November 11, 2007

Education Roundtable in Dearborn

On October 24, IGDA Detroit held an education roundtable discussion with four leaders of the gaming academic community in Michigan. The aim was to give attendees a better idea of the scope the various university programs related to gaming had, and how to better get into, and what they can get out of, said programs.

In attendance were Dr. Bruce Maxim from the University of Michigan, Prof. Brian Winn from Michigan State University, Kim Callery from the International Academy of Art & Design Detroit, and Jake Pollak from Schoolcraft College.

Each instructor gave an overview of their programs and how they'd developed, and a roadmap of where they are headed in the future.

After the break, we were joined by Ben Ridgeway, an instructor at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, whose students have been collaborating with Dr. Maxim's students on their game projects. It turns out that CCS students have been providing U-M students with art assets for their projects. We hope that this collaboration will expand in the future, for a greater cooperation between our state's educational institutions!

Takeaways from the evening were notes from the professors's findings in their programs, in that a graduate of Michigan game development programs find a job in the industry 99% of the time, provided they are willing to leave the state to do so. Michigan professors are very much looking to see new game companies in Michigan, to provide their students with more resources for internships and learning opportunities. Also, the serious games aspect of the industry is growing, with our educational bodies working to highlight that as a growing and positive application of their curriculums.

For the full notes of the roundtable, see Rich Elswick's moderator notes on the Discussion forums here.

Photos:

Posted by CristopherBoyer at 01:42 PM | Comments (0)

August 24, 2007

August Social goes off in Pub Style

Over drinks at a local pub, several members of the chapter gathered and talked about their current activities. Much excellent converstation was to be had. We discussed the initiatives of the Detroit Creative Technology Office and how it can help the members of the chapter. The DCTO is a regional office, which has the goal of promoting the companies and region as a hot bed for Creative Technologies and allow those outside the area to discover the great talent located around Metro Detroit. Their focus is on Detroit, but not exclusively.

Posted by RichElswick at 05:29 PM | Comments (0)

August 22, 2007

July Meeting Report from Interfaces Conference

Overall, at the 2007 InterFaces Conference there were well over 200 attendees. Although mostly students from IADT, there were many others there. A lot of great presenters from industry showed up and they loved the atmosphere and experience from this conference! This was a great success and I look forward to it next year.

Afterwards at the college campus of International Academy of Design and Technology (IADT) there was an IGDA chapter meeting, where we had about 15-20 folks show up to hear what it takes to get a game on Xbox Live Arcade presented by Cris Boyer of Variant Interactive. Lots of cool give aways such as Tshirts, books and software was given away as door prizes.

Come on out for our August Social Gathering or our September meeting to have some fun hanging out with us and talk about games some more!

Posted by RichElswick at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)

March 02, 2007

Autodesk brings the heat; also, gets the party started

With a dynamic presentation showing off the latest in 3D Modeling Software, Autodesk came to Detroit to show SMichigan IGDA and SemaFX just what, exactly, is up with 3D Studio Max and Maya.

Opening with a demo reel featuring choice clips from a number of in-house and 'real world' applications of the software, viewers were treated to scenes from the movie "Fantastic 4" and the opening sequence from Blizzard Software's "World of Warcraft."

After treating attendees to some eye candy, Autodesk presenters got down to business and showed everybody just why the new 3D Studio Max and Maya packages are so great.

SemaFX planned an afterglow down the street at a local restaurant, where members were able to gather afterwards and catch up, and grab a bite. To cap off the night, Autodesk picked up everybody's tab. Aren't they nice?

So here's to Autodesk for sponsoring the night with their presentation (and pocketbook) and SemaFX for putting the event together! Cheers, guys!

Posted by CristopherBoyer at 01:56 AM | Comments (0)

January 25, 2007

IGDA Smich makes some critical moves

Last week, Michigan's IGDA chapter kicked off the new year and met up with SEMAfx, our local ACM-SIGGRAPH group, for a tour of Critical Moves USA, a newly-established motion capture studio right down the road in Detroit.

Owners Michael Bolden and Thad Johnson gave attendees a great look at their new facility, providing a real time demonstration of motion capture. At the time of this writing, Critical Moves was able to show off very detailed performance capturing, with details as fine as finger movement and as unique as "virtual camerawork," enabling another person to move the 3D camera around in real time while capturing data.

"Critical Moves will be upgrading our system with an additional 70 MX40+ cameras. With the addition of the 70 MX40+ cameras, Critical Moves will posses over 120 cameras, making Critical Moves two stages one of the top and largest mo-cap studios in the world," said Bolden.

It was standing room only as attendees watched Critical Moves' mocap actress Claudia go through a routine and have her data mapped to a pre-rigged character in real time. Enthusiasts from ages 8 to 48 marveled at the technology, and the excitement at having such great technology in our backyard was palpable.

Before closing for the evening, IGDA coordinators announced next month's meeting – again in tandem with SEMAfx – and rounded up a crew of several for an afterparty at the Cadieux Cafe down the street from Critical Moves. Combined with swag giveaways and a delicious spread of food provided by SEMAfx, it seemed like everybody had a great time, and left flush with enthusiasm and ideas of how to best use this new tool for great new game development.

Posted by CristopherBoyer at 12:15 AM | Comments (0)

December 16, 2006

December Administrative Meeting/Social Gathering Report

The meeting went pretty well, though we didn't get a lot of IGDA

By the way, Cristopher Boyer is now the acting Chairman for the chapter with Brian, Jay and myself acting as an advisory board to support him.
Read more --->

Overall, Cris has put together a schedule, which we fleshed out with content for 2007! Dates have pretty much been chosen and topics selected for a meeting to occur in almost every month of the year! Stay tuned for more information to come out soon!

We also gabbed about a whole variety of topics and joined SEMAfx for the prize give aways at the end of their Christmas party. Overall it was fun for those that made it out and our next meeting is setup for Tuesday January 16th in the Detroit area, so stay tuned for details to follow soon!

Posted by RichElswick at 12:44 AM | Comments (0)

October 02, 2005

September 2005 Meeting Report

Jay and Brian, the chapter coordinators introduced the meeting at the University of Michigan’s north campus Media Union.

Andrew Pinson, president of Wolverine Soft:

Our meeting hosts, the University of Michigan Game Development group Wolverine Soft spoke on its plans for the current school year, including a show-off of their new website (wolverinesoft.org) with customizable member profiles, an updatable calendar and project database and more. With several projects in development, the group expects to have something to show at a future IGDA meeting.

Future Play Preview:

Brian Winn discussed the upcoming Future Play conference taking place October 13-15 at Michigan State University. The conference has an excellent line-up of keynotes, invited speakers, academic papers, and other exciting events such as an independent game exhibition. A conference flyer is available that outlines the highlights. Attendees were encouraged to take part in this unique event.

Jacob Pollack and Randy Rockafellor speak:

Two leaders of the Southeastern Michigan professional SIGGRAPH chapter (SEMAFX.net), discussed future plans for uniting members of the local IGDA with their organization for creative and business-oriented projects, including the “Groups of Eight” teams, as well as inviting all who can attend to their annual Halloween Party (at a yet-to-be-determined night club).

