12/1/2014 - Finishing Up

Hey everyone,

I apologize for the time gap in blog posts, but I'm here with some final news for the end of the semester (wow, I can't believe it's the holiday season already).

For our December 8th meeting:

• We will be hosting a white elephant so bring a random gift that is $15 or less.
• Afterwards we will be having a mini game night
• Bring $20 to reserve your spot for laser tag on Friday the 19th

For those of you signed up to go to GDC please bring your $100 deposit if you haven't already. If you are unable to please contact Cindy Trieu cindytrieu@email.arizona.edu.

Some things to look forward to for the next semester...

• We will be having two Game Jams. The first one is right at the start of the spring semester on January 30th!
• More game nights!
• More meetings!
• Moar Game Dev!

Happy Holidays!

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11/1/2014 - Game Jam Please

Just a few more days until our 4th biannual Game Jam!!! This week Cindy was kind enough to give us some few tips on how to get the most out of Game Jam.

1. Talk to people who have participated before and try to find a group with them. Think of it as if it were a 42 hours apprenticeship.
2. Make sure you don't try and create Starcraft 2. Focus on a game with a small enough scope that you can get it working. Then you can add onto that if you have time.
3. Eat the free food.
4. Make sure to pace yourself. Don't try to stay up 42 hours programming because you'll start making terrible mistakes.

In addition to that Cindy played some Papers, Please. She actually did really well, and though one of her children got sick and her family had to go cold and hungry some nights, they were still alive by the time the meeting ended. While on the job she was hit on by women going to diva shows, she conformed to peer pressure on whether to deny or admit, and had her character randomly threatened.

                                                                                                                                                                    

Below you'll find more information on the Game Jam written by our founder, Livio De La Cruz. The dates have been updated.

Once every semester, the GameDev Club holds an epic, multi-day, game-making marathon known as a game jam. During this event, students from all sorts of different backgrounds and majors come together to form teams and make an entire game in a single weekend. The game jam is definitely one of the most fun things you'll do all year, and it's a great excuse to broaden your skill set. Plus, there's free food all weekend.

Our next game jam will be on the weekend of April 4th, and this time the event will last for 42 hours so that you can have time on Sunday to get plenty of rest and catch up on any homework you might have.

• Starts: Friday, Nov 7th at 5:00pm
• Ends: Sunday, Nov 9th at 1:00pm
• Location: Electrical and Computer Engineering building, room 105
• As usual, it's a good idea to plan ahead so that you can minimize the amount of classwork that you'll have that weekend. For more information about the event, please read the rest of the post.

How does the Game Jam work?

Because the purpose of the game jam is to encourage students to improve and learn new skills, the game jam is open to anyone from any background and level of experience. For instance, the game jam is a great opportunity for artists and musicians to work on a game project and to see what it can be like to be part of a game development team.

In order to prevent people from starting their games early, every game has to be made around a theme, which is revealed at the start of the game jam. These themes are usually vague and open ended, so you'll have plenty of room to come up with something creative. Some examples of typical game jam themes are: evolution, color, artificial, etc.

If you want to get a much better idea of what the game jam is like, click here to read about how our previous game jam went.

Schedule

Friday, Nov 7th, from 4:00pm to 5:00pm: many people will be transporting their computers, monitors, musical instruments, drawing tablets, etc., into the room. If you want to bring anything earlier, please contact Jonathan at jonwrightcs@email.arizona.edu

Friday, Nov 7th, from 5:00pm to 6:00pm: we're going to have a "social hour." During this time, participants will get a chance to eat dinner, talk to other participants, and most importantly, form teams. People also use this time to prepare their workspace so that they can work more closely with their team.

Friday, Nov 7th, at 6:00pm: the theme is announced and everyone gets to work. This is when the 42-hour countdown begins, and then everyone's games will be due at 12:00pm on Sunday.

Sunday, Nov 9th from 12:00pm to 1:00pm: At this point, everyone's games will be due! We'll present everyone's games and then the community will vote on which game they think was the best. After this, everyone will be free to go home, unless they want to help us clean up. After cleaning up, many of us will be going to eat lunch together at some restaurant, so you're encouraged to join us!

Most people will go home during the first night so that they can get some sleep, and this is especially convenient for those who live on campus. Some participants, however, like to bring in sleeping bags and toothbrushes so that they can sleep in the room. We will have multiple officers on duty throughout the entire event so that we can keep an eye on everything and to make sure that nothing gets stolen or damaged.

