All night lock-in at CDM. Play videogames, win prizes. Eat free food.

May 11th- 8pm – May 12th 8am

Details at http://defrag.depaul.edu

Game playing has no place in the classroom—or does it? By incorporating the intrinsic motivation students feel when playing games with the extrinsic motivation of a classroom setting, learning and motivation could be improved. But how? Dr. Peter Hastings, Ali Alkhafaji and Brian Grey will speak about the theories and experiments they are using to find the answer.

WHEN: April 23, 2012, 4:30-5:30pm
WHERE CDM 723

Refreshments will be served!
This talk is sponsored and organized by DePaul’s chapter of the UPE Honor Society.

Polish off your fight sticks and don your button mashing gloves. On April 20th, the ultimate street brawl of your soul in mortal kombat will begin! It’s DePaul’s FIGHTING GAME TOURNAMENT!

What: Fighting Game Tournament
When: Friday, April 20th, 5 – 9pm. SIGN UPS END AT 5:45!
Where: DePaul CDM 9th floor, room 924
Cost: $3 entrance fee for tournament play. Spectators get in free!

FREE PIZZA AND DRINKS!

More info here

Proppa, a game that was prototyped during this year’s Global Game Jam by Joe Linhoff, Noriko Tomuro and a team of DePaul and Japanese (Trident school) students, could use your support!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1256521023/proppa

A Game Jam is an event which brings together artists, programmers and designers to spend a weekend working together in intense game development and design. The DePaul Game Jam ‘12 is the fifth(!) annual game jam in Chicago and it will be held between Jan. 27 – Jan 29 2012. Once again, the DePaul Game Jam is part of the IGDA Global Game Jam that takes place all over the world during (mostly) the same 48 hours.

Further information, including how to register can be found on the website at: http://gamejam.cdm.depaul.edu. Space is limited so register ASAP! Also, if you registered for Game Jam last year and failed to show up or dropped out at the last minute, you will be placed on a “waiting list” for registration. You don’t have to be a DePaul student to participate!

The Men Who Wear Many Hats, currently formed by DePaul GameDev alumni Ryan Wiemeyer, Ben Perez and Michael Block, are looking for funding for a Director’s cut of their game “Organ Trail”. Organ Trail is a zombie-parody-remake of the classic game, Oregon Trail, for the Apple 2.

Support this project so it doesn’t die of dysentery!

During November-December 2011, twenty-two (22) students from DePaul CDM traveled to Japan on a two-week Study Abroad trip, and toured several gaming and animation companies, including From Software, Grasshopper Manufacturer and Toei Animation. Look at some pictures of their trip to see what amazing and incredible experiences they had.

Professor Noriko Tomuro was recently interviewed regarding her experience helping a CDM student team collaborate internationally with Japanese students from Trident College of Game Design on “Matsuri“, a game about humans, demons, and the convergence of two worlds. Read more here.

Three DePaul Game Dev students worked on the prototype for the Xbox Live Arcade Kinect game Bodoink. Robomodo is using Kickstarter to fund putting the finishing touches on the game. “Bodoink is an XBLA Kinect game where you are dropped into a pinball-like environment.” It looks like a worthwhile project!

Brian Affolter and David Bayzer worked on the game design, and Michael Miller worked on production. All three DePaul Game Dev majors interned at Robomodo during the summer, where they worked on the Kinect game Big League Sports.

From their website:

Chicago Loot Drop is a fundraising event disguised as a concert and Rock Band 3 videogame/performance competition at Reggie’s Rock Club. Bands will compete online to qualify for the final competition at the event on November 20, 2011, where they get to share the stage with minibosses! All proceeds from the even benefit Child’s Play and the University of Chicago’s Comer Children’s Hospital.

Sun., Nov. 20th, 2011 @ 7pm
Reggie’s Rock Club
2109 S. State St.
Chicago, IL 60616

Can’t make it to the fundraising bash? You can still make a difference! You can also make donations on the Donate page, even if you can’t show up in person on November 20th.

Good luck to all the games entered in the Independent Games Festival Student Showcase! Check out these trailers for three games created by DePaul students.

Mack vs. Windows

Matsuri

A collaboration between students from DePaul and Japan’s Trident College of Game Science.

Dawn of the Spell

For the last 9 months a team of DePaul students led by Professor Noriko Tomuro have been collaborating on a videogame project with fellow students from Trident College of Computing in Japan. In September, Ryan Byczek (MS in Game Development), Richard Borys (BS in CS – alum), Allison Yaeger (BS in IM – alum), Derek Hearn (BS in GameDev + MS in CS) , and Barbara Kubas (BS in CS + MS in GameDev) attended the 2011 Tokyo Game Show, enjoyed Japan’s culture and people, and more importantly worked together with Trident’s students. Ryan Byczek, project leader, described the experience as a “truly a once in a lifetime experience. Being able to visit and work with students in Japan is a unique opportunity and we have very high hopes for our project. Be sure to keep a look out for our game during the next Independent Games Festival!”

Further information on the visit (in Japanese)
Gallery of photos from the trip

DeFrag is once again hosting it’s all-night gaming extravaganza. Make sure you don’t miss it! The fun starts at 8:00pm on Friday October 21 and runs continously until 8am October 22. In addition to the regular gaming, there will be raffles, prizes and a costume contest.

Further details on DeFrag’s website: http://defrag.depaul.edu/archives/2771

The Chicago chapter of the IGDA (with some additional collaborators) are organizing a game jam that starts on Friday, October 21. Further details, including registration information (it’s free, but you need to register) are available on their website. There are limited slots available, so sign up now!

http://jam.igdachicago.com/

Dr. Matt Easterday from Northwestern University will give a talk on his work developing Policy World, an educational game for teaching policy argument. He will also discuss principles for designing more effective educational games. The talk is on Friday October 14 at noon in CDM 212. Don’t miss it!

Congrats to DePaul Game Dev alumni Jay Pecho, a part of the development team responsible for Where’s My Water?, currently the #1 iPhone and iPad app in the US, UK, Russia and Australia, and #2 in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and New Zealand. Jay is a Games Software Engineer at Disney Mobile in LA and he was Project Lead on Devil’s Tuning Fork while a student at DePaul.

Project Stormos, a high-speed action game with a twist, began as a class project developed by Rob Storm in Professor Andre Berthiaume‘s GAM244 class. Rob has since graduated, yet continued to work on his project. You should check it out, and if you’re so inclined, contribute to his Kickstarter campaign.

Newsite Gamers with Jobs recently discussed our Game Development Capstone Course. Check out what they had to say here. Over the next couple of weeks they plan on profiling some of the games that were designed and developed as well. Don’t miss it!

Allotrope is an iPad puzzle game independently developed by GameDev student Andrew Cook. Andy notes how “In addition to a boost in pride I have also recently received a few job offers directly because of Allotrope and my senior capstone project.”

Allotrope in App Store
Facebook Page

On Friday June 10th the game program held its annual Capstone Showcase Event at the DePaul Club located on the 11th floor of the DePaul Center. Six student teams presented their games to an audience of faculty and game industry representatives from TapMe!, Volition, WMS, High Voltage, Raw Thrills, and more. After the presentations, everyone had the opportunity to play the games. Everyone was impressed not only with what the students had accomplished, but also on how far the game program has come.

Special thanks to Charley Wilcox (and his team of students!) for his hard work organizing and coordinating this event and well as Dean Miller for his support.

Game Development Capstone Showcase 2011