Brian DeMarco, Distinguished Speaker:

Since the fall meeting was a back-to-school kickoff to benefit attending students from Michigan, Michigan State, ITT Tech, Michigan Dearborn, Ferris State and Lawrence Tech, the feature presentation from Brian DeMarco, formerly of Monolith productions, dealt exclusively with breaking into the game industry. Students kept the questions coming as Brian discussed at length his process of entering the game industry, how he rose in his career, and what life is like for those working within.

IGDA for Michigan, and student chapters:

The IGDA Southern Michigan Chapter has been approached by several student groups looking to form their own Student IGDA chapter, and it was discussed that the IGDA professional chapter could serve as an umbrella organization for the smaller groups as they develop, lending support and guidance as well as potentially increasing the IGDA meetings and events to monthly schedule that would rotate from 3-4 locations within the state.

Posted by BrianWinn at 12:26 AM | Comments (0)

June 29, 2005

June 2005 Meeting Report

Around 30 members of the chapter got together on June 5, 2005, on the campus of the Michigan State University.

The following were on the agenda for the meeting:

Patrick Shaw on Game Production

Patrick Shaw discussed the ins-and-outs of the typical production process that he experienced during his ten years of making games and interactive media. He focused on some of the common problems in this process and suggested some team-structuring and organizational remedies to these problems. Here is an abstract of his talk:

The gaming industry has three big problems now: growing worker discontent, a malaise of creativity, and rising production costs. The problems are partly due to in an outdated production process which relies on top-down, micro-management. Although this industrial process is sufficient for small teams on short projects, it breaks down on larger, more complex games. An important alternative to the current process is through the use of "squads". In a squad based approach, the team leaders are responsible for establishing the vision for the project, but that actual game design is created by the individual developers. By engaging the entire team in the creative process increases employee satisfaction and delivers a superior game at a lower cost.

Socialize!

After the formal meeting, twelve of the members moved to a local pizza establishment for food, drinks, and informal discussion.

The Chapter Coordinators

Rich Elswick
Jay Semerad
Brian Winn

Posted by BrianWinn at 01:36 PM | Comments (0)

March 28, 2005

March 2005 Meeting Report

Around 20 members of the chapter got together on March 28, 2005, on the campus of the University of Michigan.

The following were on the agenda for the meeting:

Gregg Seelhoff on Indie/Shareware Game Development

Greg discussed the Association of Shareware Professionals and their recently created Indie Games Special Interest Group (SIG). He hilighted the September 2004 Membership Poll to demonstrate the many of the members are actually making a living from shareware software development.

Greg then compared and constrasted the typical software distribution chain from developer to consumer (and maybe including publisher, distributor, and retailer as intermediary steps) between shareware and "retail" titles.

Socialize!

After the formal meeting, twelve of the members moved to a local pizza establishment for food, drinks, and informal discussion.

The Chapter Coordinators

Rich Elswick
Jay Semerad
Brian Winn

Posted by BrianWinn at 04:18 PM | Comments (0)

February 13, 2005

January 2005 Meeting Report

Over 30 strong, the members of the chapter got together once again on January 23, 2005, this time on the campus of the Michigan State University.

The following were on the agenda for the meeting:

Mentorship Update

The mentors and apprentices that took part in our initial mentorship program each gave a brief presentation on how their mentorship went. We hope to present the concept to coordinators of other IGDA chapters at GDC this year.

Mike King and GBA Post-Mortem

Mike King gave a wonderful post-mortem on his recently developed GameBoy Advanced title, GunKid. The presentation covered the specific technical challenges of developing an independent title on the GBA. GunKid is a winner of the GBADEV.ORG 2004MBit Development Competition.

Quality of Life Roundtable led by Matt Toschlog

Matt Toschlog and a round table of industry veterans, including Paul Kerchen , John Andrussi, and Patrick Shaw discussed Quality of Life issues in the game industry, particularly at both large and small development studios.

Some of the topics discussed were:

• What is a normal work week and your typical crunch time.
• What crunch time is acceptable? (Length, hours)
• Compensation for crunch time (money, time off, other?)
• Married / kids? Culture
• John, Paul: Climate change at acquisition? QoL issues influence decision to leave previous company?
• Is crunch mode shared fairly?
• Can you tell before you take a job how the company will treat you?
• Are there differences between small & big companies?
• What can you do if you find yourself in a bad situation? Can you change anything?
• Non working-hours issues: Other benefits (health club, concierge, etc.)

To see a detailed description of the panel members experience, visit our forums and ask questions related to the topics discussed there. You can also visit these sites for more Quality of Life questions, issues and how the IGDA is addressing them:

IGDA Quality of Life page:(links to committee, white paper, & forums)
Quality of Life Summit at GDC 2005 http://www.igda.org/qol/summit.php and http://www.gdconf.com/conference/igdaqolsummit.htm

Book Giveaway

We had our book giveaway, randomly drawing four lucky members names for their choice of books from our library (generously donated by Peachpit Press, Focal Press, Charles River Media, A K Peters), GDC Posters from CMP Press, and some T-shirts by Perforce Software .

Titles of some of the books were, Artificial Intelligence for Computer Games by John David Funge and Interactive Storytelling: Techniques for 21st Century Fiction by Andrew Glassner

Socialize!

After which many people hung around to discuss informally.

The Chapter Coordinators

Rich Elswick
Jay Semerad
Brian Winn

Posted by BrianWinn at 04:43 PM | Comments (0)

November 09, 2004

November 2004 Meeting Report

Over 30 strong, the members of the chapter got together once again on November 7, 2004, this time on the campus of the University of Michigan. The following were on the agenda for the meeting: Pre-meeting Speaker: Gregg Seelhoff on various aspects of the Game Industry Gregg Seelhoff, with SophSoft, recounted stories and impressions over his long career in the game industry, including his work at game studios, such as Spectrum HoloByte, Quest Software, and Legend Entertainment, and his work with independents and his own company, based in Michigan. The talk was extremely interesting and brought back a lot of memories of the "early days". Gregg concluded with a Q&A session, were he offered advice to our student developers on potential career paths in and around the game industry. "The Political Machine: a Postmortem of the 2004 Election (game)" by Brad Wardell Brad Wardell of Michigan-based StarDock, presented a postmortem on his recent, successful title, the Political Machine (as seen in Time Magazine, MSNBC, etc.), developed by StarDock and published by Ubi Soft for the 2004 political race. The postmortem was very interesting with a lot of good advice to keep in mind for future titles. Brad also discussed how games are made at StarDock and how his company balances game creation with utility software development. Pizza Break After Brad's presentation, the pizza and pop arrived so we grabbed a bite to eat and got on with the show. Chapter Updates We discussed a couple changes that are coming down the road with regards to the chapter: In the future, the drawing for books and other giveaways at the meeting will be for IGDA members only. Others can attend the meeting, but will not be eligible the drawing. Please bring your IGDA membership card to future meetings! We have chapter expenses each meeting for room reservation and food (pizza and pop usually). In the past some of this expense has been reimbursed by the IGDA. This may be soon changing. Therefore, we are discussing the best model for cover such expenses. We have talked about having a local chapter membership fee, doing a donation/pay as you go approach, finding some local and national sponsors to help out with such expenses, or doing a combination of these approaches. Book Giveaway We had our book giveaway, randomly drawing four lucky members names for their choice of books from our library (generously donated by Peachpit Press, Focal Press, and Charles River Media). Made in Michigan Game Presentations Wolverine Soft students presented some impressive game demos that they developed during a 48 hour game development contest (available for download via www.umich.edu/~wsoft) Socialize! After which many people hung around to discuss informally. Next Meeting Sunday, January 23rd 3:00pm-6:00pm in East Lansing at Michigan State University, Communication Arts Building, room 161 The Chapter Coordinators Rich Elswick Jay Semerad Brian Winn