Important Tips and Advice

Important: Please put the room's phone number into your phone contacts: (520) 626-7324. If you ever get locked out of the building during the event, you can then call this number and we will send someone to let you in. We will likely have poor cellphone reception throughout the event, since we will be in what is essentially the basement of the ECE building. This is why we insist that you call the room phone because that will be the most reliable. Also, the poor reception will eat away at your phone's battery, so you might want to bring your charger.

You should be able to get free parking in the parking lot next to the ECE building starting at 5:00pm on Friday. Parking on campus is usually free during the weekends, unless there's a big event such as a home football game.

Also, please plan to take a lot of breaks. It's not healthy to sit in front of a computer for more than a few hours at a time, so use this as an excuse to get up, go outside, and get some sun. Having your entire team take breaks together can make for some great team-bonding moments since you typically spend that time having fun.

And finally, don't get discouraged if you don't have a lot of experience! Usually half of our participants are new to making games, and the game jam is actually a great environment to learn how to build your first game. The constraints of the event will teach you how to focus on the most important parts of your game, and you'll get to more clearly see how your work gets translated into the final product.

Questions

If you have any more questions, please ask Cindy at cindytrieu@email.arizona.edu

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10/27/2014 - Play-Testing

The IGF student competition has its submission deadlines at the end of this week, so Zuoming, Cindy, Tyler and Mark were here to let us play-test their game and get some valuable - pretty much last minute - feedback. All around there were spouts of frustration, glitches being found, sheep being pushed off cliffs (and garbage cans), and pizza being eaten. Hopefully the team can squash some of those bugs and most importantly, come up with a name for their game, before the deadline. Good luck!

Announcements: Read this excerpt from Cindy's wonderfully worded email about the workshop.

"So I know I wasn't very clear about what time the Rapid Prototyping Workshop was, but it will be Saturday, November 1stat around 4PM. I say around because I will be coming back from Seattle! So please bear with me! I'll bring you presents, hahaha. But if you are interested, you do not have to know how to code to attend this workshop! This workshop is CODE-FREE. I will supply assets for you and we will be building a game together. :) 

To RSVP: http://goo.gl/forms/aDf5rOpk4l

To download Stencyl: http://www.stencyl.com/

And when the date gets closer, I will send you guys the assets that we will be using! We will be in ECE 105 for this workshop. Parking is free on weekends ( unless it's a game day... )."

Also, about the quickly approaching Game Jam!

"GAME JAM is coming around the corner! It's sneaking up on us like a wild animal on its prey... If you are interested in Game Jam, and now you know that you can go, please sign up! We need to know how much food to get for you guys, and how much space we need to accommodate.

Please RSVP: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1D0hD7Dm9QfLJQ6L_-ZrcSlVyTOie4CrCZ-COismj0SU/viewform "

Hope to see lots of people at these two events!

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10/20/2014 - Tile Art

Hi again, sorry this recap is a bit late. This [last] week our Final Boss (Cindy Trieu) gave a talk and demonstration on creating tile art in Photoshop CS2, Blender and Gimp. This comes in handy when you're creating a 2-D game and need to populate it with graphics.

Throughout the discussion our group had some heated debates about whether lava was better than forests or whether the wall should be grassy, viney, or grassy-viney. In the end, the answer still alluded us so we all decided that drawing Mario was the correct response.

Here is the followup video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFvsRvo_78Y

*For announcements see next [this] weeks recap.

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10/03/2014 - GDC and Competitive Balance

Hey all,

This week we went more in depth on our future trip to GDC in San Francisco. There are a few things to note about this...

If you would like to go on the trip then please sign up here. We will try to get funding from ASUA and the computer science department, but to qualify for this funding you need to fill out a CA application. Being a CA (Conference Associate) enable you to get a free all-access pass, significantly lowering the cost of the trip. We will also be trying out some fundraising ideas.


For the other half of the meeting Patrick gave a talk on balancing competitive games - Halo. He focused on a multiplayer game because he found that the ideas translated more easily to single player games than they would the other way around...


Tuning Knobs: These are areas that are easily to change technically and can have relatively easy to identify affects on gameplay. Crank them high when starting the balancing process.

