Where:  NYU Poly Game Innovation Lab , 5 Metrotech Center, Brooklyn, NY, 11201, Room LC102, New York, NY (map)

Chris DiMauro of the NYU-Poly Game Innovation Lab will be guiding us through the second episode of our Unity 3D workshop series. We'll be making a 2D platformer from scratch, with some basic programming involved!

All students should bring a laptop, with the engine downloaded from: http://unity3d.com/unity/download/ . The engine is available for Windows and Mac.

Doors open at 4:00 PM, workshop starts at 4:30. Food and refreshments will be served.  Students only.

About this series: GameDays consists of panels on a bi-weekly basis, following themes ranging from technical game mechanics and the computational problems involved, to conceptual design involving narrative, music, and art, and intersections of the three. Our intro-level panels empowers students to create games without prior coding experience, using software such as GameMaker: Studio and Unity 3D.

We regrettably announce that the game design workshop with Greg and Mattia has been cancelled due to technical difficulties. But be sure to join us on May 8 for Play Day where you will get to play games like Yamove!, Ninja Shadow Warrior, Don't wake the Bear, and many more! RSVP here : https://www.facebook.com/events/164624810366586/?ref=3
 

Join us for a one-day game design workshop on May 4 from 11 AM to 5 PM led by Greg Trefry and Mattia Romeo, of Gigantic Mechanic and Come Out & Play. 

During the workshop we'll examine the mechanics of the wildly popular game Canabalt create a suite of physical Canabalt variations. We will work with renowned artist and prop fabricator, Thu Tran to create a dynamic set of cardboard buildings, crates and windows to use as gameplay elements. The games will then be shared with the public at NYU Poly's Play Day following a talk by Canabalt designer Adam Saltsman. You might get to see him play the real-world version of Canabalt.

RSVP at : https://www.facebook.com/events/161834860649762/

Gigantic Mechanic is a new company founded out of a long standing collaboration between Mattia Romeo and Greg Trefry.
 

Mattia Romeo
Co-founder / Game Designer

Mattia Romeo is a game designer and programmer based in New York City. Prior to founding Gigantic Mechanic with Greg Trefry, Mattia was a Senior Game Designer at Gamelab - one of the largest indie game studios in New York. While at Gamelab, Mattia consulted on and designed for projects on a diverse range of platforms that included board games, live-events, PC casual games, the Nintendo Wii and the Nintendo DS. Some of the notable projects he worked on include Arcadia Remix, Top Chef: The Game, Egg vs. Chicken, Miss Management, Gamestar Mechanic and the blockbuster casual title Diner Dash. Mattia is one of the founders of the Come Out & Play Festival, a yearly festival based in New York dedicated to showcasing games that make innovative use of public space.

Gregory Trefry
Co-founder / Game Designer

Greg Trefry has wide array of experience designing games. He has designed everything from web-based MMOs to hit casual games to alternate reality games. Prior to starting Gigantic Mechanic, Greg was the Creative Director at Gamestar Mechanic, a web-based massively multiplayer game for tweens. Before that he was a Senior Game Designer at Gamelab where he created and led design on the hit franchise Jojo's Fashion Show. Greg created and served as director of the Come Out & Play Festival, a three day festival of street games that brings designers and players from around the world to New York City every summer. He co-designed the Webby-nominated Case of the Coveted Bottle ARG.

Indie Tech Talk 01 : Scott Anderson

Scott Anderson, creator of Shadow Physics, spoke about using technology for gameplay innovations, specifically signed distance fields.

Indie Tech Talk 02 : Kaho Abe

Kaho Abe is currently the Artist in Residence at the Game Innovation Lab at NYU Poly, where she researches and builds games that utilize technology to bring people together face to face.

Indie Tech Talk 03 : Kevin Cancienne - Punks Not Thre3D: A Pragmatic Approach to Indie Technology 

Kevin talks about his work, why he thinks it might be time for a 3D revolution in the indie scene, and the benefits of being a mediocre programmer.