The November meeting took place in the Media Union on the campus of the University of Michigan Gregg Seelhoff shared stories from his two decades of experiences in the game industry Brad Wardell gave a postmortem of the 2004 election ... game, The Political Machine, developed by Stardock and published by UbiSoft Brad spoke of how games are developed a StarDock ... now everyone wants a job there. :-) Wolverine Soft students presented a few games from their 48 hour game development contest

Posted by BrianWinn at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)

September 12, 2004

September 2004 Meeting Report

Over 20 strong, the members of the chapter got together once again on September 12, 2004, this time on the campus of Michigan State University.

The following were on the agenda for the meeting:

• Welcome
  
  As usual we chatted about games, our successes through the summer, and whatever else as folks gathered for the meeting.
  
  
• "What to Pay Attention to in Your Sound Design and Music" by Jay Sheremand
  
  This was an informed presentation and discussion led by Jay of Red Leader Audio. Jay discussed several of the simple things you can do to create stronger sound design and music in your game projects. He demoed a cut scene from a game that had no audio in it. He then walked through the process of adding a number of layers of audio (sound effects, atmosphere, music) to the cut scene to bring it to life, aid in the storytelling, and convey stronger emotion. He then showed the same cut scene using a variety of different audio tracks to show how dramatically you can change the scene simply by changing the audio.
  
  
• Pizza Break
  
  After Jay's presentation, the pizza and pop arrived so we grabbed a bite to eat and got on with the show.
  
  
• "Methods & Considerations in Designing Web-Based Real-Time Strategy Games" by Brian Winn
  
  The next part was a presentation and game demonstration of http://www.mudraft.com by Brian Winn. Mudcraft is a web-based, real-time strategy game that challenges you to avoid the perils of nature as you build a strong mud community while foregoing the violence associated with most RTS games. Mudcraft is a humorous game designed to be enjoyable to male and female players of all ages.
  
  Brian discussed why they made this web based real-time strategy and what were some of the considerations. The game was submitted to the IGF competition and is available online, in beta form, for you to play. Go check it out.
  
  
• Updates on Mentorship Program
  
  We continued to discuss the new mentorship program that we have begun in the chapter. We have begun three separate internships, one in programming, one in business, and one in game design. We hope to report of their success at our next meeting.
  
  
• Future Meeting Schedule
  
  To date we have not kept a consistent schedule of meetings or meeting locations. After discussion among the coordinators, we have decided to change that. We are going to meet every other month and rotate back and form between Michigan State University in East Lansing and University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. We are trying to schedule at least two meetings out so people can plan ahead. The next two meeting are:
  
  Sunday, November 7th in Ann Arbor
  Sunday, January 23rd in East Lansing
  
  
• Book Giveaway
  
  Finally, we had our usual book giveaway, randomly drawing three lucky members names for their choice of books from our library.
  
  
• Socialize!
  
  Afterwhich many people hung around to discuss informally.
  
  Ron Frazier announced to the coordinators that he was stepping down as one of the chapter administrators to make time to pursue other things. His help since the launch of the chapter was a major help and he will be missed as a coordinator. Rich, Jay, and Brian remain as chapter coordinators.

The chapter coordinators:

Rich Elswick
Ron Frazier (last time there as an admin!)
Jay Semerad
Brian Winn

Posted by BrianWinn at 04:51 PM | Comments (0)

June 30, 2004

June 2004 Meeting Report

Nearly 20 strong, the members of the chapter got together once again in June, this time in the awesome Videoconference Suite at UofM in Ann Arbor. As usual we chatted about games, our plans for the summer, and whatever else. Then the pizza and pop arrived so we grabbed a bite to eat and got on with the show.

We started out with Al Yang from the Michigan Gamers Association, who, along with Jay Semerad, gave us a summary on their E3 experiences. They had an extensive slide show from the event, along with a few mpeg movies of some of the cool sights. Along with the many, many new games they talked about and the upcoming handheld systems from Sony and Nintendo, they also covered the classic gaming expo and the video game music orchestra.

Next, Jay talked a bit about the new mentorship program we are implementing for the chapter. He briefly covered the details of the program and showed the online web page for signing up for the program. For details on the mentorship program, go to http://www.igda.org/smichigan/mentor/mentor_guidelines.htm or click on the Mentorship Program link on the IGDA Southern Michigan Chapter homepage. Finally, Jay did a brief discussion about the G4 gaming network.

After that, Ed Chung from iSeeSoft Studios gave the main presentation for the evening. He talked about the motion capture services offered by iSeeSoft. He gave us an introductory overview to the field of motion capture and talked about the different technologies (optical, magnetic, electo-mechanical, etc) and their strengths and weaknesses. He then went on to talk about the difficulties of motion capture and how they deal with problems like capture noise, popping, interpolation errors, and disappearing markers. He talked about the services they offer, ranging from custom motion capture using your own actors, to the motion capture library that you can purchase pre-made capture sequences from, to their Motion To Go services where you send them a description or video of the capture sequence you would like and they'll do their best to meet your needs.

After Ed's presentation, we moved to our Made in Michigan game demos. Pete Knepley returned once again to show us the latest work on the space fighter he demoed for us in March. The major change was that Pete had ported his game to the XBOX game development kit. He showed us all the improvements he had made concerning the AI and multi-player aspects of the game. He talked a bit about the process of porting, how long it took him, and what he found to be the easiest methods for development on the XBOX. He also demoed a quick and dirty FPS-like project he had developed on the XBOX. You can get more details on Pete's projects at http://www-personal.engin.umich.edu/~knepleyp/

Finally, we had our usual giveaway. This time we were giving away 2 books from New Riders Games and Peachpit Press, a magazine/CD that Jay picked up from E3, and 3 T-Shirts from iSeeSoft Studios. Congratulations to the 6 winners (our most yet), and thanks to those who donated the prizes. We finished off with more socializing, and then we cleared out to make room for the next group that needed the room.

We'd like to thank everyone for coming out to the meeting. Our meetings continue to be a success. Until next time...(which should be sometime around the beginning of August, we'll keep you informed)...

