4/22/2013 - Introduction to Construct 2

Today, William gave a talk on the rapid prototyping tool called Construct 2, which is coincidentally on sale this week for 40% off. William mainly focused on the parts of Construct 2 that set it apart from other similar tools such as GameMaker and Stencyl.

After William's talk, Jonathan showed us some of the hilarious things that players have been doing with Moonbase Alpha and its text-to-speech converter. But the reason he brought up the game in the first place was to show us an AutoHotKey script that he wrote this morning to help him cheat in the game.

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04/15/2013 - The Game Design of Racing Games

This week, Livio gave a presentation about his favorite genre. Here's a list of all of the video clips that he showed during the presentation, as well as from the discussion that followed (the Dirt 3 video is the best):

1. Test Drive 5 (1998)
• Developed by Pitbull Syndicate (U.K.)
• Published by Accolade (USA & Europe) and Capcom (Japan)
2. Demolition Racer (1999)
• Developed by Pitbull Syndicate (U.K.), used the same engine.
• Published by Infogrames (PS1) and Atari (PC)
3. Flatout (2004)
• Developed by Bugbear Entertainment (Finland)
• Published by Empire Interactive (USA & Europe), Konami (Japan), and Valve (Steam)
4. Motorstorm (2006)
• Developed by Evolution Studios (U.K.)
• Published by Sony Computer Entertainment
5. Dirt 3 (2011)
• Developed and published by Codemasters (U.K.)
6. Mario Kart Wii (2008)
• Developed and published by Nintendo (Japan)
7. Burnout Paradise (2008)
• Developed by Criterion Games (U.K.)
• Published by Electronics Arts.
8. TrackMania (2006)
• Developed by Nadeo (France)
• Published by Deep Silver (U.K.), Buka (Rusia), Enlight (U.S.), QV Software (Australia), Valve (Steam)
• [2nd video]
9. F-Zero GX (2003)
• Developed by Amusement Vision (Japan)
• Published by Nintendo
10. Extreme G (1997)
• Developed by Probe Entertainment (U.K.)
• Published by Acclaim Entertainment
11. Split Second (2010)
• Developed by Black Rock Studeio (U.K.)
• Published by Disney Interactive Studios
12. Art Style - Light Trax (2010)
• Developed by Skip Ltd (Japan)
• Published by Nintendo (WiiWare)
13. Trials Evolution (2012)
• Developed by RedLynx (Finland)
• Published by Microsoft Studios (Xbox Live Arcade) and Ubisoft (PC)

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Photos from the Game Night on April 12th

This game night was pretty amazing, especially considering that we usually get our lowest turnout during this time of year. This post contains the photos that we took during the event.

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2013/04/08 - TF2 Discussion Part 2

This week we continued our discussion on Team Fortress 2. We discussed several topics, including character design, the programming behind the graphics,the play style of each class, the quality of different game modes, the different techniques that the game uses to manage pacing, and much more.

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Game Night on Friday, April 12th!

Once again, the GameDev Club is teaming up with the IEEE club to hold a game night! There will be food, and everyone is encouraged to bring their own games, snacks, TVs, computers, etc.

• When: Friday, April 12th, starting at 5:30pm until midnight.
• Where: Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) building, room 105 (map below)

Important Info

1. Please RSVP using this form: http://bit.ly/IEEEGameNight.
2. You can park for free in the parking lot by the ECE building (lot #3039) after 5:00pm.
3. The doors for the building, as well as the elevator, close at around 6pm, so call the IEEE room at 520-626-7324 if you're locked out. It's best to add that number to your contacts, just in case.
4. In order to get to the bottom floor of the ECE building, please only use the South stairwell door, which will be left open.
5. While we've never had any incidents before, the clubs are not responsible for damaged, lost, or stolen valuables. It's generally good practice to label your things to make sure they don't get mixed up.
6. In accordance to university policy, no alcohol, firearms, or weapons will be allowed.

University Map

Below is a map of where the ECE building is. To view the map in another window, click here.


View Larger Map

Questions

If you have any questions, send an email to Robbie, the chair of the IEEE, at laityr@email.arizona.edu, or to Livio, the president of the GameDev Club, at ldelac01@email.arizona.edu.

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04/01/2013: GDC and TF2 Rant

Engineer: Hey, look buddy. I'm an engineer. That means I solve problems. Not problems like, "What is 
                beauty?," because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of 'philosophy'. I solve 
                practical problems.

Game Developers Conference

After missing last weeks meeting due to GDC, Tyler returned to tell us all about this year's experience. This is a summary of what he talked about...

The Game Developers Conference is a collection of talks and showcases technology and concepts that are innovating the video game industry. Attending is not cheap, and so perhaps the best way to attend the event is to volunteer as a Conference Associate. Associate's get a (mostly) full-access pass just for working about 20 hours during the event. It is a superb way to meet other like-minded individuals, see new technologies and games, as well as networking with company owners, potentially for internships or jobs. 

There were numerous talks about everything from Intel's perceptual computing technology to Blizzard technical artist's explaining inventive ways to texture particle effects. Unfortunately, Valve did not announce Half-Life 3. -_-

Team Fortress 2 Discussion

As a club, we finally managed to get around to our first "game-talk", Team Fortress 2. To drive our conversation Patrick took the front of the room with our esteemed leader, Livio. Since most people enjoy TF2 Patrick ranted focused on what he disliked about the game.

The fact that TF2 is a class based first person shooter really separates it from the mainstream fps's commonly found on consoles. The nature of a multi-player, class oriented game that receives updates from the developers causes "the meta" to change around. In this case if you take a break from playing it and come back you may be just as lost on how to play most effectively as a player new to the game. In addition to the unusual (or at least was) class system it also incorporates a % chance to crit. Personally, with guns, in a straight up first person shooter this doesn't make sense to me, but there's no reason they can't have it if they want it.

That all being said, Gabe Newell is quite the man. <3 Steam (and it's now on Linux). The source engine is very versatile and goofy nudging people towards a positive mood even when they lose.

If you haven't played Team Fortress 2 yet, then play it!!!!!!

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