Indie Tech Talk 04 : Ivan Safrin – Engines, Frameworks and the means of Production

Ivan Safrin takes a look at the motivation behind writing a cross-platform development framework from scratch, discusses why open source tools are key to the future of independent game development and attempts to answer once and for all if it's a really good or a really terrible idea to spend years reinventing the wheel.

Indie Tech Talk 05 : Cindy Poremba 

Cindy Poremba is a digital media researcher, artist and curator, exploring the intersection of documentary, videogames and interactive art. She is interested in the intersection between creation practices and technology– specifically how meaning is read through digital technologies. Her research explores documentary in videogames and digital media, art and independent videogames (particularly the new arcade movement), emerging artistic/cultural practice related to photography, videogames and robotic technologies, and research-creation methodology in interactive art and design. 

Indie Tech Talk 06 was cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy

Indie Tech Talk 07 : Noah Sasso – Building Barabariball and Beyond

Brooklyn-based game developer and musician Noah Sasso discusses the interesting challenges that come with building and tuning a competitive multiplayer fighting game, as compared to the other types of games he has worked on. He also demonstrates the effects of tuning by modifying the source code live, and discusses how his musical background has influenced his approach to game development.

Indie Tech Talk 08 : Zach Gage – Conceptual Art as Technical Practice

Zach Gage is a game designer, programmer, educator, and conceptual artist from New York City. His work often explores the power of systems, both those created by social interaction in digital spaces, and those that can be created for others, through the framing of games.

Indie Tech Talk 09 : Dona Bailey – Centipede +30

Game developer and educator Dona Bailey discusses how she created the classic arcade game Centipede at Atari in the early 80's, how she came to leave the company afterwards, and how these experiences have informed her thoughts on education and technology.

Indie Tech Talk 10:  Don Miller

Don Miller discusses the 6502, the 8-bit microprocessor responsible for your fondest childhood memories: the Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari 2600, Commodore 64, and Apple IIe. More than just a tech talk, he will covers the beauty of Assembly Language programming and why having a low-level understanding of hardware is awesome.

About the speaker:

DON MILLER is an artist and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. He performs live visuals in real time under the alias NO CARRIER. Miller works with nearly obsolete repurposed electronics to create psychedelic low resolution video art. Part of the 8bitpeoples artist collective, he performs, exhibits, and lectures worldwide. He is a graduate of NYU's ITP program and works as a Learning Designer at the Institute of Play.

Indie Ted Talk 10 with Don Miller from Vici Shaweddy on Vimeo.

"Industry veteran Dona Bailey paid a visit to NYU-Poly's Game Innovation Lab recently to talk about her experience in Atari's coin-op division in the early 1980s, where she co-developed Centipede along with Ed Logg in 1981."

Click here to read the full article.

Play Day at NYU-Game Innovation lab on 8th May, 2013 will give you a chance to play award winning games by Kaho Abe, Howard Tso and our very own GIL creation Yamove!
RSVP Here on the event page https://www.facebook.com/events/164624810366586/?ref=22

Don Miller will discuss the 6502, the 8-bit microprocessor responsible for your fondest childhood memories: the Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari 2600, Commodore 64, and Apple IIe. More than just a tech talk, he will cover the beauty of Assembly Language programming and why having a low-level understanding of hardware is awesome.

DON MILLER is an artist and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. He performs live visuals in real time under the alias NO CARRIER. Miller works with nearly obsolete repurposed electronics to create psychedelic low resolution video art. Part of the 8bitpeoples artist collective, he performs, exhibits, and lectures worldwide. He is a graduate of NYU's ITP program and works as a Learning Designer at the Institute of Play.   View the recorded tech talk here:

 

Bailey was modest about her days at Atari, as one of only a few hundred assembly language programmers in the US, and recalled her introduction, at a local bar, to the first arcade cabinet she got her hands on, an experience which would influence her career move into game programming. As the only women on her team by the time she left Atari a couple years later, Bailey had already established herself as an important figure in early video game design history, pioneering the use of a rollerball controller as an alternative to the joystick (typical at the time) due to her own preferences as a designer and tester of the games she worked on. 

