D-Term Game Jam

(Just pretend like I posted that PAX East post when it actually happened and this one wasn't written directly afterwards... >.>)

Anyway, the WPI Game Development Club had their final Game Jam of the year this past weekend and it was AWESOME. 48 hours of pure game making and lots of pizza really makes for a great weekend. Technically it was my first ever game jam and I regret not having participated in one in the past. A bunch of guys from 38 Studios came by and were able to play our games and offer advice. I love having contact with the game industry, rather than just being hidden under the wing of game development academia.

Although I am an exec of the Game Development Club and was staffing the event, I set aside the weekend (school work can wait!) and made it my main focus to make a game. And it was sweet. I worked with Elliot Brodzki and Andrew Tremblay making QWERTY Madness, a platforming game where each letter on the keyboard (well, most of them) gives you a different power or ability once, and you have to use all your powers to be able to use them again. Andrew devised the main idea, Elliot did most of the programming, and I made all the art. We used Adam "Atomic" Saltsman's Actionscript 3 library, flixel, to make the game; I used GraphicsGale to make the in-game art, although I used Photoshop to make the menu screens and backgrounds.

I really like using Flash/flixel for several reasons. For one, it's extremely portable; we made it on Windows Vistas machine in the lab and now it can be played in almost every browser. The flixel library also has a ton of game-specific funtions, so even a sub-par programmer like myself can make a game fairly easily. It is also very conducive to iterative design, of which I am a fan. You can run the game at any time to test it, change a few lines of code, and run it again in a matter of seconds. It satiates my need to fix things and then see the results instantly. I plan to fool around with it when I have some free time, probably after the school year is over. I may even try to make a game with it on the plane ride to/from Japan!

Once again, you can play QWERTY Madness right HERE! Play until your keyboard breaks! (But don't blame us!)

PAX East (Just a tad bit late...)

Yeah, so I totally didn't post at all about PAX East during PAX East. It happened almost a month ago... My bad. Instead of relying on my awful short-term memory and trying to remember everything that happened and put them all in a loooooong post, I'm just going to put up links to my Facebook photo albums for all three days and give you a highlight-reel list of things that were awesome. Then I will try to regularly update my blog. Well, I'll get dinner first and then proceed to regularly update my blog.

PAX East was probably the best thing I have ever attended. Ever. There were so many people that all came together for one reason: Because they love video games. Or because they are the parent of someone who loves video games. Or because they were dragged to the event by their significant other who loves video games. But you get the point. Although I won't be able to make it to PAX Prime in September, I will most definitely be attending the next PAX East.

Photos!

> Day 1

> Day 2

> Day 3

Highlights!

> Hung out with fellow WPI mates. Also got to show my sister the wonders of the video game culture that she could only dream about.

> POKéWALKERS! EVERYWHERE! I got between 30-40 people each day, most of them unique encounters. Lots of good items and lots of watts.

> Tried out Picross 3D, WarioWare D.I.Y., and the DSi XL at the Nintendo Booth. I might get Picross 3D (because I loved Picross DS), slightly less might get WarioWare because of the shear depth, and the XL was actually pretty nice.

> Team Fortress 2 Tournament! We won the first round and then were destroyed in the second round...

> Mario Kart DS Tournament! I won first place! It was great.

> Swag! Lots of swag, including 2 Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver drawstring bags (he gave me an extra one on accident).

> Networking and talks/panels: Said hi to Ichiro Lambe from Dejobaan Games. The I HAVE A GREAT IDEA FOR A GAME panel he was on, along with Darius Kazemi (both WPI grads!), was hilarious and very informative. I also enjoyed the Memes and Microcultures talk (seeing as how I'm going to be in Japan in a few months).

> Video Game Orchestra was fantastic, although I had to leave halfway through. Their performance of the Wind Garden theme from Super Mario Galaxy was amazing.

I think that's about it. But, again, I have a terrible short-term memory and only remember the overall experience rather than specific instances. Maybe we should make games that focus less on super-realistic graphics and more on the player's experience... But that's a topic for another post. ;)