The chapter coordinators:

Rich Elswick
Ron Frazier
Jay Semerad
Brian Winn

Posted by BrianWinn at 04:56 PM | Comments (0)

March 30, 2004

March 2004 Meeting Report

About 15 of us got together at Michigan State University on March 28. We did the usual intro, socializing, pizza & pop, etc. Next we moved on to a discussion of GDC 2004. Those who attended did a summary presentation on it and showed us some pics of the cooler things they saw. After that, we talked a bit about the upcomming CGT conference in Toronto. Some members made arrangements to hook up and go together. Our big topic for the meeting was our discussion on the mentorship program. We discussed details and options, what-if scenarios, how to make everything fair for both parties, etc. What we came up with was a pretty solid outline of what issues we needed to address in our mentorship guidelines.

Finally, we moved on to the Made in Michigan portion of the meeting. To start off, Jason Tye from MSU showed off 3 projects he had worked on as part of the game design class he was in (instructed by Brian Winn). First was Shingi, a top down scrolling space shooter. The unique feature of this game was the two player mode, where one player controlled the movement of the ship while the other player controls the firing rotation. Next was Power Boy, an Isometric adventure game where the goal is to kill robots, ghosts, and monsters to collect coins to buy upgrades. The third game presented by Jason was Group Conflict, a 2D fighting game that demonstrated some advanced collision detection techniques. All 3 games were developed in Macromedia Director. You can learn about Jason's projects at http://commtechlab.msu.edu/humans/tye/games.html.

Next up was Mike Meyer, who was also in Brian's class. He showed off his game Squest, where you control a squid to help him escape from an aquarium without keeping him out of water too long. The game is done in a Spiderman-like style...you extend your tentacles to grab onto an overhead object and swing from platform to platform. Squest was developed in Dark Basic. You can download Squest from http://www.spartasoft.msu.edu/games/squest/squest.zip

Finally, Pete Keepley from UofM showed off a space fighting game he developed as part of his computer graphics class. The game used 3DS Max models of star wars ships, and demonstrated several advanced techniques such as sky domes, quaternion rotations, MP3 support, and spline evaluation. The game was developed in C++. You can get more details on Pete's projects at http://www-personal.engin.umich.edu/~knepleyp/

After that, we gave away 3 books courtesy of New Riders Games and .Peachpit Press. We wrapped up the meeting with a bunch more socializing and some leftover pizza. Most of us left about 1/2 hour after our scheduled finish time, but a few more stayed around for a Spartasoft meeting to be held later that night. We thank everyone for coming out. Until next time....

The chapter coordinators:

Rich Elswick
Ron Frazier
Jay Semerad
Brian Winn

Posted by BrianWinn at 05:04 PM | Comments (0)

February 15, 2004

February 2004 Meeting Report

It's been a few months since we got together, but for our first meeting of 2004, we thought we would try something a little bit different. We reserved a room at Lawrence Tech University in Southfield and scheduled a free form social. Nine of us showed up (not including the guy who wanted to sit in the back of the room on his laptop, but have nothing to do with us).

For the first hour, we mostly just sat around and talked about random development topics. A few students talked about doing game development for their senior projects. A few of us talked about our (lack of) success in actually selling our games.

For the next hour, we started out by showing off the Unreal Tournament 2004 demo and discussed what we thought were the cool new features. Austin Krauss then showed off Midway Math, which was his final project for the Game Development course at U of M - Dearborn. It was his attempt at an educational game title (despite his classmates attempt to turn it into a deathmatch title). The game presents a math equation, and you have to calculate the answer. A series of crates with varying numbers painted on them are stacked up in a pyramid. You select the correct answer by throwing a ball at the correct crate and attempting to knock it out of the stack. The game used a realistic physics engine to control the how the impact with the ball affected the crates, and how the crates on top of the stack fall when the crates below are knocked out. The goal of the game is to answer all the equations correctly by knocking down the correct crates using the fewest number of balls necessary.

After Austin finished, Jay Semerad gave a talk about game audio and some tips on how to get the best audio in your games. He discussed things such as normalizing sound volumes, making sounds fit together using pitch shifting, uses of adaptive and interactive audio, and cross-fading sounds for a more professional quality finish. Jay then talked a bit about his role as our newest chapter coordinator. He outlined some of his plans for getting people interested, increasing the exposure of our chapter, and ways in which we can set up mentor programs for more experienced developers to help out the less experienced ones.

After Jay finished up, we drew names for the book give away. We had 4 books this month. From New Riders Games, we had "Mobile Games: Creating Business with Nokia N-Gage" and "The Fat Man on Game Audio: Tasty Morsels of Sonic Goodness". We also had 2 books from Paraglyph Press: "Game Coding Complete" and "Monster Gaming. Congratulations to the winners: Paul Kerchen (Fat Man), Pete Knepleg (Game Coding Complete), Jay Semerad (N-Gage), and Jesse Brindle (Monster Gaming)

For our final hour, it turns out there was a scheduling conflict with our room, and since we were done with the presentations, we graciously decided to move the meeting out into the hall and finish socializing out there.

It looks like our next meeting is tentatively scheduled for March 28th at Trippers in Lansing. We'll probably try to have a GDC wrap-up from those who went, and we'll also be talking about plans for the Computer Game Technology conference in Toronto on April 8-10. We hope to see you there.

The chapter coordinators:

Rich Elswick
Ron Frazier
Jay Semerad
Brian Winn

Posted by BrianWinn at 05:05 PM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2003

October 2003 Meeting Report

Just under 20 of us got together in Southfield for the October meeting. We met at the NextGen Education offices in Southfield. This month, Calvin Vette was to talk about the Game Developer series of classes they will be offering. Before getting started, we all grabbed some pizza and pop.

After a brief introduction, Calvin started off talking a bit about the PS2 dev scene. He covered some of the different techniques that developers can use to gain access to the PS2. He even showed a few PS2 demos put together by different people in the demo scene. Calvin then gave an overview of the various course offerings at NextGen. He talked about the various tools and game engines they will be using, topics covered by classes, and future plans to integrate their game programming classes better with some of the graphics arts programs at local colleges and universities. Calvin also discussed things like venture capital, and what NextGen is doing to try and get investors interested in funding local area game development companies.

In the Q&A portion, Calvin discussed funding/scholarship options for people interested in taking classes there. He answered a few questions about the goals of their program and helping students build a resume/portfolio that would give them an edge getting a job in the market.

Next up, Brian Winn started with a brief overview of the Ernest Adams Game Design Workshop held a few Sundays prior in Lansing. He also talked briefly about the upcoming Computer Game Technology Conference taking place next April in Toronto, and the student game competition that will be taking place.

Next, Brian moved on to the "Made in Michigan" segment of the evening, demonstrating the game Fantastic Food Challenge. Developed at Michigan State University by the Communication Technology Laboratory in cooperation with the Michigan Family Nutrition Program (and a few other groups), Fantastic Food Challenge was an attempt at creating interactive game based learning tools. The goal of the game was to teach adults in low-income households the necessary knowledge and skills to allow them to make healthy and cost-conscious decisions for feeding their families, and also to get their children interested and more involved in the process.

