5/18/2013 - Virtual Meeting #1

Today we held our first virtual summer meeting! We didn't really have anything specific planned for this meeting, but it was a lot more fun than expected.

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4/29/2013 - A Business Perspective to Starting Projects

This week Jordan gave a talk on how developing and producing video games intersects with the business world. His focus was on what developers should take from the business world to be more efficient with their time and be able to communicate more effectively with those on the business side.

The first thing he brought up were the differences between programmers(developers) and entrepreneurs when it comes to creating a game. The core of a programmer's motivation when developing is to bring an enjoyable experience to as many as people as possible. On the other hand, "Business people" want make money. This doesn't mean that both sides can't learn from each other.

Jordan broke up the pre-development process into multiple steps:

Step 1: Feasibility
            Do you have the technology? Knowledge? Tech support (for when you get stuck)?
Step 2: Buedget
            Do you have time, interest, and motivation to see the project through?
Step 3: Market Research
            Is there a market? What is the competition? What can you do to beat the competition?
Step 4: MORE Market Research
            What is your distribution platform? How will you communicate with users?
Step 5: Post-Release Support
            Listen to the symptoms the players bring up, but don't listen to their diagnosis.

Some tips:

1. If no one plays then no one is having fun regardless of how great the game is.
2. You can tell when your game is doing great if you have a consumer base that gets annoyed when you release a patch.
3. Do not bring other people into the project until you have done everything you can alone.

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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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03/25/2013: Outreach Officer Election and Virtual Harlem

2013 - 2014 Outreach Officer!

After barely falling short in the race for president Cindy's name once again appeared on the ballot. This time for outreach officer. Her competition was a self-taught and talented designer, William, who also wished to bring more variety to our club as well as more people. Both candidates have contributed much to the club already. Cindy has started crafting the club logo and William is working to spruce up our website. Thanks to both of them!

In the end Cindy received the majority and became the new Outreach Officer, but both were/are highly qualified.

Now that elections are over we can focus on getting some talks and projects going.

Virtual 1920s Harlem

After the elections, our special guest, Dr. Bryan Carter, from the Africana Studies Department pitched an idea to the club. His goal was to enlist some interested members in working on improving a 1920s virtual rendition of Harlem, New York.

The project has been in motion for years, but after expensive "cave" units his focus is on bringing Harlem to the desktop. The first manifestation of the game was built on second life and then on the open-source version, open sim. Now, developers at Unity are porting over the game into their engine which will may allow for an increase in the graphical capability if there are no other bottlenecks. 

He pictures a collaboration of the humanities and the sciences to create a historical world full of games to drive the interest of students. Hopefully incorporating a "game" atmosphere with a  foundation of history will lead students to roam the virtual world and discover things about the time period, however big or small.

After Dr. Carter departed some ideas were tossed around on how the virtual world should be molded. Not making it like Assassin's Creed was an easy consensus for the group to come to, but we did decide that would needed to be more immersive and come alive for the players. 

If you are interested in improving 1920s virtual harlem while getting some academic credit (summer availability also) and perhaps something to add to your portfolio then contact Dr. Bryan Carter. In addition, next semester he will be teaching a colloquium on education and mobile Apps, so look for that.

Email: bryancarter@email.arizona.edu

For information and a tour of the project visit his blog and twitter.

 - Visit his Twitter for a link to 13 minute video showcasing the environment.

 - Visit his blog to read about the development, create an avatar, download the client, and explore.

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Officer Elections Results, Silly Games, and time to play TF2

Today we held officer elections! The debates took longer than expected, but they were also much more fun than expected. Dylan even skipped the class that he usually has in order to defend his vice-president position.

The first round of elections was Zuoming Shi (current Treasurer) vs. Cindy Trieu (non-officer), and they were fighting for the presidency. They were both very popular candidates with some great skills to offer. It was a very close race, but Zuoming won by only two votes!

