Stronghold Legends

In Stronghold Legends with the good, the ice and the bad faction a whole of 3 new factions are introduced.

The good faction is rather boring, flatted out and pretty straight forward as only about 5 heroes with special abilities and better fighting powers are added. Even the connection of the heroes to the King Arthur saga cannot save these new additions from feeling very unnatural to the game. And it is clear that this faction was not enough to fill a whole campaign as the story is progressing very slowly, thinning out quit fast and concluding in boring economy and badly scripted fighting (and special ability using) missions.

Explaining my graduation project 3.1: 1/100 plan, Detail design, walking paths

In the last text explaining my graduation project I told you about my obsession with the green space connection of my building. This time I want to show you my detailed design about these outside walking path and my ideas behind it. If you payed close attention you may have noticed that i preformed a jump in the time line here (title 3.1) because the detailed design is generally a part of design which is concluded in the late phases of the project. But for the architect it is important to always think about these detailed designs and what he wants of them. As each little detail can and will affect the whole project. It is not like "oh let me figure out the general form of the building and I can add details afterwards." this is not how projects and design process work. So as I told you this is the first time we are getting out of the chronology as i am going to present the final product of the detailed design but during most of the project most of this part was only in my head and just the general assets were included in the design.

Stronghold 2

"Sire, you look different today"
"Realy! I also feel different. Its like the whole world has changed."
"Thats the exact thing my wife said in the morning Sire! We live in a new world."
"Yes looks like the grapich has changed. You know I am an 3D lord now. But let me walk in and out of the keep as i have done it in the 2 stronghold games before"
"If you wish Sire! I have nothing to do than siting here around the fire. But if the green bar here turns red I am going to be the first one to run away"

Stronghold Crusader

"Infidels are attacking oh Caliph! And they are led by the famous Christian Crusader. Richard Lionheart!"

"Nooo!" the cup of the kalif flew through the dark room and the content of it spilled on the floor. The ice water formed a growing small lake but steam rose quickly as the water evaporated in the unforgiving summer sun.

"General what shall we do?"

"Oh great Caliph! It would give the troop great courage if you were to show up on the battlements. All other preparations are made. The archer are already taking position on the towers and the flam throwers are also ready"

It took a time to convince the Caliph but after some time he agreed to at least go on the top of the keep and let himself bee seen by the archers. But as the general and his master got out into the open air it was already to late. Thick black smoke was covering the whole castle and the tops of the huge towers could not bee seen through the smoke. And the noise was unbearable the fire was ever growing and it made a sizzling noise and the screams of the castle inhabitants filed the courtyard. One of the flame throwers must have lost control over his pots and the content which was bound to hit the for coming enemies now destroyed the castle from the inside.

Learn Architecture Through Films: Mon Oncle

The difference between deifying the designer and using the designed object explained by the film Mon Oncle.

In the house designed by the most up o date technology the artistic spirit of people is lost. Because if every move is planed by the designer and by deifying this arrangement the user of a space losses his ability to rearrange the space to his personal need. This condition is visualized in the film called Mon Oncle. The space change needed due to the broken fountain, which makes the former designed space unusable, dramatically finds an end in the same space in a rather comical scene. The total lack of creativity (skill, knowledge or what you want to call it) to design spaces according to personal needs makes it impossible to shelter somewhere else as just one place is designed to do the job of sitting with guests.

Harry Potter and the half blood prince

As a real Harry Potter books fan for me every "Harry Potter" film is kind of a disappointment. As of course it is near impossible to capture all the details of a 700 paged book into a 2 hour film (which bring us back to the books vs. film discussion which I don't want to go into detail now).

But surprisingly in my opinion this film had many good solutions on how to make a good book based ("Harry Potter") film.
These spoken of solutions are firstly I think mainly due to the good directing and good (but not phenomenal) music which is integrated into the film perfectly.

Explaining my graduation project 1.2: diagram, Architectural elements, design ideas,

The diagram shows the 2 courtyards in green, the gallery space in grey and the vertical circulation (which I am going to talk about in later parts) in black

The main design elements developed after the first diagram can be summed up in three points:
-Green spaces
-Concept of socializing
-Living unit design

The most important architectural element or design element of the project was my dream to ensure maximal connection to the outside by smart design and therefore create spaces with relation to outside factors like sun, light and fresh air. This idea possessed me so much that for quite a time during the process of designing the building i was only fixed on this idea. A situation that’s effect is definitely seen in the end result of the project. 