Fantastic Food Challenge was developed in a game show format featuring 4 different mini-games, with styles ranging from Tetris to a game that looks like it came right out of The Price is Right. Each mini-game teaches a different skill, such as identifying foods and classifying them into food groups, determining the proper storage location for different foods to minimize spoilage, calculating cost-per-serving to find the best bargain, or identifying ingredients that can be used to make different meals.

Before wrapping things up, we had 2 books from the New Riders Games Series to give away, courtesy of New Riders Publishing. The books we had to give away were:
    "Developing Games in Java" by David Brackeen
    "Core Techniques and Algorithms in Game Programming" by Daniel Sanchez-Crespo
Our first winner would have been Alex Kerfoot, but since he was one of the winners last meeting, he was kind enough to volunteer to step down and share the wealth. As a result, our lucky winners this month were Casey Meekhof and Jim Kennedy. Congratulations to the winners.

After the drawing, we finished off the meeting with some more socializing, while Calvin showed a few more PS2 bits and copied the PS2-Independence patch onto memory cards for a few interested individuals. Before we knew it, another meeting was over.

We were glad to see everyone who attended. We hope to see even more for our December meeting. Plans are still tentative, but we hope to have it in Ann Arbor coinciding with the Student Game Showcase like last year...keep your eyes and ears open for details.

The chapter coordinators:

Rich Elswick
Ron Frazier
Brian Winn

Posted by BrianWinn at 05:08 PM | Comments (0)

August 20, 2003

August 2003 Meeting Report

As the summer winds down, 27 of us got together once again at Soar Technologies in the city of Ann Arbor to (sadly) talk about a winding down of another sort. After many years and many successful games, Outrage Games (based in Ann Arbor) was closing its doors. And so on that note, Matt Toschlog ([former] Director of the [former] company) agreed to come and give us a talk on the state of the game industry and the events that led up to the closing of Outrage.

After a half hour or so of socializing, Matt began his presentation with a little background on Outrage Games. Outrage started life as Parallax Software. Matt reminisced about the days gone by, and how game companies were so much simpler in the early days. Parallax's defining title, Descent was produced on a budget of approximately $500K with a team of 5-9 people. Teams back then consisted of entirely of developers, cranking out code and programmer art without excessive business management or pressure to conform.

Those days are long gone. Outrage's latest game, Alter Echo was produced on a budget of $6M with a team of 20-35 people. These days, teams consist of everything from managers to designers, programmers to dedicated artists, professional testers, etc. The increased budgets and team sizes have many implications. Projects are more strictly managed. Pressure is on to create something successful rather than something new. For this reason, less stress is placed on creating innovative games. Instead focus is directed at making sequels to already successful games or games based on licensed products. Projects have a much high standard for technical and graphical excellence, making it difficult for new teams without large budgets or developed technologies to break into the field. Unlike the old days, when publishers were willing to fund teams to develop simple ideas into real games, today publisher tend to only fund completed or almost completed projects. Outsourcing development to less expensive countries is also another developing trend. On top of all that, even once a deal is struck, problems can arise if a publisher is late on payments to the studio (causing a lack of funds, and causing developers to go home without paychecks). It was for this reason that Matt pointed out the importance of a studio having more than one publisher (you know...don't put all your eggs in one basket).

Several other factors have come together to make things even more difficult for new developers to get into the field. Matt pointed out that the consolidation of major publishers has left far fewer options for new studios to get signed. Unlike the old days when developers could get games into small computer and game shops, these days shelf space is hard to come by and is costly, requiring developers or publishers to pay hefty prices to secure those positions. Even major games from major companies (such as Outrage's own Alter Echo) won't be making it into many of the retails stores.

For individuals looking for jobs at game studios, the pressure is on them too. Besides the already mentioned threat of outsourcing, the pressure is on studios to hire the right people. For this reason, and because of the excess number of people wanting into the industry, there is increased competition for the jobs that do exist. As a result, studios are resorting to more tough and thorough recruitment and testing procedures. In some cases, developers are given multi-day project assignments so that the studios can get a better idea of their abilities.

Matt also talked a bit about their location here in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He said it was great having a lower cost of living compared to other big game hotbeds like California and Seattle. That's both positive for the company and for the employees they hire. He also mentioned they were fortunate to get several good developers right out of U of M. However, the downside to being located outside of a hotbed was their inability to hire and release developers as needed. Moving in developers from out of state isn't as easy, and if there is a break of several months where a developer isn't needed, they couldn't just let someone go and expect to be able to easily hire someone back once they are needed again.

And so, considering all of the above, as well as other circumstances beyond their control, it is finally time for Matt to reluctantly close up shop at Outrage games. Matt said he plans to take a leave from the industry and get other things in order. He declined to make any decisions on whether or not to return to the industry. However, you can't keep a game developer down, so I wouldn't be surprised to see Matt back before long. If so, hopefully for the rest of us he'll choose to stay put here in Michigan.

After Matt's presentation and some follow up Q&A, we took a break to eat pizza and chat. After that, we moved on to this month's Made In Michigan game demo. This time, Paul Kerchen from Whirling Chair Games once again took center stage to show off a new game in development titled Vault Vex. Evolving out of one of their other in-development games, Vault Vex is a puzzle game that challenges you to orient multi-colored game pieces so that corresponding sides of adjacent tiles have matching colors. Placing the game pieces onto the board in particular arrangements unlocks gems on the board, with different arrangements resulting in gems of different values. Thus, half the challenge of a board is to find the solution, and the other half is to find the solutions with the highest gem values.

After Paul's demo, we drew names from a can to give away 3 free prizes. The prizes were books from the New Riders Games series, courtesy of New Riders Publishing. The books we had to give away were:
    "Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design"
    "Game Creation & Careers: Insider Secrets from Industry Experts" by Marc Saltzman
    "Designing Virtual Worlds" by Richard Bartle
Our three lucky winners were Matt Zinn, Alex Kerfoot, and Ben York. Congratulations to the winners.

After the drawing, we finished off the meeting with some more socializing. Eventually just a few of us were left, so we decided to call it a night. Another good meeting gone by, another yet to come in October. Hope to see you then.

The chapter coordinators:

Rich Elswick
Ron Frazier
Brian Winn

Posted by BrianWinn at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2003

June 2003 Meeting Report

It was most definitely an enjoyable meeting for all in the month of June. We once again returned to the city of Ann Arbor. This time, instead of meeting at the University of Michigan, we decided to try someplace new. Soar Technologies was kind enough to allow us to make use of their facilities, so we all met in the KIVA room. It was actually a very nice conference room, laid out in a U shape with tiered seating. It made me feel important, like we were a part of the UN. Unfortunately, we forgot the digital camera, so no pictures this month. Sorry.

About 20 of us showed up this time. We started off with a bit of chatting while watching another Animatrix episode. We sent out for some pizza, pop, and chips, so once that arrived we grabbed some food and got things underway.

To open the meeting, Casey Meekhof from Spartasoft (MSU) gave us a brief summary of his experiences at E3. The big event there was the HalfLife 2 booth. There was something ridiculous like a 4 hour wait to get in there, so needless to say he moved on to other things. One of the highlights of his presentation was his mention of people who work at the booths and get dressed up to the theme of their game. He showed us a hilarious picture of him getting pistol-whipped by some German soldier.

