categories
babelmedia
I worked as an Art Director for Babel Media from 2003 to 2005.
Babel are based in Brighton UK, SanDiego & New Delhi. Babel translate, localise, test and make computer games for all platforms including interactive TV and mobile phones.
Babel have become Europe’s leading outsourcing company and employ over 250 staff.
(This area is still being populated with old content, as and when I get around to it!)
projects
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
18th of Feb, 2005ce* in: babelmedia, websites
This is the Euro product homepage, and probably my last external project with Babel Media Ltd. Firstly we put a teaser website online, then the final site will go live. Once the final site goes live I’ll archive the teaser below. A fairly simple project to get my teeth into, but squashed into a very small time frame.
Nintendo Europe were very happy with the result, and we managed to squeeze in some new effects and features that flash has to offer. The site is heavily tailored towards broadband users, with the average page holding more than a few megs worth of content.
Localisation was still done in the old formula however, because even though the new flash does support multilingual features better than ever, it couldn’t solve the localised design aspects.
Sony Playstation x-mas games picker
18th of Dec, 2004ce* in: babelmedia
Users answer questions to find which games they would like to buy this christmas, aimed at people who don’t really know what they want. Sony ended up choosing a design from an agency other than Babel, who decided on a “Whos Who” game approach, so we were told. Actually it was a picture of all their games, and very boring.
The Regiment
ce* in: babelmedia, websites
Konami of Europe are working on a game with development studio Kuju called “The Regiment” which should be released soon for PC and PS2. We at Babel were asked to make the website and game trailers / FMV slots. They were using another company in Thailand to make the website (however this went pearshaped vey swiftly!) but passed it onto us in the early stages due to babels track record with languages, I binned the old site and came up with a new design based in a HTML/PHP/FLASH hybrid formula, with a large portion of the design animated at all times.
This site is tailored towards broadband users.
The site allows users to get a good feel for the game, there’s also some general information about the SAS. Various downloads can be found including what I feel is the best screensaver ever.
Nes Classics 2
ce* in: babelmedia
A fun project for us, design wallpapers and screensavers for the release of “NES classics”, more old games from the 8-bit days (which were overpriced and somewhat of a let down, rose tinted glasses only last so long! All of these games can be played on emulation for free, and can be readily found on the internet).
I took my standard approach of dumping the roms, stealing the tiled graphics and making new levels for the wallpapers.
Paper Mario 2 & Mario month
18th of Nov, 2004ce* in: babelmedia
Wicked little project, I printed out some of it on paper and then photographed it in various stages of being screwed up, to be used in the screensaver. The desktop application has a clock and calendar, runs as a windows desktop.
Mario VS Donkeykong
30th of Oct, 2004ce* in: babelmedia, websites
We made the European website for this classic GBA game, but more importantly have a look at the promotional shots from the Japanese release (above)!
Sony Eyetoy Product site
18th of Oct, 2004ce* in: babelmedia, websites
This was a pitch for Sony’s newly announced (at time of writing, Jan ‘05) “kenetics” game, providing gym workouts for users. Obviously both our marketing team and our creative team at Babel wanted to win this project, unfortunatly it didn’t work out that way - however I think the 3d demo was very strong and if we had won the pitch then the creative team and myself would have made one of the best websites Sony had ever seen… (!)
Many thanks to James Tindal and John Godwin.
Manleys Fudge
30th of Sep, 2004ce* in: babelmedia, games
Despite the bizarre name, this is a very good and original game (not a reskin as we were getting into the habit of doing). Originally called “boy who fried wolf” the game requires you to activate a shield if the baddies come too close to you, however you only get a certain amount of charge in the shield. Except in this case you have to stop “fugde goblins” from taking Manley’s Fudge, from his camper van. Manley is a gay TV presenter on Nation 217. Figures.
Darts Pro
15th of Sep, 2004ce* in: babelmedia, games
Starring Martin & Hawken!
Highly polished game this, but only because I whipped my artist into shape daily. Mat enjoyed it though.
Castle Seige
1st of Sep, 2004ce* in: babelmedia, games
Our client asked us if it could be possible to make a target shooting game on the iTV platform, Dan Croucher (our game designer) came up with a few technical possiblities for the game, alone with themes and we were settled on a castle. Originally I wanted to do a sand castle or ice palace, these looked damn nice in the first renders from my artist John however the client wanted a medieval castle, which made me think of cutout shapes, the above graphics were realised!
I think this is one of the more creative games we made for Yoo, with the usual high quality we put into everything that really did make our games stand out from the usual clones. This game went on to be re-skinned as a “lord of the rings” style castle a bit later on.
showcase
noise
"Was reading a blog today that said:
"This is a..."
-bjzaba, on top11 missing mail features for iPhone! *update*
"I like this picture. It's is a great piece of..."
-Pruny, on Browsing
"US square peg technology forced into the Japanese round hole...it's..."
-Neil, on top11 missing mail features for iPhone! *update*