Game Mechanics: With your tuning knobs turned up see which of the mechanics you actually consider fun and focus on those. Also, identify which mechanics are not fun or are overly complex.

Feedback: Player feedback is nice near the end, but remember that you can't please everyone and everyone is looking out for what makes the game most fun to them.

See you all next week!

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Game Night on Friday, October 10th!

The GameDev Club is teaming up with the IEEE club to hold another game night! There will be food, and everyone is encouraged to bring their own games, consoles, snacks, computers, batteries, etc. This Friday is a special day because it is the first Game Night following the release of Super Smash Bros for the 3DS.

• When: Friday, October 10th, starting at 5:30pm until midnight.
• Where: Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) building, room 105 (map below)

As usual, the free food that we get is funded by your donations, so if you plan to donate, remember to bring some money.

Important Info

1. You can park for free in the parking lot by the ECE building (lot #3039) after 5:00pm.
2. 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.
3. In order to get to the bottom floor of the ECE building, please only use the South stairwell door, which will be left open.
4. 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.
5. 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

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10/06/2014 - Rapid Prototyping

This Monday evening our beloved ex-president (now vice) gave a talk on rapid prototyping. Pulling from his past experiences and especially his ongoing student IGF project, he went through the process and benefits of this development process.

Some of the things to take away from his presentation...

1. Prototypes are a great way to get an idea of how your brainstormed ideas will work as games.
2. They save a lot of time due to not requiring a lot of coding.
3. Set a deadline on each prototype.
4. Before starting, make sure to ask yourself, "what do I want to learn from this prototype?"

Next week Patrick will be giving a talk on gameplay balance. We'll also be talking about GDC, so if you plan on coming, or are interested in how the largest Game Developers Conference operates come join us!

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First Meeting of the year!

Hey everyone!

Welcome back to the beginning of another year of hard work, tears, and sleep deprivation! I hope you all had a wonderful summer, and I'm excited to tell everybody that the first meeting of the year is this upcoming Monday, September 8th in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Building in room 105 at 5PM. So pretty much the usual time and place. 

For the first meeting of the semester, we'll be introducing ourselves to newer members. We then will be showcasing games that people have been making over the summer! If you made a game this summer ( or recently ), then send it to me! We'll show it off, playtest it, give you feedback, whatever you need! Even if it isn't done, we'd love to check it out and help you make it even better. So please email me at cindytrieu@email.arizona.edu and we'll show it during the first meeting!

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Game Night on Friday, May 9th!

The GameDev Club is teaming up with the IEEE club to hold the LAST game night of the year! Austin Wintory Jordan Wallet will be there!

 There will be food, and everyone is encouraged to bring their own games, consoles, snacks, computers, batteries, etc.

• When: Friday, May 9th, starting at 5:30pm until midnight.
• Where: Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) building, room 105 (map below)
• RSVP: http://bit.ly/IEEEGameNight

As usual, the free food that we get is funded by your donations, so if you plan to donate, remember to bring some money.

Important Info

1. You can park for free in the parking lot by the ECE building (lot #3039) after 5:00pm.
2. 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.
3. In order to get to the bottom floor of the ECE building, please only use the South stairwell door, which will be left open.
4. 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.
5. 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 Livio at ldelac01@email.arizona.edu, Zuoming at zuomingshi@email.arizona.edu, or Cindy at cindytrieu@email.arizona.edu.

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Photos from the Spring 2014 Game Jam

This semester's game jam was so awesome that this post probably won't be able to do it justice. The theme for this game jam was flowers, and so everyone had to make a game that tied to the theme in some way within 42 hours. There were around 16 participants and about four non-participants. Fortunately, there was a healthy number of both frequent participants and newcomers, and they divided themselves into five teams.

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4/7/2014 - The GDC Rant Panel

We dedicated this week's meeting to talking about our club's trip to GDC. We organized the meeting like a typical GDC rant session, where everyone who went to GDC (all eight of us) sat at a long table in the front of the room. We each took turns talking about our favorite parts of the trip, what we learned, and advice for attending next year.

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Game Night on Friday, April 11th!

The GameDev Club is teaming up with the IEEE club to hold another game night! There will be food, and everyone is encouraged to bring their own games, consoles, snacks, computers, batteries, etc.

• When: Friday, April 11th, starting at 5:30pm until midnight.
• Where: Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) building, room 105 (map below)
• RSVP: http://bit.ly/IEEEGameNight

As usual, the free food that we get is funded by your donations, so if you plan to donate, remember to bring some money.