After Casey wrapped up, we moved on to our main topic for the day. Jack Zaientz of Soar Technologies took the stage to give us a report of the research that he and Patrick Kenny had done on "Game Visualization Techniques for Game Designers and Implementors". The goal of their research was to take a look at how video games take large quantities of data and present it in a usable fashion, and to see how some of those techniques might be applicable to non-game applications.

Jack mentioned that one reason a lot of games fail is because of a poor user interface. Without a good way to get the user the information they need, the game can be overly difficult and unintuitive. After an overview of many different game genres, the focus turned to God/Strategy games in particular. He talked a bit about the 3 scales of detail (everything, subsets, and individual objects) and how RTS games in particular do a very good job of presenting all 3 scales in the user interface via HUDs, spatial displays, and symbolic overlays.

Next he talked about some of the stylization techniques used in games. He mentioned using presentation stylization to provide visual clues to the player as to which items/characters were likely to be important in the game. He talked a bit about game model stylization, and how most RTS game boil down to the Rock-Paper-Scissors model, where different units have different strengths and weaknesses, and (if done correctly) no unit is superior.

After that he briefly went into strategy driven displays, where the information is displayed in the perspective of the actor. The example shown was Alien vs Predator, demonstrating how the user interface is completely different between sides to reflect the varying info and technology available to each group.

Finally, we took a brief look at the GNAVE project, which was a sample implementation of some of the results of their research put to use in a non-game environment. He wrapped up the presentation with the statement that the key to successful visualization is to have the right information available at the right time and in a useful way.

Once we wrapped up the presentation, we spent about 20 minutes for some Q&A with Jack and Patrick. We talked a bit about how this is all applicable to military technology, how their research affected their outlook on games, some of the things that games can do better, and how differing visual and auditory clues subconsciously affect our perceptions.

A few important observations came up in the Q&A. One was that games are very good at presenting current information but are less adept at showing recent and long-term trends. As a result, while you can always see where you stand at a glance, it is difficult to see where things are headed and exactly how you are making progress. The other observation was what Jack referred to as the "2 blink rule". This means that once a notification cue (such as a blinking light) has been triggered twice, the user tunes it out and it tends to become part of the background. The way to combat this is to have increasing levels of alertness (a light that gets brighter, a sound that gets louder, etc). However, this has the side effect of overwhelming the user if too many alerts reach a high enough level simultaneously.

Our last presentation of the night had Casey Meekhof returning to the stage with Chris Bray to demonstrate their game Breakin' Battle. This game was their entry into the 2003 IGF student showcase, and it was chosen as 1 of the 10 finalists. In Breakin' Battle, 2 players compete against each other in a battle of breakdancing and rhythmic skills in an attempt to win over the audience. Using specific keyboard sequences timed carefully to the beat of the music, the player can pull off different combinations of moves. However, the audience bores easily, so you need to keep things fresh by combining a variety of moves. After the demo, we did a quick Q&A, talking about things such as the origins of the game idea (did you even remember breakdancing?), how the game could be adapted to differing dance styles, and where they plan to take Breakin' Battle as they expand it from a tech demo to a full fledged game. If you want to take a closer look at Breakin' Battle, go to http://www.spartasoft.msu.edu/breakinbattle/

We wrapped up the meeting with a brief discussion of our previous 5 meetings, how things have been coming along, and where everyone would like to focus future meetings. We also decided that we would like to try having a purely social meeting in the off months between regular meetings. It looks like we might give this a try sometime in July. After officially ending the meeting, some of us socialized while others watched a 15 minute preview clip of HalfLife 2.

As was mentioned above, we dropped the ball on getting pictures this meeting, but below are a few screenshots from Breakin' Battle

All in all, it was an excellent meeting. The topics were interesting, and we had a lot of active discussion from everyone in attendance. Hopefully future meetings continue to go this well. We hope to see you all either at our next regular meeting in August or at our social-only gathering if it takes place in July (check the chapter website or mailing list...we'll keep you updated).

The chapter coordinators:

Rich Elswick
Ron Frazier
Brian Winn

Posted by BrianWinn at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)

April 30, 2003

April 2003 Meeting Report

The April meeting went pretty well. With 25 people attending, it was a little bit smaller than the previous meetings, but it was still a lot of fun. As we finished setting up for the evening's presentations, the rest of the group watched The Animatrix on the video projector.

GDC Overview
Once we were ready to go, Brian opened the meeting by talking about the 2003 Game Developers Conference. He started off with a brief overview of the conference and showed a few pictures. He mentioned some of the things that go on there every year, such as the Game Developers Choice awards. He took a few minutes to quickly run through all of the winning games, teams, and individuals. He also talked a little bit about the Independent Games Festival, and gave some well-deserved recognition to the chapter members from Michigan State who made up 2 of the 10 finalist in the IGF student showcase. After finishing up the overview of the conference, Brian then introduced the panel members who wanted to share a little bit of their experiences at GDC.

Jay Semerad, Audio Track
Jay started off by talking about some of what he learned at the audio seminars he attended. He mentioned that one of the popular trends in game audio was the use of full orchestras or to use soundtracks comprised of popular music from well-known artists. While this often results in better, more engaging audio in games, one of the downsides was that this is becoming detrimental to the smaller, independent audio shops.

Next, he talked a little bit about environmental audio and dynamic sound tracks, where the music in the games adjusts dynamically to what is going on. He mentioned that when done right, it results in an incredible experience, but the real difficult part is figuring out the right way to do it. He also indicated that in order to implement this properly, it requires a large resource commitment (time, money, and personnel). Unfortunately, this is something that many studios don't consider worthy of such a large commitment.

Chris Bray, Graphics Track
Chris talked a bit about how GDC is a great opportunity to make business contacts and to look for jobs and internships. He mentioned that he talked to a few companies about possible summer internships doing graphics work. He also found a few leads on some publishers possibly interested in publishing his IGF Game Breakin' Battle.

Chris mentioned the growth of interest in mobile gaming (cell phone/PDA) at the GDC this year. He also talked a bit about some of the graphics companies in attendance, and how ATI was there in force and in high spirits.

Casey Meekhof, Programming Track
The most worked IGF booth this year had to be the Breakin' Battle booth. Casey mentioned how much work it is to run the booth all day, showing off his IGF game again and again. However, he said it was well worth it to see someone passing by with little particular interest, drag them over to the booth, and then to see them break a smile once they see how cool and fun the game is.

In between showing off his game, Casey got a chance to take in some of GDC for himself. He said he got a chance to attend the Programming Tricks Roundtable. However, he was a bit disappointed that the discussion went off topic and focused mainly on project resource management and some of the difficulties in getting artists to keep game resources up to date and in synch.

Finally, he talked about what was perhaps his favorite attraction at GDC: the demo booth for the game Amplitude (the successor to Frequency). While the game is virtually impossible to explain in words, it focuses around laying down music tracks in a fun and challenging way, and made for a very unique game.

