This past week-end I participated in my first Global Game Jam, and it was a blast. It was in the center of Paris, in the Isart Digital school, and the idea was to make a game in one week-end. We were 4 guys and we worked about 35 hours to make "The Loop" (PLAY).

The goal of the game is to surround enemies, and destroy 'boss structures' by flying into blue links. It's inspired from Flow, Geometry Wars, and other top down shooter. Except in our game, we don't shoot :)

In April 2011 I left Ubisoft Entertainment, and in May 2011 I created my own independant video game studio. It's called Area Effect, and you can find everything about it on our web site : area-effect.com. I've been working as an independant for 9 months, and it's going pretty well. I published one game called Startales (iPhone, iPad), finished a puzzle game (not yet published), and I'm currently working on an undisclosed Serious Game that will be finished in May 2012. Information about our games and services can be found on the web site.

Probably the most innovative game of 2011, Minecraft is an exploration and a creative experience. In Minecraft you can dig into anything, gather materials, mix them together, and build stuff. It's playable in single player, or multi player over thousands of servers that fans already set-up over the last few weeks.

The game is not yet really finished, it's lacking a bit of accessibility and most importantly challenges and goals for the multiplayer mode. But the game is still in alpha stage, it's cheap to buy, and it is an experience that is truely unique. Try it!

A fanmade trailer :

My latest little action-puzzle game Illumination is finally working on iPad. Had to buy a Macbook for it, but hey, it's well worth it. Targeting a Q4 2010 release for the final game!

Here is my first finished custom map using the Starcraft 2 Editor. Very simple, yet quite fun to play :) The core gameplay is a copy of the popular "snake" game. It was done using an hydralisk as the snake head, and zerglings for the tail. It is controlled using the arrow keys.

Here is a little video :

This week was a little special for the video game industry as it was the long awaited 2010 Electronic Entertainment Expo, the most important event of the year. Last monday night the totally awesome Ubisoft Press Conference was held, and that's where the game I've been working on was announced :)

Motion Sports is a Kinect game and that means it is played using your physical body and your voice. No keyboard, no controllers, no pads, or no wiimotes ... just you. If you never heard of Kinect, watch the Kinect World Premiere Video and you will understand everything.

The game is not yet finished, we just showed 2 sports out of the 6 we will have at release. Current release date is at the launch of Kinect on November 4th. So, at E3 this year people could play American Football or Ski. The Ski is the sport we have been working on in Paris, Yay! And people seem to enjoy it so far :)

What does the press thinks of this first demo ? There is already a first review by IGN of the game that was tested at E3 : " (...) If things can get cleaned up before it releases, Ubisoft could have a nice alternative to the more cartoony sports compilations on the way."

Another review by VGRevolution says "(...) Overall I was really surprised with the easy of use, and the responsiveness of Kinect and Ubisoft’s Motion Sports (...) The control was surprisingly sensitive, and I never felt like my virtual skier was doing something I wasn’t (...) a game that will fit great into a gaming night with friends".

An interesting video showing someone playing the game during E3 2010 :