Important Info

1. You can park for free in the parking lot by the ECE building (lot #3039) after 5:00pm.
2. 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.
3. In order to get to the bottom floor of the ECE building, please only use the South stairwell door, which will be left open.
4. 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.
5. 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 Livio at ldelac01@email.arizona.edu.

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Volunteer Opportunity for a Charity Game Project

Last week, Juan Cuadra came to our meeting to talk about this really cool project that he's working on to make some kind of interactive play experience for child patients of the Diamond Children's Hospital at the University of Arizona Medical Center. If you're interested in helping out with this project, please email Juan at: juan.cuadra7@gmail.com

Here's a quick summary of the project (this is my summary of the meeting, not a list of what Juan's looking for specifically, so if you have questions, please ask him directly):

• The goal of the project is to create something that will allow kids to play some kind of game without having to touch any toys or controllers or anything (which is an important safety precaution when dealing with patients). The display will use cameras, sensors, and projectors to make the game work, and there's an opportunity to make the game work with the Kinect.
• The project is mostly undefined and currently seeking funding, so if you were to get involved, part of your responsibilities will be to help define the project further, much in the same way that a game designer would define a game project, and it will likely involve doing some user research so that you can better understand the space that you're working in.
• In addition to the game design work that needs to be done, there is also engineering work to do, such as programming, art, sound, etc.
• There's also work to be done on the setup of the display. The technologies that will be used for the cameras and sensors are still to be determined, and you'll also have to figure out how to program for that technology.

Like I said during the meeting, you can probably get course credit for working on this project by pitching it to either a CS or SISTA professor as a potential research project. If you have questions about the specifics on how to do that, you can talk to either me (ldelac01@email.arizona.edu) or Zuoming (zuomingshi@email.arizona.edu)

So if you're interested in volunteering for this super cool project, please contact Juan Cuadra: juan.cuadra7@gmail.com

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3/31/2014 - Roblox talk, and Volunteer Opportunity

During this week's meeting, Greyson gave a talk about how he has been making money by making games on Roblox. Click here to download the slides from his presentation.

We also had Juan Cuadra from Pima Community College come to give a presentation about a new charity-based game project that he's starting. It looked like an awesome project, and he's looking for students who are willing to volunteer their time to help work on it. Click here to read more about his project.

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Buy a GameDev Club T-Shirt for $20

For the first time ever, the GameDev Club is selling club t-shirts! You can now proudly show your support for the coolest club on campus by having the our new logo printed on your chest. See the above image for the design of the shirt.

How to Buy a Club Shirt

1. Contact Zuoming (zuomingshi@email.arizona.edu)
2. Tell him what shirt size you want (small, medium, large, etc.)
3. Give him $20 for the shirt.

Please pay for your shirt by Monday, April 7th. We intend to make the order for shirts sometime after the GameDev Club meeting for that day, so please try to pay for your shirt before then.

How to Pay for your Shirt

We only accept cash, but you have three possible ways to give us money:

1. Come to Game Jam this weekend,
2. Come to the club meeting on Monday, April 7th at 5:00pm at the ECE building, room 105,
3. Or organize a meetup with Zuoming (zuomingshi@email.arizona.edu)

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3/24/2014 - Concept Art Talk

Today we had Ky Tran come to give a talk about concept art and how to become a good artist, in general. He also spoke about his experiences with learning the craft and how he's been trying to improve his skills by relying on practice, online resources, books, and lots and lots of more practice.

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42-Hour Game Jam on April 4th!!

Once every semester, the GameDev Club holds an epic, multi-day, game-making marathon known as a game jam. During this event, students from all sorts of different backgrounds and majors come together to form teams and make an entire game in a single weekend. The game jam is definitely one of the most fun things you'll do all year, and it's a great excuse to broaden your skill set. Plus, there's free food all weekend.

Our next game jam will be on the weekend of April 4th, and this time the event will last for 42 hours so that you can have time on Sunday to get plenty of rest and catch up on any homework you might have.

• Starts: Friday, April 4th at 5:00pm
• Ends: Sunday, April 6th at 1:00pm
• Location: Electrical and Computer Engineering building, room 105
• RSVP: http://bit.ly/uagamejam

As usual, it's a good idea to plan ahead so that you can minimize the amount of classwork that you'll have that weekend. For more information about the event, please read the rest of the post.