Ryan Ligon, Business Tutorial
Ryan gave the first of two impromptu talks. As our discussion turned more to business topics, he mentioned that he attended some business tutorials. So, he talked about a tutorial he attended on how to run a business. Some of the points brought up might seem like common sense, but are all too often ignored in this industry. Things such as planning ahead, establishing a reasonable schedule that won't require people to work overtime and weekends, and just simply keeping employees happy.

Patrick Kenny, AI/Programming
Patrick was up next to give the second of our two impromptu talks about GDC. He mentioned that attendance at GDC seemed a bit down this year. His reason for attending was mainly to catch up on some AI industry connections. He discussed the dichotomy between industry and academic presentations at GDC, and how he felt there was a lack of good papers to back up the sessions this year.

Brian Winn, Game Design/Academic Summit
Brian Winn wrapped up the GDC panels with a talk about his experiences at GDC. He mentioned that in order to get the most out of GDC, you really have to have a reason why you are attending, and have some questions you want answered. He talked a bit about the Academic Summit, and how there were some refreshing changes this year compared to last. There were focused roundtable discussions on academics. There was also a much larger attendance (approx. 200 academic and industry people). In the future, if the academic portion of GDC continues to grow, it could possibly be expanded into its own track or expand out to SIGGRAPH.

Finally, Brian talked about some of the game design track discussions. He mentioned there were panels that focused on designing games for women, and what a large role women play in the industry. One of the interesting points is that women often aren't being targeted properly by publishers. They aren't looking for cute games about fuzzy animals and sold in pink boxes. Many of them are looking for well designed games that offer challenge and intriguing gameplay, without gratuitous violence and sexual themes. He also mentioned that game design as a discipline in general is becoming more mature.

You can download a copy of the Powerpoint presentation here.

"Made In Michigan" Game Previews
After finishing the GDC panel discussions, we moved on to second half of the meeting and took a look at some of the games in development by members of the Michigan IGDA Chapter.

Miko & Molly by Kronos Software
Ron Frazier from Kronos Software gave the first demonstration. Miko & Molly is a game that was released in August 2002, and is currently in a redesign phase to improve some of the user interface and gameplay. Miko & Molly is a fun 3D puzzle game that challenges you to find clever solutions for each level. In each level you guide Miko and/or Molly to grab powerups, manipulate obstacles, and work their way to recover their prize-winning flowers and return them to their garden. For more information on Miko & Molly, go to the Kronos Software web site:
http://www.kronos-software.com

Vantage by Crystal Dragon
Next up, Chris Allar from Crystal Dragon demonstrated the world editor for their in-development massively-multiplayer game Vantage. VantEdit is an impressive tool with tremendous flexibility. It allows rapid creation of expansive, seamless worlds in tremendous detail. It can generate a complete world with tectonic plates, which it can then age millions of years. It simulates shifting of the plates to generate mountain and canyons. It simulates erosion of jagged mountains into smooth, rolling foothills. It includes, many other details, such as global climates and wildlife. All together, it was an impressive display of technical ability. For more information on Vantage and the VantEdit tools, go to the Crystal Dragon web site:
http://www.crystaldragon.com

Mythri by Team Xkalibur
Chris Boyer from Variant Interactive demonstrated an early alpha version of Mythri, a game that they will eventually be publishing for Team Xkalibur. Mythri is a role-playing adventure for the Game Boy Advance and features cinematic story telling. For more information on Mythri, go to the Variant Interactive web site:
http://www.variantinteractive.com

Davy Jones's Local by Whirling Chair Games
Our last presentation featured Paul Kerchen of Whirling Chair Games demonstrating their in development game titled Davy Jones's Local. The game features a unique take on pirate games, by placing an emphasis on clever thinking and non-violent strategy and problems solving. Gather treasures, visit towns, trade cargo, recruit shipmates and keep them happy while grabbing all the fame and fortune you can. Davy Jones's Local put a kinder, friendlier face on piracy on the high seas. For more information on Davy Jones's Local, go to the Whirling Chair Games web site:
http://www.whirlingchair.com

Once again, we hope everyone had a fun time at this meeting. Hopefully everyone enjoyed the demos, and hopefully we'll be able to have more of these demos at future meetings. Stop by the forum and dicuss our first meeting. We hope to see you at our next meeting, which is tentatively scheduled for the second Sunday in June in the Ann Arbor area. We'll send out an email as soon as arrangements are finalized.

The chapter coordinators:

Rich Elswick
Ron Frazier
Brian Winn

Posted by BrianWinn at 05:17 PM | Comments (0)

February 20, 2003

February 2003 Meeting Report

Wow, what an unbelievable success. We had an amazing turnout for only our third meeting, with 47 people showing up. We started out the meeting with a little bit of socializing, and then we rolled out the pizza and salad. We all owe a big thanks to Discreet for paying for dinner and refreshments, and for sending Adam out to be our guest speaker for the evening.

After the food, and a little bit of extra socializing time (due to the seemingly unavoidable technical difficulties that go along with presentations), we got the presentation started a bit before 4:30 PM.

Adam started out the meeting with a miniature multimedia-extravaganza by playing the Discreet clip reel from GDC 2002. This movie contained scenes from a ton of games developed with Discreet tools. Then he showed us a quick clip demonstrating how discreet tools were used in Hollywood movies.

Adam then gave us a very detailed overview of the features available in 3ds max 5. He started out showing us how you can build scenes quickly using prebuilt object. Then he went on to give us a good demonstration of max's poly modeling features. He loaded up a prebuilt dragon head model, and showed us how you can easily work on it. In mere seconds, he added a couple of horns to it, then turned it into a Chinese dragon. He showed us how to use features such as extruding along splines, subdivision surfaces, auto-mirroring with symmetry, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Next, Adam showed us how to use the handy U-V unwrapping features of 3ds max. He demonstrated various unwrapping methods (normal, angle, etc), and how simple it was to tweak the unwrapping of the model, and how to export-touchup-and-import the texture map.

Then he went on to load up a model of a mannequin-looking figure and demonstrate all of the keyframe animation abilities in 3ds max. In just a few minutes, he took the static model and created a pretty convincing walking animation. He also showed us some of the spline IK features. He demonstrated how it could automatically animate an animal's tail realistically simply based on the models movements (no keyframing involved).

Adam wrapped up the 3ds max part of the presentation with a demonstration of lighting. He showed us how to do radiosity lighting, baking it into texture maps or vertex colors, spotlights, emissive materials, and a few other things.

Finally, because of the earlier technical difficulties, we were running a bit late, so Adam wrapped things up quickly with a very brief overview GMAX and finished off by showing us "The Cathedral", a beautiful movie (made with Discreet tools) which won the Best Animated Short Award at SIGGRAPH 2002. After the movie, Adam handed out a few Discreet door prizes.

By now, it was already at our 6:00 end time, so luckily the restaurant was kind enough to let some of us stick around for another hour and get a bit more socializing in. The last dozen or so of us wrapped things up and walked out just before 7:00.

Thanks once again to Discreet for paying for dinner and providing the door prizes, and thanks also to Adam for taking the time to give us a fantastic presentation on Discreet tools.

