All posts by Jessica

ROM Game Jam!

From the official ROMJam website:
“This August, come bring history to life at the Royal Ontario Museum!
In an exciting pilot project, the ROM, in partnership with Gamercamp and the University of Toronto, is opening its doors to game developers for a three-day game jam August 9-11, 2013 to create digital games to animate the exhibits in the museum.

The must-knows about the beta run of the ROM Game Jam:

Spend three days inside the ROM creating games that animate its exhibitions
Explore the museum’s 30-plus galleries containing millions of artifacts
Learn about the history of the artifacts directly from ROM experts
Nerd out with fellow game developers in one of the most awesome venues ever for a jam
Have the opportunity to showcase your game in a Toronto cultural institution with an audience of thousands

The theme for the 2013 ROM Game Jam will be “Foretelling the Past.”

For three days, participants will get special access to the museum to create a game based on its contents. Now, even for veteran game jam participants, there will be a few fresh surprises to the ROM Game Jam experience. Imagine yourself digging up ancient artifacts for inspiration, or immersing yourself in the rich history of the museum with ROM experts in archaeology, ancient cultures, and more.”

Visit the official website for more information and registration forms!

GMD 2012-2013 has begun!

Hey everyone!

Game-Making Deathmatch, or GMD for short, has kicked off for this year! The theme is….

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

The comphrehensive rules and sign-up information, including the registration form, can be found here
We’re still accepting registrations for individuals and teams of two for another week, so if you’d like to sign-up, contact us at gmd@utgddc.com.
You can also contact us if you have any questions about the nature of the competition, or to check with us about using tools or resources that you’re not sure are allowed or not. Again, any questions you have go to gmd@utgddc.com!

We hope that lots of people will participate and make lots of awesome games! Good luck!

The Great Canadian Appathon!

It’s almost time for this year’s Great Canadian Appathon! Run this year by the game company XMG Studios, the event spans the weekend of September 28th to 30th. It’s a game jam and contest that takes place simultaneously across every university campus in Canada, where students work in teams to create an app or game for a $25,000 prize.

Last year University of Toronto students participated in the Appathon, a huge and important event for student programmers and developers in the city. This year the university is aiming to make a bigger splash, by getting more involved and sending more participants to support the event!

To participate, you must be a student at a Canadian post-secondary institution, and cannot work from home but instead at the designated physical location for your school. The Teams can have a maximum of four members from any field; art, music, code, design, or any other. This is a great opportunity to get your feet wet in game development early in the school year, with incredible prizes on the line!

Check out the event’s website for all the details!
If you’re looking for a team, check out the official Appathon Facebook page, the utGDDC facebook page, or the utGDDC forums. Good luck everyone!

– Jessica

Freeware Game of the Week: Slender

This marks the beginning of our “Freeware Game of the Week” series. We’ll be featuring a free indie game each week throughout the year. This time, we’ll be starting off with a spooky game; so I don’t recommend trying this unless you like a good scare.

Slender has simple gameplay, but great atmosphere. You simply collect eight pages from different landmarks- but something is following you in the woods.

Also, Slender was created with Unity, which we will be covering in a future tutorial. This is a nice example of a game you could make with Unity.

I had a lot of fun with it, I screamed a few times. I find games like these are best when you try to immerse yourself in game- I always watched my back like I would in real life. If you go into this with a skeptical, pfft this ain’t gonna scare me attitude, you probably won’t have as much fun. So, turn off the lights, up the music, and enjoy!

PS: There are more download links here– the link was down at the official website last time I checked.
PSS: If you are looking for more scares, please try Amnesia, it’s also a favorite of mine.

-Adam

Help us make a Club-Wide Game!

Hello,

Tyler and Dave, your director and producer here. In case you missed the 1st meeting, but are interested in working on the Club Game, here is a summary of what we talked about.

First, what we are making: a 3/4 view, 2D action/adventure/rpg reminiscent of old Zelda’s (something along the lines of Zelda/Skyrim/Bastion/Fable) We are making the game in XNA. Even if you don’t know XNA, don’t be discouraged, you will have opportunities to learn. There are a variety of different opportunities to participate, but most obvious; programming, art, design, story, audio.

If this sounds like something you are interested in, and you have a little extra time to work on this, please go here http://bit.ly/Otghe5 to fill out the survey.

Also, Dave and I have a joint email address: utclubgame@gmail.com if you are interested in the story, no matter how you will be primarily participating, please send us an email describing what you like and want to see in the game, also, things you dislike about action/adventure/RPGs.

Lastly, Tyler will be a walking encyclopaedia about the game project. He is always more than willing to talk to you about what we are doing, he wants your opinions and suggestion. Feel free to contact him:

facebook: Tyler Budolowski (because I prefer fb messages over email)
email: budolowski@gmail.com (if email works better for you, that’s cool)
skype: budolowski

Submit Games for the UTGDDC Arcade Cabinet!

You there! Yes, I’m talking to YOU! You being the person READING THIS POST!
Do you make games? Have you already made games? Ever wanted to put them on an ARCADE CABINET!?

Well, in case you haven’t checked it out yet, the UTGDDC has an arcade cabinet in the CSSU and it showcases student games.
Send us YOUR game and we can add it to our cabinet! Either give us a copy at a meeting or email it to info@utgddc.com!
The game can be built with any engine or programming language, just make sure it runs on Windows.

Continue reading Submit Games for the UTGDDC Arcade Cabinet!