How does the Game Jam work?

Because the purpose of the game jam is to encourage students to improve and learn new skills, the game jam is open to anyone from any background and level of experience. For instance, the game jam is a great opportunity for artists and musicians to work on a game project and to see what it can be like to be part of a game development team.

In order to prevent people from starting their games early, every game has to be made around a theme, which is revealed at the start of the game jam. These themes are usually vague and open ended, so you'll have plenty of room to come up with something creative. Some examples of typical game jam themes are: evolution, color, artificial, etc.

If you want to get a much better idea of what the game jam is like, click here to read about how our previous game jam went.

Schedule

Friday, April 4th, from 4:00pm to 5:00pm: many people will be transporting their computers, monitors, musical instruments, drawing tablets, etc., into the room. If you want to bring anything earlier, please contact Livio at ldelac01@email.arizona.edu.

Friday, April 4th, from 5:00pm to 6:00pm: we're going to have a "social hour." During this time, participants will get a chance to eat dinner, talk to other participants, and most importantly, form teams. People also use this time to prepare their workspace so that they can work more closely with their team.

Friday, April 4th, at 6:00pm: the theme is announced and everyone gets to work. This is when the 42-hour countdown begins, and then everyone's games will be due at 12:00pm on Sunday.

Sunday, April 6th from 12:00pm to 1:00pm: At this point, everyone's games will be due! We'll present everyone's games and then the community will vote on which game they think was the best. After this, everyone will be free to go home, unless they want to help us clean up. After cleaning up, many of us will be going to eat lunch together at some restaurant, so you're encouraged to join us!

Most people will go home during the first night so that they can get some sleep, and this is especially convenient for those who live on campus. Some participants, however, like to bring in sleeping bags and toothbrushes so that they can sleep in the room. We will have multiple officers on duty throughout the entire event so that we can keep an eye on everything and to make sure that nothing gets stolen or damaged.

Important Tips and Advice

Important: Please put the room's phone number into your phone contacts: (520) 626-7324. If you ever get locked out of the building during the event, you can then call this number and we will send someone to let you in. We will likely have poor cellphone reception throughout the event, since we will be in what is essentially the basement of the ECE building. This is why we insist that you call the room phone because that will be the most reliable. Also, the poor reception will eat away at your phone's battery, so you might want to bring your charger.

You should be able to get free parking in the parking lot next to the ECE building starting at 5:00pm on Friday. Parking on campus is usually free during the weekends, unless there's a big event such as a home football game.

Also, please plan to take a lot of breaks. It's not healthy to sit in front of a computer for more than a few hours at a time, so use this as an excuse to get up, go outside, and get some sun. Having your entire team take breaks together can make for some great team-bonding moments since you typically spend that time having fun.

And finally, don't get discouraged if you don't have a lot of experience! Usually half of our participants are new to making games, and the game jam is actually a great environment to learn how to build your first game. The constraints of the event will teach you how to focus on the most important parts of your game, and you'll get to more clearly see how your work gets translated into the final product.

Finally, don't forget to RSVP!

Questions

If you have any more questions, please ask Zuoming at zuomingshi@email.arizona.edu.

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3/10/2014 - The Yawhg

We started this week's meeting with a visit by Vaughn Croft, who works for the Office of the Pima County School Superintendent. He helped us organize a couple of mini game design workshops that we held for middle school students as part of their Career Shadowing Day. He came to give us some of the great feedback he got from the students who participated, as well as to give us some pointers on how to make the next workshops better.

We then spent the rest of the meeting playing a game called The Yawhg, which is best described as a four-player choose-your-own-adventure story. Most of us agreed that this game worked amazingly well as a party game, and it's best enjoyed when knowing very little about the game. While playing the game, we talked about some of the interesting things that the game did, such as its at-first mysterious stats system, the unpredictability of events, and its strong RPG style.

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GameMaker Workshop Part 2 on Saturday!

Are you ready to learn more about GameMaker while finishing the MegaMan game that we started last time? If you didn't attend the first workshop, that's okay, since we'll try to keep this workshop as accessible as possible. You can also try skimming through the video recording of the last workshop. You can also download the source files that we created during the last workshop to get familiar with (or remind yourself about) what we did last time.