After talking a bit about her turn to gaming from the automotive industry, she demonstrated the simple plotting method used to create the spiders that appeared in perhaps her most famous Atari title "Centipede." Drafted from simple colored squares placed on graph paper, Bailey noted that her real passion was in the visual side of game creation and described the pleasure of seeing her work comes to life on the screen, a passion she continues to persue today as an academic and filmmaker. 

“They’re going to start giving these things out at McDonald’s,” joked Mike Frasco ’13DM as he surveyed the tiny, plastic cubes laid out for the Game Innovation Lab’s latest Game Jam event on a recent Friday night.

It’s true that the smooth, white cubes, each about an inch and a half square, were so deceptively cute that you could almost envision them in a Happy Meal. But the real reason Frasco and a dozen other eager programmers and designers were here was to explore the wealth of digital capabilities—a graphics engine, accelerometer, tap and tilt functions, and more—beneath the cubes’ slick exteriors. As in past Jams, teams of participants would compete to design and code an original game on the provided platform in just two days. The winning team would get bragging rights—plus a job interview with the cubes’ maker, a hot San Francisco-based toy and game company called Sifteo.

In a Google Hangout projected at the front of the room to open the Jam, Sifteo “Games Evangelist” Daniel Plemmons said, “Try to kick yourself out of your current ideas about game design and really explore what the platform can do,” he said. Sifteo Software Engineer Liam Staskawicz came onscreen next, giving a brief tutorial on the SDK download and boilerplate code needed to design for the cubes.

And then: “Let the Jam begin!” announced Christopher DiMauro, GIL’s self-titled Tech Wizard. Groups formed around him, and DiMauro stacked the cubes like poker chips before a big tournament.

As new teammates exchanged ideas, the room buzzed with energy for the weekend ahead. “This is a medium for really spontaneous games,” said David Kos, an NYU undergrad studying Music and Technology.

Grant Reid ‘14DM agreed, adding, “There are certain affordances that these cubes offer,” he said. “You can do a non-digital game in a digital format.”

Initial ideas emerged: variations on a classic ball-and-cup game, digital monster trading cards, more. “We have some ideas in terms of mechanics,” said David Or ’08DM. “In terms of theme, we don’t know yet. Maybe animals?”

By the Sunday evening finish line, three exhausted but excited teams had completed games to present to Sifteo’s judges, who appeared once again via live video.

First up was Shuffle War, designed by Stony Brook University Ph.D. Computer Science students Ryan Courtney and Connor Fitzsimmons, with freelance video producer Victor Kalogiannis. In a demonstration, Courtney and Fitzsimmons set up positions at opposite ends of a table and took turns attacking his opponent’s “Queen” cube. Each selected offensive or defensive strategies by tilting a cube, locked them in by tapping the screen, and launched them by sliding his cube across a smooth surface to nudge his opponent’s.

Next was Zoonami, a speed-based game in which any number of players completed commands displayed randomly on some cubes using images of animals on others: “Shake the monkeys,” “Stack the bears,” “Connect the snails,” and so on. “It’s really a game about group communication and coordination,” said Reid, who co-created Zoonami with Or, Kos, and graphic artist Drew Blomquist.

The final game was Balloon Escape, designed by Frasco, Andrew Wong ’13CS, Leonard Law ’14CS, and Jing Leong ’13CS. Here a single player steered a balloon through a maze, stacking and turning cubes on which segments of the maze continually regenerated. “It’s not quite finished,” lamented Frasco. “There should be enemy balloons and thunderbolts.”

In the end, Shuffle War took home the prize. “We loved that they treated the cubes as objects in a very direct way,” said Plemmons. “The game activate[s] the space around it [and] creates a great spectator experience. It requires dexterity and spatial awareness, and creates dynamics you're not going to see in a lot of other digital games.”

As Courtney, Fitzsimmons, and Kalogiannis chatted with the Sifteo judges about their design experience, DiMauro collected cubes from the other participants. “Three new games and a lot of learning—I’d call this a success!” he said.

Participants nodded, including Wong, who asked the question on everyone’s mind: “When is the next Jam?”

From http://www.poly.edu/news/2013/04/08/sifteo-game-jam :