The second battle was for the vice presidency: Dylan Clavell (current vice president) vs. Tyler Wallace (current outreach officer). This was a hard decision for most voters, because as with the race for the presidency, both candidates were very qualified and well-liked. However, Dylan ended up winning with a strong majority, perhaps because when people are undecided, they tend to vote for the incumbent.

There were a few automatic victories for those who ran for positions without facing any competition. Jonathan Wright (also known as Save Point, our current secretary), became the new club treasurer for next year, while Livio De La Cruz (our current president) became the new secretary. Patrick Wilkening remained the club's cinematographer, and Harvey Sam's position as game server admin got reduced to a pseudo-officer position since we don't have a game server anymore.

We were left with one vacancy, however: no one ran for the position of outreach officer. We decided to hold an election for this position during next week's meeting, and the current candidates are William Wilson (non-officer) and Cindy Trieu (non-officer). After she lost the race for presidency by such a small margin, so many people wanted Cindy to be an officer that we went out of our way to convince her to run for this position, which she would actually be a very good fit for, considering her art and graphic design experience. William, on the other hand, also has art experience, and he hopes to use his officer position as an opportunity to really help the club grow and to more effectively use all of its media outlets.

So to recap, here are all of the results:

President - Zuoming Shi
Vice President - Dylan Clavell
Treasurer - Jonathan Wright
Secretary - Livio De La Cruz
Cinematographer - Patrick Wilkening
Outreach Officer - Up for grabs

The officer positions that we voted on are for the next academic year, so the new terms won't start until the Fall semester. Until then, we'll be in a sort of transition period where the new officers can learn from the incumbents about how to perform their job.

Because we were expecting the elections to take much less time, Dylan hastily prepared a pretty interesting talk/discussion on silly games such as QWOP, Enviro-Bear, and Katamari Damacy. It started five minutes before the meeting ended, but it lasted for about 20 minutes. It was actually a really entertaining talk, and the fact that so many people stayed long after the meeting had ended was a sign of how good it was.

During next week's meeting, we'll finish our elections by voting on Outreach Officer, and for the remainder of the meeting, we're going to try out that "book club"-style game discussion idea that was brought up before Spring Break. The topic of the discussion will likely be Team Fortress 2, so if you haven't played the game yet, download it now (it's free!), play it over the weekend, and share your thoughts about it during the meeting. Meanwhile, we'll be doing our research on the game so that we can guide the discussion around interesting topics and hopefully make it more of an educational experience rather than an aimless discussion.

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03/04/2013: Re-cap - Time To Vote!

Elections are tomorrow and after hopefully a relaxing/exciting/adventurous Spring Break I thought it might be a good idea to refresh everyone's memory.

1. Club Elections!

For the elections tomorrow the voting procedure is quite simple; Anyone running for an office can only run for one office. This rule applies to current officers as well. The Game-server officer position is being turned into a pseudo-officer position and isn't part of these elections.

Also, remember to vote for me (Jonathan, A.K.A. "Save Point") for treasurer!

2. Future Meetings!

We had some discussions on what to do for future meetings since the last few have been mainly logistical because of the game jam and officer elections. There is a long list of talks that people want to do, and so hopefully we can get a schedule crafted as soon as people prepare their presentations. The talks range from 3D graphics and programming to "What is being Indie" and modding. The veteran members plan on sharing with us the legend of Project Sponge too.

3. Another Family Club

Our club is very programming based it seems, and so the idea has been tossed around to add a Digital Art extension to our club. Depending on the amount of interest it may break off and become it's own club, but regardless look towards more news on this during future meetings. In the meanwhile we are hoping to have more diverse talks about graphics, animation, sound, etc.

- Save Point

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Photos & Videos from the Game Jam

The game jam was amazing! This post contains all/most of the pictures and videos that we took during the game jam. You can find a playlist of all the videos on the club's YouTube channel.

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