Tag Archives: Scotland

Film Student looking for game devs and academics to interview

Jack Hunter, a student at Glasgow University, is looking for Scottish game developers and academics to interview as part of his final Masters project.

He is producing a documentary on the question of “Are Games Art?”, and seeking input from:

  • Gamers
  • Developers
  • Academics; specialists in Video Game studies and History of Art

He is currently in the research stage and looking for input from developers at this time, specifically regarding:

  • what do video games mean to you personally?
  • what do they mean to you as a creator?
  • what are your opinions on the ongoing debate as to whether or not video games should be considered an art form?

If you are interested in taking part, and comfortable being on film, please contact Jack at: [email protected]

IGDA Scotland March Meetup: GDC Round up!

Now that the dust has settled and jet lag is fading away, IGDA Scotland is happy to announce that we’re hosting our annual GDC Roundup at MEGABytes in Glasgow on Wednesday 30th of March from 7pm. We’ll be having a roundtable of students, academics and professionals discuss their experiences and takeaways from the biggest game developers event of the year, so if you’re interested in GDC at all then come hear about it from the horses’ mouths!

 

 

As always, we will have an open floor for announcements before the panel kicks off. So if you have any news you’d like to share then feel free to come down and do so! We’ll also be opening up to general networking after the panels.

Don’t miss your chance by registering your free ticket on Eventbrite or by using the handy registration box below. Our meetings are open to all, even if you’re not a member of the IGDA. Non-students must be registered ahead of the event in order to be guaranteed entry to the venue.

Diversity in the Creative Industries Panel

Diversity in the Creative Industries Banner

Join us at Abertay University on Thursday 26th March from 5pm to hear from a panel of games industry professionals on the current state of diversity within the games industry, and the role of women in games. Our panelists will be sharing their own personal experiences, stories, advice on getting a foothold in games and building meaningful relationships within the development community.

Eventbrite - Diversity in the Creative Industries Panel

The panel is open for anyone to attend whether you’re a student, professional, educator, or just curious. Tickets are free, even for non-IGDA members. A donation on the night in aid of WRASAC Dundee would be appreciated.

Abertay Feminist Society Logo

We’re hosting this special event in association with the Abertay Feminist Society. If you wish to stay up to date on their activities, please like their Facebook page for all the latest news, or contact Paige Shepherd to learn more.

 

The Panelists

IGDA Scotland Presents: Ed Fries Recap

Last Tuesday, IGDA Scotland hosted our 2nd ever special event at Abertay University, Dundee. Ed Fries, the “father of the Xbox” privileged our 200 or so audience with a candid talk describing his amazing industry experience from programmer beginnings at Microsoft to what he is best known for, co-founding the Xbox project. After one or two glasses of wine in the reception party we all settled in to the university’s Main Lecture Theatre ready to absorb the wisdom and inner stories that this industry giant would tell us.

Ed Fries responds to an audience question

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Scottish Game Jam 2013 – Play Party

Earlier this week, IGDA Scotland held our first meeting for 2013, beginning as we do every year by inviting teams from the Scottish GameJam to showcase what they created in the intensive 2 day event held at the end of January.

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We had a record number of registrations for the event, and despite a very snowy night, we clocked around 60 people through the door in what proved to be a really enjoyable night of socialising and play, with 12 games from all three of the Scottish Game Jam sites on hand to be played.

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At the end of the night, we held the now-annual awards to select IGDA Scotland’s “Pick of the Jam”, this year using a highly sophisticated and technical “clapometer” voting system. The crowd had some clear favourites among the teams that were exhibiting and expressed that loudly.

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1st – Typing Together – http://globalgamejam.org/2013/typing-together 

A fast and furious competitive typing game where the goal is to out type your opponents. This game also threw in some interesting additional challenges such as typing on a upside down keyboard, typing with your nose and saying aloud the incompressible word before typing.

Typing With Friends

2nd – Luv vs Dub – http://globalgamejam.org/2013/lub-vs-dub-ipad

A lovely little 2 player iPad game where you and the other player have to run on a line while avoiding the spike of the heart beat. The winner of the game is the player which collects the most hearts, seems simple enough but there are various special items such as ice which will thwart your opponents ability to control his character.

LvD_3

3rd – Hunt The Wumpus Global Edition – http://globalgamejam.org/2013/hunt-wumpus-global-edition

Another multiplayer game where the goal is to hunt and kill the elusive Wumpus. In this game the players navigate a text based adventure environment by issuing the classic NORTH, SOUTH, WEST and EAST commands. The player with the most Wumpus kills is the winner.

