concern and have worked towards making sure they aren’t the only worker. Developing this empathy and ability to see the situation from someone else’s shoes will give you an important advantage in moving your indy project forward. People are far more willing to work (for payment and/or sweat equity aka free work) for someone they know cares about them, so this is absolutely critical.

C) Be humble—don’t take it offensively if someone gives you constructive criticism. They are just trying to help. If they give immature criticism–just listen then walk away. Later, after the initial sting wears off, try to remove the insult from what they said and see if anything is usable–if there is use it, if not then move on.

D) It isn’t just your art anymore: you may have the most awesome idea for a game, but here is reality: the moment you form a team to bring it to fruition it isn’t just your art anymore. Team members need to feel that they have a voice–there can and should be 1 leader who has the end-word, but if you are that leader don’t let the power go to your head—the swing vote of the leader should only be used once in a while. At the end of the day, everyone is putting in their blood, sweat and tears, so it isn’t just your art anymore!

E) Get resources! www.udk.com is one great one (free Unreal 3 engine to dev in). On Epic’s site (which is linked on www.udk.com), they have tutorials on how to create games in Unreal 3. Study them, a lot of the design ideals convey over to development on any engine or platform–and the free current-gen-grade engine is a great place to jump in. Play a little bit with all sorts of fields. 3D art, Animation, Texture Work, Programming, Overall Game Design, Writing—try them all until you find the one that resonates with you the best! Then, use sites like the Unreal one (plus any others you can Google up) and train yourself. If you are about to go to college–look closely at colleges like Full Sail, The Art Institute and many others that can offer you classes–what you learn in your free time will help you understand your classes easier and grow faster as an artist (and the classes will hone your indy skills!).

F) Got an idea? Commit it to paper! Writing it down (either digitally–and if you do digitally, print it off and save a hard copy!, or on traditional pen-and-paper) will garner you (under US law) a basic Copyright (for a full blown Copyright, you have to apply to the Copyright office and pay a fee–but the idea will still be yours since you committed it to paper). This is important, and is a vital step in motivating yourself and your team in turning that idea in your head into a playable reality!

G) Network! Search out indy development websites and indy teams. Ask if you can so sweat equity for indy teams in return for the learning and experience (plus getting your name out on completed projects—portfolio WIN!). Even if they say no, try to stay in contact (if they are interested, don’t be a stalker!) and be friends–you can learn as much from friends as you can co-workers! Plus, if you are trying to form your own team, being friends with other indy studios can provide important information and contacts that can assist in bolstering your team’s numbers and reach online.

If You Want to Start A Studio

A) First and foremost, like I said in F of the last section, commit your ideas to paper!!!!!!!!!

B) Pick up Guy Kawasaki’s The Art of the Start, a sage book that will teach you some of the basics investors will look for. If you plan on pitching to a publisher (like EA, Activision, Sony, MS or Nintendo), realize they will look for a slightly different pitch (they aren’t as worried about projections, they know those numbers better than you, they are more interested in what you want to do in a game and if you are capable of pulling it off), realize some of the info doesn’t carry directly over (for instance, Guy says your plan shouldn’t be over 25 pages, our pitch to Sony last year was 77 pages and they read every word–most of it was info and art on Shattered Soul)—but still, amazing advice none the less.

C) Contact your local SBDC (Small Business Development Center)! Usually, if you Google your city/town with SBDC you should pull it up (ours, for instance, is www.gfdevelopment.org). If you can’t find it that way, try looking up your area’s chamber of commerce in the phone book and giving them a ring–they’ll be able to hook you up with the right people! SBDC’s are awesome–ask for a time to meet with them and tell them what you want to do and ask (politely I might add) for their assistance. They will be a necessary ally in your rise to domination!

D) Network! Look, I posted Networking a second time! Because, in this day and age, it is the lifeblood that will pump through your veins. Pony up the cash to have a website made. Make a MySpace, Facebook and Twitter account (and link them as needed). Seek out people in your industry to follow and become friends with. Seek out people in your community of ALL walks and follow/friend them on these sites. Go around town and ask for opportunities to create presentations for community groups to show what you want to do for your region through your team and business. Most of this stuff is free or low-cost to do, and it will get your community on your side and start the ripple in the pond that will grow to the tsunami you want! Realize that you ARE going to be doing a lot of running around, answering emails, talking on social networking sites and other guerrilla marketing techniques for which you will not be paid: while you can most likely make money down the road a lot of the set up work for a business is done for the bigger picture and passion, not the quick and easy payout!

E) Make a tech demo: once you get a team and concept going, make a 1-level tech demo that shows what you want to do gameplay wise and, to a degree, art wise. This can be made either on PC or through solutions like Xbox’s Indy Developer Program (even if you intend to pitch to someone other than Microsoft)—the people a tech demo is meant to pitch to won’t care about what platform the demo is on, they are looking for ability to create an idea and execute it in a fun, playable way. This is where we are at with TK right now–working on our tech demo! It’s very important and an absolute for your studio.

