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IGDA Members participate in ETC XO Game Jam
At the end of November several IGDA members participated in a Game Jam held by the Entertainment Technology Center XO Laptop team. The goal of the weekend long jam was to create games for XO Laptop and to get the game community of Pittsburgh familiar with development on the laptop.
Here's a look at the some of games that had PIGDA members on their teams:
Team Peru, including IGDA Members Brandon Bittner, Richard Colvin, Mark Tomczak, & Aaran Vanderbeek, created a physics based game called "Star Catcher" that challenges players to shoot down stars (and avoid danger) by bouncing their projectiles off various obstacles. In some situations, players must place additional obstacles on the map to reach more difficult stars. The game is intended to encourage an interest in physics and allow players to create their own levels and puzzles to share with friends. Team Peru also built the controls to feature the XO's hand held mode too, taking advantage of the d-pad and four button cluster.
Team Argentina, with IGDA member Lisa Brown, created a point-and-click puzzle game called "CakeTown" where clicking on various elements in the given scenes trigger events. The timing and order in which events are clicked solve puzzles and advance the story. The goal is to make the devouring of cake occur. Lisa and her team are continuing to develop this game, having completed two levels at the actual Jam.
IGDA member Ian Schreiber and his team (Libya) created a game called "Ride the Wind", a side-scrolling game where you guide a paper airplane around the world as fast as possible while trying to avoid obstacles. Ian wrote up a post mortem of his game jam experience.
IGDA members Sabrina Haskell, Shawn Patton, and Jason Pratt with their Team Thailand created "XO Maze", a collaborative maze game. XO Maze is a four player maze game where players must work together to help each other find their avatar's head hidden somewhere in the maze and then reach the exit as quickly as possible. XO Maze was honored to be voted the favorite game of the jam by the kid judges!
Congratulations all participants of the jam! We hope to see more events like this in the Pittsburgh area.
Posted by PittsburghIGDA on December 15, 2007 11:20 PM