• When: Saturday, March 8th from 3:00pm to 5:00pm
• Where: Gould-Simpson building, room 701
• RSVP: Please click here to RSVP

If possible, please bring a computer to the workshop so that you can follow along. If you don't have a computer, tell us in the RSVP form so that we can try getting laptops for you in advance.

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3/3/2014 - Officer Elections!

It's that time again...

On Monday we held club officer elections. The only position that had more than one person running for it was the presidency, unless you count Rory who ran for every single position on the campaign of "don't vote for me." Below are the results of the officer election:

President (Final Boss):
Cindy Trieu

Vice President (Old Man in Cave) (Miniboss):
Zuoming Shi

Outreach Officer (Bard):
Jordan Hunt

Treasurer (Rogue):
Josh Djakaria

Secretary (Save Point):
Jonathan Wright

Cinematographer (Shy Guy) (Lakitu):
Patrick Wilkening

The vote for presidency was super close. Cindy beat Patrick by only one vote, while Rory actually managed to score a vote from one indecisive member.

After the election, we voted on club shirt designs:

And we ended up choosing the design below:

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2/24/2014: Character Design Talk, and Spec Ops: The Line Analysis

We had two talks during this week's meeting. First, Cindy gave a talk about character design in games. She pointed out some strong designs and some weak ones, and then she had the club throw a bunch of ideas together for a character in order to guide us through what the creative process can be like. The image above is a rough sketch of what we came up with.

Patrick then gave a talk about Spec Ops: The Line, which is a first-person shooter game that has received a lot of praise for its extremely well written and depressing story. Some of the design decisions that were made about this game were really interesting, and it's amazing that they were able to make something that was packed with so much meaning.

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Video Recording for GameMaker Workshop Part One

Something went wrong with the audio recording, so the audio quality is not as polished as we would have preferred. The video is still watchable, however. We've broken up the recording into two parts:

First Half: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPhZYQP6t8E
Second Half: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS3ZtG-wwcE

You can also click here to download the source files that we had at the end of the workshop.

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2/17/14 - Stochasticity in Game Design

This week we held a game design challenge structured around the idea of stochastic design, or the idea of adding randomness without being completely random. Dylan gave a quick talk to introduce the idea, and then he broke us up into random teams for the design challenge. The challenge was to take the game tic-tac-toe and turn it into a better game by adding some element of randomness to it. The winner of the challenge was chosen by public vote, and and they won a box of Valentines Day candy. It was a pretty fun meeting.

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Game Night on Friday, February 21st!

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

• When: Friday, February 21st, starting at 5:30pm until midnight.
• Where: Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) building, room 105 (map below)

As usual, the free food that we get is funded by your donations, so if you plan to donate, remember to bring some money.

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 Livio at ldelac01@email.arizona.edu.

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GameMaker Workshop Files

If you are attending our GameMaker Workshop, here are the files that you will need in order to follow along:

1. Download GameMaker 8.1 (this is not the latest version of GameMaker)
2. Download Zuoming's Mega Man starter files

Mac Developers: please also download LateralGM.
Happy developing!

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2/10/2014 - Intro to Modularity in 3D Games

During Monday's meeting, William gave a talk about modularity, which refers to a technique used by artists and level designers to simplify the process of building complicated 3D environments. The talk wasn't too technical since most of us don't have experience with 3D graphics, but it was still really cool and eye-opening because it showed just how often assets get reused in a single level without the player even realizing it.

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GameMaker Workshop on Saturday, Feb 15

Want to learn how to make games? Come to our workshop, where we'll teach you how to use the popular tool called GameMaker, which allows you to make games without knowing how to program. If you're already a programmer, then GameMaker can offer you a way to very quickly make prototypes of your game ideas, and it can help introduce you to how games are developed.

• When: Saturday, February 15th from 12:00pm to 2:00pm
• Where: Gould-Simpson building, room 701
• RSVP here: http://bit.ly/GameDevWorkshop

During the workshop be showing you how to make a quick Mega Man game using GameMaker

Prerequisites

This workshop is open to people of all skill levels, so you do not need to have any prior programming or game development experience. It would be best if you could bring a laptop so that you can follow along with the workshop, but if you can't, we will try to supply you a computer that you can use. Just mention it on the RSVP form so that we can plan ahead for you.