HuntTheWumpus

You can play these games and more from the following links

Dundee – http://globalgamejam.org/sites/2013/sgj-dundee/games

Edinburgh – http://globalgamejam.org/sites/2013/sgj-edinburgh/games

Glasgow – http://globalgamejam.org/sites/2013/sgj-Glasgow/games

Congratulations to everyone who took part in the jam, but of course special congratulations to our winners, who get to proudly claim that they are Scotland’s Pick as best of the Game Jam!

IGDA Scotland: Edinburgh Meeting Roundup

It’s difficult to describe the most recent IGDA Scotland meeting in Edinburgh without making it sound like some sort of Nordic  house party. There was booze (of course there was booze…)  There were Vikings searching for Peanut Butter (who would have thought) as well as some guy bawling “WHO THE F*** ARE YOU???!!” at everyone in the room…

Needless to say this was one of the best IGDA Scotland meetings so far.

It was also quite a momentous occasion, as this completes our first lap of Scotland’s key gaming cities, and we’re not showing any signs of stopping, responding to feedback and ideas from everyone as the chapter evolves and grows. The sheer amount of community spirit around the chapter is beautiful. At one point it occurred that the venues’ projector had broken down with only a few hours before the meeting, yet within a couple of Twitter and Facebook conversations, the problem had been remedied with people coming along with their own AV gear.

We kicked off the speakers with Phil Harris from SquareGo!, talking about the elements of a good story in games, and where things have gone a bit wrong in some of today’s big money franchises. To top off the talk was a round of creating 5 noun game games, that have spawned the next generation of Triple-A Viking and Pizza Ninja based genres with a little dash of good improv.

We also had a speaker who nearly didn’t make it, thanks to our reliable public rail network that we all treasure so dearly. Luke Dicken took to the floor after he bought a train ticket to get a replacement bus service to Edinburgh after a derailment. It was dubbed “The Talk That Not Even Scotrail Couldn’t Hold Off” and I think it’s another fine testament to the dedicated community we have developing around our meetings. Luke is an AI Researcher with the Strathclyde AI & Games Group at the University of Strathclyde, and like another person I know, went to E3 as an IGDA student scholar. I don’t know what your E3 activities were this year. Mine involved hooking the laptop up to the TV and watching the press conferences in full screen, if a little blurry at times, streaming video. Well, I was doing that, as well as drooling over a certain competitive word-based  puzzle game that’s been long overdue, and had questions as to whether getting to go to E3 in person was actually anything better than watching it online.

Queue jumping, schmoozing with some of the industry’s brightest, as well as front row seats to everywhere that’s worth going; when the IGDA give you a free ticket, it’s not just a free ticket: it’s a banner of awesome, with those flaming roman candle things that never go out no matter how hard you try.

Almost as awesome as watching an member of Rockstar North eat an entire double kangaroo burger from the Walkabout in the space of 3 minutes. It Happened!

Lastly to conclude the night of talks was the one and only Colin Riley from Codeplay. Now I’ll admit, when you think of the idea of having a technical talk about programming to top of a night heavily subdued in summer heat and alcohol, it doesn’t sound like the most interesting thing to be listening to. However, I think everyone was pleasantly surprised about the elegance and entertainment value found in learning about something better than Object Oriented Programming. Plus he did some awesome diagrams.

In between all of the talks there was time for much banter and conversation between everyone. The chapter is rapidly accomplishing one of it’s main goals to give Scotland’s Game’s sector a place mix with one another. In a time where there has been much doom and gloom surrounding the UK’s game sector, it’s great to see people in the industry themselves getting together and having a good time if anything else.

Before we close things off here we’ like to give a big shout out to a worthy cause. Sick Kids Save Point is a videogames marathon organised on behalf of the Sick Kids Friends Foundation in Edinburgh.Looking at their Twitter it seems they’re already making waves, raising money for the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh with intake of over 100,000 injured and sick children each year. The funds raised by the charity help to pay for a variety items including high tech surgical equipment that saves lives. We here at the IGDA would love to see them raise as much cash as possible, so if you have some disposable income you’d like to put to work, or fancy holding your own 24 hour charity game marathon, make sure to check them out.

We’ll be back on the wire letting you know about future events soon. Didn’t make it to the event? Don’t worry! Our speakers have been kind enough to share their power-points with you, and we’re working on posting video recordings of the talks up very soon. Until next time, why not get in touch with us via Twitter, Facebook or our Google mailing list group and let us know what you think we should be doing.

Phil Harris

Luke Dicken
Colin Riley