So I was possessed about this need of green spaces and air and sun and light that i designed 2 courtyards and 1 galery space because the more openings there are the more sun is going to be brought down into lower stories and I decided I want a base of 2 stories and two towers coming out of it. Because by maximizing the facade area of the building the area for big windows and therefore again more light and sun is maximized. And I started to make my first model. As you can see in the picture it is only an concept-model but it summed up my ideas pretty good and i am proud that it has an resemblance to the final design as this is an indicator that I have been true to myself and my design ideas.

Stronghold

After hard work the lord could finally take a walk on the newly constructed palisade. And it was a joy, because behind the palisade were strange beasts. Many woodcutters did not return from their quick routes into the wood to collect the needed wood for the palisade.  About half a dozen bowman were trained in the last days and one of them was running towards the Lord. As he stopped to sentences left his mouth.  "Sire the wolfs are lazily laying behind our palisade! Finally we are safe sire!"

The rather easy start in the stronghold universe is one of the swiftest starts in any gaming series. The player starts by setting up a basic camp and afterwards fighting of wild wolfs (which most of the time lay around and do nothing). And this half an hour of the campaign of stronghold perfectly sums up the funny, sometimes ironic general concept of the game. But it gets more complicated than that. After about 8-10 missions most of the game-assets are introduced and the player is fully capable of using all of them. And now each time a new missions starts the player has more stuff to do and more things to look out for as he builds up his economy, sets up his main defenses, trains troops and waits for the first wave of attackers.

Cinderella (2015)

It is quiet obvious that the film makers had confident in 3 things related to the success of the film.


Firstly I think they trusted in their cast and especially in the actors for the two main roles. But I have to admit that the main actors performance which often makes the difference between a good film and a bad film, is only mediocre which is an achievement considering the awful scripted scenes and de badly written dialogues.

Explaining my graduation project 1.1: diagram, Architectural program

The graduation project in the fall semester of 2017 in the bachelor program in architecture (on Istanbul Technical University) was titled "Collective living for the elderly". Aimed were new design solutions for elderly friendly accommodations paired with health service and opportunities for social and personal interactions.

The Architectural program included
-green spaces: gardening spaces and open air areas for physical activities
-administration: Directors offices, assistants, office kitchen, meeting room, security etc.
-Common spaces: A social center with a cafeteria, cinema and TV hall, library and a wellness center
-Health services: for the elderly inhabitants with rooms for nurses and doctors.
-Living areas organized in 3 parts
=> Fully independent living units for 60
=> Partially supported living units for 20
=> Assisted living units for 20 persons
-Service spaces and technical rooms

But to not bore you longer I just want to explain how I set the relations between different activities and spaces to create my very own architectural program and smoothen the part for the space distribution and to estimate what I want to concentrate about in my project.

Mini Metro

First of all I have to admit that I think this game is presented in a very appealing style. As an architect it is my day to day job to think about graphical appearances of drawings and diagrams so I see myself capable to state that the art and graphic style of the game is phenomenal. The greatness of the presenation starts with the use of pictogram's and symbols, includes great color management and concludes in a nearly flawless minimal design game.

Banished

After the snow is melted away by the lazily spring sun the BanischdTown people are heading to the fields and its time to decide what to plant. With potatoes, beans, corn and wheat a greater crop yield is achieved but the citizens of the town are healthier if they eat different variety of food, so a small compromise is needed. When the summer comes the fields manage themselves and the townspeople can concentrate on collecting building resources, make cloth for the winter, work in the iron mine and help the smith . When autumn begins everybody in BanishedTown is back on the fields again as autumn is the harvest season and if the crops a left to stay in the cold too long they are ruined. Autumn is also the time for the last preparations before winter the last bit of venison is carried into the stone houses of the hungry citizens and the wood cutters and foresters work newer stops. And Winter of course is the season to rest! No not really. First of all the hunters work in the winter as their products are one of the few that can still provide food in the cold month. Not much still because the wild is scared and in hibernation but something is better than nothing. Also an important part of the building activities of the town need to be done in the winter as spring and therefore plannting time comes always around if the year before was planed well managed good.

5 reasons "Mount and blade" is a good and fun game in spite of many downsides

When we are taught how to write an essay in middle school, we learn that  positive sides and negative sides of an topic are evaluated and afterwards in the end all these explored aspects are brought together into a final symbioses thus creating the conclusion and the main opinion of the author. But in game reviews this system does not work always as sometimes good aspects of the game set such an high standard of game fun that it can not be brought down by any negative aspects. "Mount and blade" is such a game in my opinion. So I wanted to evaluate X reasons "mound and blade" is a good and fun game in spite of many downsides. And I came up with 5 reasons which are as follows.

But firstly lets quickly sum up the downsides of the game which are as follows: very low variety in different quests, no over the top skill tree or leveling system, bad (too much texture based) graphics, lifeless surroundings, shallow economy, no in-story character development.