Here are a few of the pictures we took from the meeting.

Great attendance for our third meeting



Another shot of the crowd



A scene from the GDC 2002 Discreet clip reel



Adam demonstrates 3ds max 5's U-V unwrapping abilities



Adam demonstrates 3ds max 5's keyframe animation abilities

Again, we hope everyone had a fun time, because we definitely did. Stop by the forum and dicuss our first meeting. We hope to see you in April for our next meeting in East Lansing.

The chapter coordinators:

Rich Elswick
Ron Frazier
Brian Winn

Posted by BrianWinn at 05:21 PM | Comments (0)

December 20, 2002

December 2002 Meeting Report

Our second meeting turnout was pretty good. Despite the busy times of the holiday season and some difficulties setting up a meeting location (which caused a late announcement), we still had about 25 people show up. We had many familiar faces along with a handful of new one. New attendees included members of Crystal Dragon and TrueMedia Studios.

The meeting got off to a rocky start. First, our reserved room was locked when we arrived, forcing the socialization segment of the meeting out into the lobby for about 20 minutes. Once we finally got into the room, we found it was really only suited to about half as many people as we had. After a little bit of crowding (with a few unfortunate late comers left staring in through the doorway) and a brief introduction about the IGDA, we introduced our guest speaker, Dr. John Laird of the University of Michigan. We must have been feeing the after effects from Friday the 13th the week before, because technical difficulties turned Dr. Laird's PowerPoint presentation into a whiteboard one.

Dr. Laird's discussion focused on game development and its place in education. He covered some of the key focus points of his "EECS 494 - Computer Game Design and Implementation" course. He talked about how it was essential that students learn techniques that are actually applicable to real world game development, such as DirectX programming and different AI mechanics. He also tackled the issue of pre-built game engines in the classroom, how they helped the students focus on the important points of game development while still being able to complete a real game in 8 weeks, and some of the tradeoffs of using various commercial engines (such as the Torque engine) in this environment. He briefly covered his ideas for expanding the game development curriculum at U of M, and finished with a brief discussion of the Game Developer's conference.

After the presentation and some brief discussion among a few attendees, we migrated to another room for the main focus of the evening…the Student Computer Games Showcase. With about 30 computers and several times as many attendees, the meeting began with Dr. Laird and his assistants handing out score sheets, CD-ROM of the evening's games, and raffle tickets. So many people showed up that they eventually ran out of score sheets and CD's. After picking up a score sheet, attendees were encouraged to walk around, look at the student's games, watch others play, try the games out themselves, and then rate them on the score sheet.

The games presented were actually quite impressive. They were all pretty decently polished (especially considering the students only had 8 weeks). The games touched on every genre: first person shooters, 2-player fighting, networked real time strategy, chess, logic/puzzle, racing, space battle, platformers…you name it and it was probably there. Some games were typical run-of-the-mill for their genre. Others actually involved some rather novel concepts. One game called Pirate Challenge involved shooting cannonballs into a pool and using the waves generated to move balls into the goal to score points. Another game called Allusions of Grandeur combined elements of a role playing game with traditional chess and some beautiful graphics to create a fun and unique experience. There were way too many fun games to mention. Congratulations to all the students involved.

After nearly two hours of gaming, the scores were tabulated, the top four rated games were announced, the developers of each of those games received a few video games prizes, and one Microsoft XBOX was raffled off among them. There were also quite a few PlayStation2 and XBOX games (graciously donated by Microsoft and Electronic Arts) that were raffled off as door prizes to the attendees. I was lucky enough to win a PS2 game myself (which I proceeded to trade with the winner of an XBOX game, since I don't actually have a PS2).

Afterwards, a few of us gathered around and had some conversions about gaming, development in the Michigan area, future plans for the chapter, etc. Unfortunately, things had gone on a bit longer than expected, it was getting a bit late for a weeknight, and many of the attendees had already left, so our plans to retire to a bar for some more chit chat got cancelled. Better luck next time.

All together, it was a great event. We had lots of fun, got to see what some of the students in the area were creating, and perhaps got a few creative ideas for our own games. We might even consider making this a yearly event for our chapter. If so, then next year we will try better to get an adequately sized room (so nobody has to stand in the hall) and make some better arrangements for getting a little more schmoozing in.

The chapter coordinators also got together and discussed some plans for future meeting, the chapter in general, and possibly a special event with another local group in the near future (if it works out, we'll let you know soon enough).

Below are a few pictures that were taken from the game showcase. Unfortunately our meeting room was a bit small and cramped, and we weren't really able to take a picture of everyone, so none of those pics (sorry).

Just a few of the many people who attended



Rubble Rumble (3rd place winner), a 2 player fighting game.



Castle Siege, a real time strategy game.



Critters, a logic/puzzle game.



Tactical Command, a multiplayer, capture-the-flag, combat game.



Allusions of Grandeur, a RPG/chess game.



A closer look at Allusions of Grandeur. Although not a top 4 winner,
its beautiful graphics got it a lot of attention.

Thanks again to everyone that showed up. We hope you had as much fun as we did. Stop by the forums to discuss the meeting. We look forward to seeing everyone at the February meeting (details coming soon…we promise).

The chapter coordinators:

Ron Frazier
Brian Winn
Rich Elswick

Posted by BrianWinn at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)

August 20, 2002

October 2002 Meeting Report

Our Kickoff meeting went great.

We had an excellent turnout of over 35 people from across southern Michigan show up. There were large contingents of students from both the University of Michigan - Dearborn and Ann Arbor (Wolverine Soft Group) and the Spartasoft Group from Michigan State University. Several companies from the area were represented as well. Image Soft, Soar Technologies, mtgnews.com, Kronos Software and probably some more, which I just happened to miss.

I would like to thank Brian Winn for putting together an excellent kickoff presentation for the chapter. He covered our chapter mission, IGDA membership benefits, local game related companies and much more.

Brad Wardell gave an excellent presentation covering the industry and how it relates to an independent game developer. He discussed the issues with what it is like to be an independent and some of the potential ways of selling your game.

We handed out a questionnaire, which was mainly to determine where our future meetings are to be held. If you did not attend the meeting, or if you attended but did not fill out the questionnaire, please fill it out now. It will help us decide upon a location for our December Social gathering, as well as lots of other details for future meetings.

Brian's opening presentation is available online or as a PowerPoint file. A summary of Brad Wardell's presentation on indie game development is also available online.

Here are a few of the pictures we took from the meeting.

Coordinator Brian Winn (MSU professor) opens the first meeting.



Despite all appearances, Gregg Seelhoff (Digital Gamecraft)
is NOT sporting the logo of the chapter's official sponsor.



Members of Wolverine Soft grab a bite to eat
while taking in the meeting.



Brian discusses the purpose of the IGDA.



Brad Wardell (Stardock) gives the guest presentation.



Brad discusses the role of an independent game developer.

Again, we hope everyone had a fun time, because we definitely did. Stop by the forum and dicuss our first meeting. We hope to see you in December.

The chapter coordinators:

Rich Elswick
Ron Frazier
Brian Winn

Posted by BrianWinn at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)