Pittsburgh

Our monthly First Friday happy hour social has been moved to the first THURSDAY of the month and, due to the imminent wintery weather, we're moving from the beer garden of the Hoffbrauhaus to the warm, 2nd floor interior of The Library (not be confused by the south side public library a block away). Join us for a chance to unwind with other local professionals. 

Hope the New Year is finding everyone doing well!

This is your invitation to the first annual Global Game Jam!
The Global Game Jam (GGJ) is the first of its kind: a game jam that takes place in the same 48 hours all over the world.

What's a "game jam"?
It's a crazy fun weekend where you team up with other artists, programmers, designers, etc to bust out a small game or game prototype.

The Pittsburgh chapter of the IGDA and the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) have partnered to provide a local venue for the Global Game Jam!

The Global Game Jam will start at 5:00PM Friday, January 30, 2009 through 5:00PM Sunday, February 1, 2009, (all times local). All participants in the Global Game Jam will be constrained by the same rules and limitations, with each time zone having one distinct constraint.

This game jam is different from other game jams in a couple of ways:

1. There is a theme that will not be announced until the game jam starts
2. There will be one unique constraint for our time zone
3. There is no 'chosen' platform – your team can choose to develop for the pc, iPhone, etc.
4. The teams are not to be pre-formed… so that true collaboration can occur during the 48 hours.

Please visit our website to register - http://www.globalgamejam-pgh.com/. We are requiring a $10 fee to reserve your seat and to defer food costs. Location information as well as details about the jam are available on this site.

Whether you're a student at AIP, CMU, or another local school, or a professional working at a local game & entertainment companies, sign up now so we can have a strong Pittsburgh game industry representation for the Global Game Jam! There is a limit of 75 seats so please sign up early!

The IGDA has also mentioned possibly showing off some of the games at this year's GDC so this is a great opportunity to get your name out there and meet new people.

Additionally, if you are a subject matter expert in a particular application and would like to be denoted as such for your participation in the game jam, or if you can't participate in the 48 hours but you could be available as a 'teaching assistant' in flash, python, maya, etc. it will definitely help the teams out!

Any questions can be directed to Tracy Brown at tracykobedabrown@gmail.com

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Second Annual Gamers Give back event. You can view photos from the event
here.

From the event we'll be able to provide the Children's Home with a Wii, a Wii Fit, 1 Nintendo DS and several fun Wii & DS games.

If you were unable to attend but would still like to help out, we're still accepting donations from the Children's Home Amazon Wish
List through January 28th 2009. We'll be installing this video game library at the Children's Home in the end of January.

Have a great holiday and happy new year!

Gamers Give Back Winners:

Raffle:
Andy Jih

And after some tournament exciting play, the winners were:

Pinball:
1st Place - Sam Polglase
2nd Place - Russell Ball

Super Smash Brothers:
1st Place - Aaron Vanderbeek
2nd Place - Michael Nayebi-Oskoui

Rock Band head-to-head guitar action
1st Place - Sam Polglase
2nd Place - Kyle Kenworthy

ps- The Children's Home is a place where kids typically stay when they are transitioning in/out of Children's Hospital. This new game lending library Pittsburgh IGDA is donating will allow these kids to have a sense of normalcy and fun while they deal with serious health issues.

Members of the Pittsburgh game development community-

This spring we asked you to submit your concepts for a logo that could represent the Pittsburgh IGDA chapter. We had some excellent entries. 4 finalists have been selected and now we need everyone's vote to pick the logo that best represents our chapter.

Please cast your vote on our survey before December 7th. Please only vote once!

On Wednesday September 17th, Pittsburgh IGDA will be hosting David Culyba from EA. David will be giving a talk on the recently released "Spore". The talk is titled "Spore: Managing Expectations."

Cost is $10. We will be offering a few copies of the Spore Creature Creator as door prizes and one lucky attendee will win a full version of Spore!

In addition to the talk, there will be a "Build your own creation" snack bar.

Please join us at 7pm, Wednesday Sept. 17th at the Entertainment Technology Center (200 Technology Drive.)

About Spore:
Spore is a multi-genre "massively single-player online game" developed by EA Maxis under designer Will Wright. In Spore, the player controls the evolution of a species from its beginnings as a unicellular organism, through development as an intelligent and social creature, to interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture. It has drawn wide attention for its massive scope, and its use of open-ended gameplay and procedural generation. To date, over 9 million creations have been uploaded to the games' online communal "Sporepedia."

About David:
David Culyba earned both his BS in Computer Science, and his Masters in Entertainment Technology at Carnegie Mellon. He has worked for Electronic Arts for 3 years. His work on Spore has focused on the various editors in the game including the creature editor, vehicle editor, building editor, spaceship editor, and city planners.