Questions

If you have any questions, please contact Zuoming at zuomingshi@email.arizona.edu

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2/3/2014 - Artificial Intelligence

On Monday's meeting, we started by talking about all of the currently ongoing projects. There were quite a few projects, some were remakes, and others were small prototype ideas.

The rest of the meeting was Dylan's talk about artificial intelligence (AI). It was mostly about AI from a more general point of view, rather than a technical point of view. It was interesting to think about some of the design applications of AI, as well as some of the recent innovations that the field of games AI has gone through recently.

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Open Source Day on Saturday, Feb 8th

This Saturday, the GameDev Club will be teaming up with the WICS Club, the local ACM chapter, and the nonprofit OpenHatch organization to host an event called Open Source Day.

• When: Saturday, February 8th from 10:00am to 5:00pm.
• Where: Cesar Chavez building, room 301.
• RSVP: Click Here to RSVP!

What is Open Source Day?

OpenHatch describes Open Source Day as a "day-long immersion event" designed to introduce you to the world of open source development. Open source projects are basically software projects where the source code is open to the public, and literally anyone is allowed to modify and contribute to the project. Getting involved in open source projects is one of the most effective ways to improve your programming and software engineering skills. However, very few students ever do get involved in open source projects, and so the purpose of this event is to help as many students as we can to break into the world of open source.

The beginning of the day is focused on teaching you about some of the collaboration tools that people use to work on open source projects, as well as how open source software is licensed and how these projects are managed. The later part of the day will be spent on helping you get to work on a real project.

There is more information about the event's schedule on the event's website:
http://arizona.openhatch.org/

Space is Limited!

This is the first time that all of the major clubs in the Computer Science department have joined forces to host a single event. However, that also means that we'll be advertising to that many more people, and space is very limited. So if you want a seat, RSVP now!

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ARTIST WANTED for Puzzle-Based Platformer Game

Are you a talented artist who's interested in working on a real-world game project this semester? We're making a remake of an existing game, but rather than simply trying to mimic the original game's art style, we're hoping to find someone who is creative enough to help us find a unique art style our game, given the game's mechanics and the limits of their own abilities.

About the Game: Project Aeon

I've been running a web community called Interguild.org for the last seven years, and one of the most popular games on the site has been an obscure Shockwave game called Hannah and the Pirate Caves, which is a tile-based, puzzle-platformer with a level editor (screenshot below). A few years ago, the community started the Aeon project as an attempt to remake this game, but the project failed due to lack of skill and experience.

The game that we're trying to remake.

Now we are trying to restart this project from scratch, and our goal is to make a quality, professional product that will then be shipped to market by the end of the semester. We intend to publish our game not just on the Interguild but also on other online games sites, such as Kongregate and AddictingGames.

About the Art

We're looking for someone who's willing to do more than just make sprites for our game, because otherwise we'll end up with a game that feels more like an uninspired clone rather than a labor of love. We hope to find an artist who is interested in solving the problem of "what is the best art style for this game?" without being overly biased towards the original game's art style.

Finding the answer to this question will involve a lot of experimentation and playtesting, and it can often involve working with elements of the game that aren't necessarily part of the art. For instance, perhaps you decide that the size of the tiles should be changed, or maybe some of the game's mechanics need to be tweaked in order to better fit a certain art style idea. We hope that this project is an opportunity for you to push both your creative and artistic skills.

If we successfully ship this game, then you'll be able to point to a product in the market that you've made major contributions to. Even if the game doesn't succeed, the skills that you'll learn along the way will help distinguish you from other art students when applying for jobs.

Contact

Please contact me at livio@interguild.org if you're interested in joining our team, or if you simply have questions about the project.

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1/27/2014 - Trans-Media Worlds

Last Monday, we held our first meeting of the semester. We got a chance to meet all of the new members and talk about all of the events that we have planned.

Livio also gave a talk about Transmedia Worlds, which are basically fictional worlds that are represented by multiple types of media, such as film, novels, and of course, games. The talk focused on three examples: Star Wars, Pokémon, and Hot Wheels Acceleracers. The first two examples were some of the most successful worlds of recent years, while the third one is an example of a failed attempt to make a successful transmedia world.

Click here to download the slides from the presentation.

As usual, we recorded the meeting, but we are still editing the video. Check back here for the recording once it has been uploaded.

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Game Night on Friday, January 24!

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, January 24th, 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 Livio at ldelac01@email.arizona.edu.

Edit:

Here's a photo that we took at the event:

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