April 17, 2008

RPI 2008 Game Festival & Symposium

RPI's 5th Annual Game Festival & Symposium is coming up on April 25th and 26th. The Albany IGDA Chapter will have a table at the Festival and we will be having a free raffle for members that attend the event.

Saturday's symposium will feature a series of panels and talks including industry luminaries Greg Costikyan, Eric Zimmerman.

Friday
Game Festival - Darrin Communication Center Great Hall
5:00 PM to 9 PM

Saturday
Game Symposium - Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary Studies Auditorium
10:15 to 3:30 PM.

Check the website or read further for more details on this event:

2008 Game Festival & Symposium

For the past four years, the Annual Game Festival and Symposium succeeded due to the quality of the student games exhibited during the Game Festival, and the themes and caliber of speakers that are the focus of the Symposium. Our consistent purpose is to expand students' game development skills and to increase their understanding of potential career options in the games and simulation. For the second year, the Festival will feature the Vicarious Visions Student Awards for the top five teams. We encourage and are gaining an increasing regional audience.

Game Festival

This year, the Festival is on Friday, April 25, 2008. As in previous years, Games & Simulation faculty will select the games for exhibition from among those created by undergraduate students within the preceding twelve months. The Festival and Symposium this year will be part of the 50th Anniversary of the School of Humanities & Social Sciences with substantial alumni participation already anticipated.
Game Symposium: Influence & Independence

The following day, Saturday, April 26, 2008, our theme for the Symposium is "Influence and Independence: New Forces in Games."

Serious Games: What Are They: Who Is Interested

Social Games, Games for Change, Educative Games, Persuasive Games, Games for Civic Engagement: the possibilities for the uses of game and simulation technologies are developing rapidly. In the forefront of the research, evaluation, and dissemination of such games are leading U.S. foundations that have made substantial commitments to exploring these areas. The Symposium will focus on the Serious Games trend in order to provide a window for Game Symposium participants into this rapidly emerging world.

As the Rensselaer Game Symposium developed over the past four years, our event has grown from a few hours and a handful of students and faculty to a full day event that draws upon not only Rensselaer students and faculty but students from other campuses in the region and from local game development companies. We take it as a core of our mission to help our students and faculty gain a richer understanding of the many current perspectives on the possibilities of game technologies.

We are also developing the Festival and Symposium into a regional conference with ties to careers, research opportunities, and connections with other universities.

Rensselaer's goal with its Game and Simulation Arts and Sciences (GSAS) program is to build a program and a culture of games on campus that enhances interdisciplinary skills that can open many career choices in the emerging games sector. The Game Festival and Symposium are viewed by the faculty and administration of this interdisciplinary initiative as integral to our pedagogy. A memorable and defining lecture was provided at the first Game Symposium when Ernest Adams laid down a challenge to our students: "if you came to RPI to build first person shooter games you came here for the wrong reason." What he went on to explain is that the world of games is much, much broader than the commercial sector which is often the first, admittedly powerful point of contact for young men and women who wish to study for a career in this field.

We are particularly grateful to our Level One Sponsor for 2007, Vicarious Visions, Inc., an Activision Studio, for their additional sponsorship of the Vicarious Visions Student Challenge Awards.

2008 Game Festival & Symposium Agenda

2008 Game Symposium Topics & Biographies

2007 Vicarious Visons Student Challenge Award Recipients

Posted by IanStead at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)

March 17, 2008

Protest to take place in Front of City Hall Tuesday

Tuesday, March 18th at 5:30pm. A protest will be held in front of Troy City Hall at 1 Monument Square. In support of the Sanctuary for Independent Media and against the abuse of public power to suppress art and dissent. The protest, which is being organized by a new ad hoc group calling itself the Capital Region Committee for Free Expression. Come join the IGDA, the UAG, and the newly formed Committee in a stand against censorship and oppression. If this mod project is allowed to be shut down, we are opening the floodgate for a maelstrom of censorship of independent game projects everywhere. For info on the protest and the new committee email.

IGDA members Tim, David, Justin, Megan, Colin and Tobi at the protest on Tuesday

Posted by MeganPerry at 10:12 PM | Comments (0)

January 31, 2008

GDC 2008 is coming up!

The 2008 Game Developers Conference is in San Francisco again this year.
Developers from all over the world will be meeting up to share ideas and talk shop from February 18th to 22nd.
For more info on the conference itself, or to buy a pass, visit the GDC Website.

If you are an IGDA member, and over 21, then come join us at the IGDA members only event Tuesday, February 19th at the Westin Hotel. To RSVP and for more info visit IGDA Event Page.

The Albany IGDA chapter coordinators will be meeting February 18th to talk to coordinators from other chapters. We will be sharing ideas to improve our local chapters. Please let us know if you have any suggestions, send them to albanyigda@gmail.com.

Posted by MeganPerry at 10:27 AM | Comments (0)

November 26, 2007

Ernest Adams at RPI

Freelance designer, author, and IGDA founder, Ernest Adams, will be coming to RPI this Thursday to give a lecture on stories and challenge in gameplay.

Thursday, November 29th
7:30-9pm
Russell Sage Laboratory
Room 3303
RPI Campus
Troy, NY

Rethinking Challenges in Games and Stories

Abstract: In this lecture Adams will take a second look at the role of challenges in gameplay - how they construct the player's experience and affect his or her emotional response to the game. Starting with a new proposal for determining the difficulty of a challenge, Adams goes on to question the assumption that games should be challenging at all, and make a case for other forms of computerized play beyond the traditional challenge-achievement-reward structure. The lecture also addresses the effect of challenges on storytelling, and discusses how different mechanisms for influencing the plot of a story produce different feelings in the player. The lecture ends with a suggestion for a unifying meta-approach to interactive storytelling that obviates all the debate about the "right way" to design games.

Get directions to this event here.

Posted by IanStead at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)

October 17, 2007

The Montreal International Game Summit 07

The fourth Montreal International Game Summit is coming up on November 27th and 28th! For the last two years we have been going up with members of the chapter and RPI Game Dev Club. This a great nearby conference for professional and student developers. It features an excellent series of talks for all disciplines (including some of the best ones from GDC) and is an ideal length of time for busy game developers.

The Albany IGDA at MIGS 2006.

The early registration discount closes on November 1st and IGDA Members get a discount. If 5 or more people are interested we can get a group rate.

Send us an email to albanyigda@gmail.com
if you are interested in the group rate or joining a car pool to the conference.

Registration for the conference is here.

Posted by IanStead at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)