Check out: http://www.spore.com

The Greater Oakland Keystone Innovation Zone (GO KIZ) is about to open up a contest called Pittsburgh Innovates. Jesse Schell along with folks from EA, Eutechynyx, Disney Imagineering, Venture capital, will be judging entries and giving out a cash prize of $20,000. The contest is open to individuals and teams wishing to submit a technological innovation with a direct connection to the Pittsburgh region. Entries may be in a wide range of electronic formats including YouTube videos, PDF documents, photos, Facebook applications, widgets, etc. In some cases like games, the submitter will enter the actual technology, but in others like robots they may choose to use a video or other format to present information about their innovation. The only limitation is GO KIZ must be able to display submissions as screenshots on the contest’s Web site. Submissions accepted starting on Aug. 26, 2008. Submissions and ranking by the public will occur simultaneously until Oct. 26, 2008. The most popular entry on the website will win a community choice award of $10,000.

The first Pittsburgh IGDA Lightning Talk meeting went extremely well!

We had 8 talks- each unique. Check out the summary below and the pics on the PIGDA Flickr group.

Many thanks to Keith Leonard, Felix Lloyd, Regis Frey, Eben Myers,
Eric Hardman, Jason Bannister, David Shaver, and Shawn Patton for speaking. Each speaker was given a lovely IGDA tshirt in thanks!

If you didn't get to give a talk this time don't worry, we'll probably make this a regular event since it was received so well.

The next event is the PIGDA Summer Picnic- August 16, 12-4pm at the Schenley Oval. It's a pot luck video game themed picnic so bust out your Yoshi Deviled Eggs or Chocobo Chicken Salad and join us for some laid back food, volleyball, and disc golf. We'll provide the hot dogs, and some drinks.

That's it for now, and remember, when the thunder crashes, your talk is over!

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Lightning Talk Topics

Keith Leonard, representing Sword and Spirit Software
Sword and Spirit is working on a project they call "Haunted House"- a horror puzzle game. Keith went over a technique for creating volumetric fog using a fragment shader.

Jason Bannister, representing Mechanimal
Jason and Mechanimal have a dream- a shared library with accurate 3D models of EVERYTHING. He's been working with the Carnegie Museum to use the technology of games to help both researches and guests interact with detailed virtual versions of specimens ranging from dinos to ostriches.

Regis Frey, incoming Pittsburgh University Student
Regis is a self-taught programmer who learned programming by using flash. Regis relayed his own experience learning through animation and object behaviors. He has a passion for sharing this style of programming education with others and is currently trying to start up a camp to tech programming to kids.

Eben Myers, representing Etcetera Edutainment
Eben talked in general about Etcetera Edutainment's various work including their upcoming release of their Forklift game. Then Eben launched into a realtime demo of Etcetera's camera based interactive system called "CrowdPlay" designed to allow a crowd of people to play a game together. The whole room joined together to take down zombies with a jeep! Etcetera Edutainment is currently hiring.

David Shaver, representing Rabid Squirrel Games
David gave a short but sweet overview of pyPad360, an open source wrapper in Python for XBox 360 controllers. Check it out for your next personal project!

Felix Lloyd, representing Skill-Life
Felix is a teacher turned social engineer. He and his partner moved to Pittsburgh because they saw it as a great place to develop CentsCity, an online MMO designed to teach kids fiscal responsibility. Felix listed Carnegie Mellon's ETC, Innovation Works, and Idea Foundry as some of the reasons Pittsburgh was so attractive. Skill-Life is currently working with an ETC Spinoff company, Semiotic Technologies to create the CentsCity prototype but they are looking to hire an in-house flash programmer or technical producer.

Eric Hardman, representing National Network of Digital Schools
Eric introduced most of the room to NNDS- a nonprofit that builds online courses. NNDS is working on a project called Gears which uses an online 3D environment to teach players concepts in several overlapping subjects such as spanish, algebra, geography, & earth sciences. Eric mentioned they have hired many Art Institute of Pittsburgh grads and are currently looking for engineers.

Shawn Patton, representing himself
Shawn gave the closing talk which had many titles amounting to "How to (almost) make a time fountain." Shawn gave a background of what Time Fountain is- a water fountain that appears to violate the principles of time by freezing a drop of water in midair or making it rise back to its source. He then walked us through his process on his quest to build his own Time Fountain.

The Pittsburgh Pirates haven’t had a winning season since 1992 but that didn’t stop 27 PIGDA members, friends and family from taking in a baseball game on June 20th. In the 10th inning we learned that the Pirates can’t score until after Emily finishes her ice cream. 12 innings and one ice cream cone later, the Pirates were able to squeeze out a win for the members of PIGDA. Immediately following the game members of PIGDA were able to enjoy our front and center view of the fantastic Zambelli fireworks show. I had so much fun I forget who won the Great Pierogi Race. If you missed this event, you missed a good time! See you at July’s event!

Ice Cream, Cotton Candy, a Pierogi Race and Fireworks – these are just a few of my favorite things at the ballpark!

Friday, June 20th PIGDA is going to the Pirates game and we’d like you to join us! If you don’t like baseball, it’s also Zambelli Fireworks night! The game starts at 7pm and we’re going to sit in the cheap seats and provide everyone with a bottle of water. If you’re interested, please RSVP by paying $10 to Shawn via his PayPal Account (E-mail address: shawn([AT)]schellgames.com) by the end of the day Monday, June 16th.

Please include your name and phone number in the “personal note” box. We’ll meet and distribute tickets at 6:30 pm at the statue outside the home plate entrance.

We hope to see you there!

- PIGDA Planning Committee