Thursday, February 27, 2014


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.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014


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.


Tuesday, February 18, 2014


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.

Sunday, February 16, 2014


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.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

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!

Tuesday, February 11, 2014


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.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014


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.
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

Tuesday, February 4, 2014


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.

Monday, February 3, 2014


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!

Sunday, February 2, 2014


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.

Saturday, February 1, 2014


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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