UA Game Dev Club

Friday, October 11, 2013

10/11/2013 - Photos from the Game Night!

Unknown Friday, October 11, 2013

It's likely that this may have been our best game night yet. Here are some interesting facts:

There were around 37 people at our peak.
There were about a dozen of us who stayed after midnight, and we finally left at around 2am.
We ordered Jimmy Johns for food, which was the second time in our club's history when we ordered something other than pizza for food. It was expensive, but it was worth it!
When we ran out of food, we ended up ordering pizza anyway.

Game Night on Friday, October 11th!

Unknown Monday, October 07, 2013

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, October 11th, starting at 5:30pm until midnight.
Where: Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) building, room 105 (map below)

Important Info

Please RSVP using this form: http://bit.ly/IEEEGameNight.
You can park for free in the parking lot by the ECE building (lot #3039) after 5:00pm.
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.
In order to get to the bottom floor of the ECE building, please only use the South stairwell door, which will be left open.
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.
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.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

09/23/2013: Career Advice Talk

Unknown Tuesday, October 01, 2013

The video for last week's meeting is finally up! Below is a summary of everything we did at the meeting:

1) OUYA Announcement

We started the meeting with an announcement about the club's newly purchased OUYA console. It was paid for by the computer science department, and it's a pretty awesome fit for club considering that it's so easy to develop for and considering that most members know Java.

2) Game Projects Updates

Next, starting at around 4:00 in the recording, we went around the room and talked about all of the game projects that are currently going on. We had around eight different projects that we went through.

3) Discussion about Storytelling in Games

At around 14:25, we kinda went on a really interesting tangent about the challenges of storytelling in games. We later continued the discussion on our Facebook group, where we basically just shared some awesome talks by Rhianna Pratchett, as well as Extra Credit's episode on how to construct a game narrative.

4) Career Advice Talk

And finally, starting at 21:20 in the recording, Livio gave a Career Advice Talk, which focused on helping people get jobs in the games industry. There was a lot of content covered in this talk, since it included both general and industry-specific advice.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Workshop this Saturday: Intro to Game Programming

Unknown Sunday, September 22, 2013

This Saturday, the GameDev Club will be holding a workshop that will try to teach you the basics of programming a game!

When: Saturday, September 28th, from 1pm to 3pm
Where: Gould-Simpson building, room 906.

Click here to RSVP!

Video Recording:

>> Click here to watch the video recording of the workshop. <<

Prerequisites:
This workshop is intended for people who have at least some programming experience, so basically if you've taken either CSC 127 or 227, or if you have experience programming elsewhere. We'll be covering several game programming techniques, such as the concept of a game loop, how to draw to the screen, how to read in user input, and more!

Tools:
The workshop will be done in Java, so make sure you have the Eclipse IDE for Java Developers downloaded and installed before coming to the workshop.

Please RSVP: here

If you have any questions, email Livio at ldelac01@email.arizona.edu.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

9/16/2013 - How to Manage a Game Project, and Getting Started with your First Project

Unknown Thursday, September 19, 2013

We started the meeting with Livio's talk, called "How to Manage a Game Project". It was basically a collection of practical tips and advice that the club had accumulated from working on game projects over the years. In the video recording, the talk starts at 4:04, and you can click here to download Livio's notes for the talk.

The second half of the meeting was Zuoming's talk, which was called "Actually Making a Game". There was a bit of overlap with the first talk because we didn't plan it well, but basically this talk focused more on the practical steps for starting your project. It begins at around 31:14 in the recording, and you can download either the PDF or the PPTX of the slides that he used.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Photos from the Game Night

Unknown Monday, September 16, 2013

The game night on Friday was pretty awesome. This post has all of the photos and videos that we took during the event.

09/09/2013 - Intro to the Club and the Language of Game

Unknown Thursday, September 12, 2013

We started our first meeting of the semester by introducing the club to new members, and then we had everyone introduce themselves. The second half of the meeting was dedicated to Dylan's talk called, "The Language of Game," which was basically about why game experiences are so meaningful to people and how certain design techniques can help take advantage of these reasons to make your game more successful.

We had 30 people show up to this meeting. Below is the full video recording, and some of the pictures that we took:

Friday, August 30, 2013

Schedule for the First Meeting and First Game Night

Unknown Friday, August 30, 2013

First Weekly Meeting on Monday, Sept. 9th

Our first meeting will be on the Monday after Labor Day:

When: Monday, September 9th, at 5:00pm.
Where: Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) building, room 105 (map below)

We'll meet every week at the same time and place, but if you can't make it to the meetings, we will post video recordings on the club website. You can also stay involved with the club by joining our mailing list and Facebook group, and by attending some of our many events, such as:

Game Night on Friday, Sept. 13th

Our first game night will be on the Friday after our first meeting:

When: Friday, April 13th, starting at 5:30pm until midnight.
Where: Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) building, room 105 (map below)

We always hold our game nights in conjunction with the IEEE club. There will be free food, but we also collect donations for our food fund. Also, everyone is encouraged to bring food, games, controllers, consoles, TV's, etc. in order to help contribute to the event.

Important Info for the Game Night

Please RSVP using this form: http://bit.ly/IEEEGameNight.
You can park for free in the parking lot by the ECE building (lot #3039) after 5:00pm on Fridays
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.
In order to get to the bottom floor of the ECE building, please only use the South stairwell door, which will be left open.
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.
In accordance to university policy, no alcohol, firearms, or weapons will be allowed.

Where is the ECE building?

Below is a map of where the Electrical and Computer Engineering building is. To view the map in another window, click here.

View Larger Map

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

GameDev Club at the Fall Club Fair

Unknown Wednesday, August 28, 2013

On Tuesday, we shared a table with the IEEE club at the Fall Club Fair. This time, we had a new tent, which was paid for by Livio and Jonathan. As usual, we played video game music, collected emails for our mailing list, and informed people about the club. Most of the pictures that we took were taken at one time of the day, but we had several members show up throughout the day to help man our booth.