Gamasutra: Gameplay Progression

Here’s a link to a very down-to-earth and practical article about designing gameplay progression by Mike Lopez in Gamasutra. Useful, concrete stuff. And the various gameplay progression models (the charts) fit right into the whole models for game design theme which will be one of the main themes in my thesis.

Games & Storytelling Workshop Registration

It’s that time of the year again. The Games & Storytelling workshops registration application deadline is December 4th (4.12., that’s next monday). This is the third time the workshop is organized. The first workshop is by Eric Zimmerman (of Rules of Play fame) and the second is by Larry Friedlander. The workshops are in Helsinki and Tampere.

I participated in the workshops two years ago. It was a rewarding experience: a week-long workshop of game design with each of Katie Salen and Ernest W. Adams. If you think you can figure out a way to accommodate yourself you should without a doubt register for the workshops. There’s no other way to have free tutoring from these kinds of game design experts, not to mention the opportunity to work together with the most enthusiastic students and aspiring designers from all over Finland (well, from Helsinki mostly, in my experience ).

More information on registering can be found on the G&S website. One of the students whose master’s thesis I’m supervising is going, so if you decide to register too, contact me and we’ll see if you could maybe co-operate on the accommodation problem or the application.

My Ph.D. Work (intro)

When I started blogging I promised that I would post some information on my own Ph.D. work so here goes. First some background info, then a “report” of the current status of my work and finally onto the research question and theme. I started my post-graduate studies in the Spring of 2005. The opportunity presented itself after I had graduated; first I worked as a research assistant here in Agora Game Lab and when I was offered the position as a researcher, I didn’t hesitate. I have to say that I wasn’t planning on doing my Ph.D. or looking for that kind of opportunities, but as it came with the position I saw it as a good chance of learn more about game design and development so I seized it. I haven’t regretted the decision. I’ve been able to travel, meet some very bright and creative people, learn a lot and work with some innovative and enthusiastic blokes.

As of now, I feel like I’m in an interesting phase of my research work.

Gamasutra: Automated Test Systems

Mark Cooke of Nihilistic Software has written an article on build and test systems for console games for Gamasutra. The article in itself is fairly interesting. What is more important is the basic premise: game development project should have tools and processes of making builds and especially testing the game software. Automated builds with unit tests are a good way of making sure that the code is and stays free of errors during the course of development. The next project in AGL in my opinion should peruse test-driven development as a light-weight practice to test its feasibility in game development. Here’s another article that shows some promise.

Independent Games Festival Student Showcases

The student entries for Independent Games Festival are now available for download on the IGF website. Actually they have been already available for about a week, but I just noticed it now. So, check out some of the more groundbreaking indie games made by students.

What is IGF? From the IGF website: “…established the Independent Games Festival in 1998 to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers. We saw how the Sundance Film Festival benefited the independent film community, and we wanted to create a similar event for independent game developers.” The IGF Awards Ceremony is part of the Games Development Conference which is held in beginning of March 2007 in San Francisco.

Ubimedia seminar update (slides)

The presentation slides for the Ubimedia Seminar I recapped earlier this week have been uploaded to the Ubimedia site.

CFP: Agile 2007

Agile 2007 Conference takes place August 13 to 17 in Washington, D.C. The Call for Proposals is out. The deadline for submissions is January 26th. I’m not sure if I can submit a paper this year but as my Ph. D. thesis has been turning more and more towards discussing and perusing agile methods, this could be a very good opportunity. Maybe next year. If you hear about European (or even Nordic) conferences about agile methods in software engineering, please let me know.

EDIT: There seems to be XP Days in England, Germany and the Benelux countries this month. I’ll try to stay informed on their plans for the next year.

Old Nintendo games via Browser

vNintendo is a web Java applet that allows you to play old NES games on a web browser. They’ve got 472 games right now. I’m sure there are copyright issues with this one, especially if and when Nintendo wants to offer customers repackaged old game compilations for Wii. Let’s see what happens. Anyway, it’s a good site to go and look up some of those old but good games and maybe learn something about designing quality arcade games as well. (Found through Download Squad)

Vocational edugames project in Jkl, Finland

Got this from the University website. The Jyväskylä Vocational Institute in co-operation with the Institute of Educational Research of our university and Korento Oy have been developing 3D games for vocational education for over a year now. They launched their first game, SECURE, last spring and the second one, VOLTAGE, is due this fall. SECURE is about work security in construction sites and VOLTAGE is about small house electricity. There are demonstration videos of the games on the project web site. The project ends next spring.

CFP: Gamers in Society Seminar (UTA, Tre)

CFP: Gamers in Society Seminar
Gamers in Society, Play in Culture
The Third Annual Game Studies Seminar
organised by the University of Tampere Game Research Lab
April 17-18, 2007, Tampere, Finland

The Call for Papers can be found here. The seminar concentrates on the social aspects of digital games. The abstract deadline is January 15th.