Hope this helps! If you need more info, please head over to the Contact Us section and drop us a line, I’d be happy to chat more!

Josh

Pat Douglas of the Great Falls Tribune did a story on Josh and Trevor, the Co-Founders of Add-A-Tudez Entertainment Company and Team KAIZEN. Read about it HERE! The Story covers several things, for instance:

My Evolution’s Shattered Soul Song
You read it right! LA-based rockers My Evolution (here is their website and myspace) did the theme song for our in-development game, Shattered Soul! Very soon (as in, sometime next week), the song will be available as a FREE ringtone, and the purchasable version will be available via online outlets like iTunes sometime within the next 60 days (of course, once it drops we’ll hit up Twitter, FB, MySpace and every known spot to man letting everyone know). If you want to listen to it now, head on over to My Evolution’s MySpace–it is the first song in the que! They even wrote an awesome blog post about us:

In May of this year we met Josh and Trevor Hughes of Team Kaizen video games in Great Falls Montana while touring with Static-X. The crowd was definitely bad-ass and showed ME a tremendous amount of love. After our set Josh and Trevor hung out with us at our merch booth as we signed merch for fans and told us of their new martial arts based game entitled, Shattered Soul. When we left Montana, en route to Minnesota, we noticed that Josh and Trevor had made sure to contact us at all of our available contacts such as myspace, facebook and our website myevolutionmusic.com. They wanted to get us involved with writing a song for their game Shattered Soul and they wasted no time in asking for exactly what they wanted, which is something we respect immensely. Upon our arrival home we continued our email conversations/negotiations, in which Josh asked point blank, “How do we get My Evolution officially involved with our game Shattered Soul?” We spoke about what they wanted in a song for the game and later that week, wrote the game’s official theme song. We got to show them and early version of the song live at our rehearsal room in North Hollywood when they visited LA for the Play Station Blog Meet Up Party and Sony E3 Press Conference. They LOVED it!! Next we handled the legalities, then recorded the song, and the finished product is now here!!! We are very proud of the new song and are honored that Team Kaizen (esp. Josh and Trevor) asked us to be a part of it. The song kicks ass and the game should be nothing less…..MY EVOLUTION and TEAM KAIZEN present SHATTERED SOUL!!

Go have another listen!!!

*uber nerdy geek voice* ROCK ON DUDEZ!

Happy B-Day PlayStation!
Sony Computer Entertainment Japan recently created a website, linked HERE. Has it really been 15 years? LOL I remember my 6th grade year back in 1995–my NES (the only game console I owned up to that point, GameBoy and GameGear notwithstanding) had just bought the farm. I went upstairs in a sad stupor, turned on the TV and was blown away by what I saw. I got my first taste of the infamous U R NOT E (you are not ready—the ‘e’ in the ads was colored red, thus the red ‘e’ was ‘ready’, get it?). I went to Mom and told her of my NES plight and asked her if I could have a Sony PlayStation to take its’ place. I first had to convince her that a PlayStation wasn’t some sort of PlaySkool play set where you play in a small plastic house or kitchen, then I was met with a ‘we’ll see’. The launch day for America (September 9th, 1995) came and went as the painful waiting game for my birthday (September 30th) crept on. Roughly half way between the two dates, Mom told me, “Oh honey, by the way, I got one of those PlayStations for you on launch day–we took it out of the box last night to test it. I can see why you are excited for it, it is pretty impressive!” For getting it launch day, she got (and passed on to me) a black CD titled, “Hear it NOW, Play it Later” which contained music tracks by ‘Up and Coming Sony Bands’ (including Korn before they actually got big–to my knowledge all the other bands flopped) as well as tech demonstrations of the PlayStation’s power (including a fun mode where you control a walking T-Rex). I still have that CD proudly on display in my room! Thanks to PlayStation, I experienced my first true 3D fighting extravaganza (still have my original copy of Battle Arena Toshinden in near-mint condition), my first heartfelt story telling experience in a game (currently have my original copy of Final Fantasy 7 in near-mint, plus a Japanese International Edition in shrink-wrap, a second glitched American copy and a digital copy) and I also got my first E3 experience (both the show and Sony’s Press Conference) out of being a fan of PlayStation. Been an awesome 15 years, can’t wait to see what the next 15 brings!

Happy Holidays!
Well, 2009 is less than 30 days from being purely in the history books–and I can’t wait for 2010! FF13. White Knight Chronicles. Bioshock 2. God of War 3—all in the first 3 months!!!!! WOOHOO! Not to mention, we here at TK will keep toiling away on our tech demo as we inch closer to being able to repitch to Sony. Exciting times indeed! Happy Holidays everyone–may 2010 make 2009 look like a simple proof of concept

Josh, Trevor and the TK Crew