Free SG Gamefest Students' Day

Go register online to express your interest.

More details of the event here.

Galaxy Bunnies for Windows Phone 7 (WP7) V1.2 Published on Windows Phone Marketplace!

Familia Games' first Windows Phone 7 Game (or toy) has been published to the Windows Phone Marketplace! This has been updated to V1.2 recently with the following updates:

1. Respects the user's Windows Media Player status. If user was listening / watching Media, it'd stop the media on starting the app, and resume the media on exit.

2. Updated credits with Easter Eggs. (Poke around the page to find out!)

If you have a Zune account use this link.

Xbox 360 Game Development Workshop 16 Aug - 15 Sept 2010

Want to learn more about how to build games for the Xbox 360?


Here's a chance to get hands-on experience to program, build and deploy your own Xbox 360 game in a 30-hour workshop I'll be conducting in August - September.

Find out more at www.cet.sp.edu.sg or email pace_marketing@sp.edu.sg.
Here's the print-ad that went out on yesterday, 28 July 2010.

Alan Wake talk at SP Auditorium, Monday 3 May 2010

Our friends from Microsoft Xbox 360 Singapore team have been working hard to bring in the developers from the upcoming Xbox 360 game, Alan Wake.

If you're keen to meet a game developer in the flesh, register online now!

Learning Challenge by Disney Research

There's a really interesting competition by Disney Research in conjuction with SIGGRAPH 2010.

Check it out, and let me know if you're interested.

Singapore Android Developer Challenge 2010

If you've ever wondered how to program for one of the coolest cutting edge technologies for touch-screen/accelerometer mobile phones, here's a chance for you to get knee deep and your fingers dirty.

NTU and Motorola Singapore are hosting the 1st Singapore Android Developer Challenge.

Form a team and ask (very nicely) one of your lecturers to be a mentor.

National Infocomm Competition Launch 2010!

Prizes and goodies galore! Check out the NIC website or the attached pic for more info.

Remember to email to register!

Gambit Playtesting 2010

GAMBIT labs in Singapore are looking for testers for their very cool games.

Go register for a chance to get a first look at the coolest games, some goodies, and some CCA points as well.

Drop me a line here once you've registered!

Tobe's Vertical Adventure Released

Just wanted to share the following game release that 3 of our DIT GD alumni worked on.

http://tobesadventure.squarespace.com/

Credits : http://tobesadventure.squarespace.com/credits/

Soh Yiheng, Ikhwan and Nicholas Sim worked on the title after their graduation while waiting for NSF enlistment.

The company, Rayteoactive, was so impressed by their contribution that Raymond (founder) asked for internship and FYP collaborations.

The game is available on Xbox LIVE Indie games channel - go get a trial and buy it!

Gambit 2010 Opportunities Coming Up!

Applications for GAMBIT 2010 will be open in Jan 2010, but only for 15 days!

Prepare in advance and let me know if you are dying to join!

Tribe Studios looking for students or graduates to help in 2nd Life

Mr Jeremiah Seah is looking for some SP students or SP grads who can help out from now till mid Nov 2009 to develop some Second Life components.

If you're interested, drop a comment here, or email me direct.

Student Explorer Grant for games - up to S$50,000 funding

MIT has a call for a proposal out. Details as follows:

Turn your ideas into a business venture!

Presented by the SMART Innovation Centre

Do you have an exciting game or web application? Do you want to be an entrepreneur? The Explorer Grant will assist individual students or groups of students explore further development and commercialization of innovative games and web applications originated by them. The Explorer Grant will provide up to S$50,000 in funding to develop commercial prototypes, evaluate go-to-market strategies so that your game or web application can be licensed to an existing company or form the basis of a start-up company.

The Explorer Grant recipients will also be provided with business expertise, guidance on intellectual property, and networking opportunities with the Singapore and international venture capital community.

Important Dates

• 14 September 2009: Grant submission opens
• 30 October 2009: Grant closes, 5pm (Singapore time)
• 30 January 2010: Award Grant

Eligibility
Full time undergraduate or graduate students at:

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Nanyang Technological University
• National University of Singapore
• Singapore Management University
• Nanyang Polytechnic
• Ngee Ann Polytechnic
• Republic Polytechnic
• Singapore Polytechnic
• Temasek Polytechnic
• Other Singapore institutes and recent graduates can be considered

You must identify a faculty member at your institute to act as a Faculty Mentor.

You can work in student teams or individuals. If working as a team, a team leader must be identified. Teams from multiple institutes/universities can be formed.

Submission Process
The proposal must be submitted electronically to explorergrants@smart.mit.edu by 30th October, 2009, 5pm, Singapore time.

Grant application form is available at http://web.mit.edu/smart/explorer

For inquiries about the grant program, contact Howard Califano at howard.califano@smart.mit.edu or visit our website at http://web.mit.edu/smart/innovationcentre for more information.

QA Tester Positions Open at MIT Gambit Game Lab

MIT Gambit Game Lab is looking for game testers, with goodies to boot! Let me know if you're involved and you might even get CCA points for it!

The Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab is a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the government of Singapore.

Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab is inviting students to be Quality Assurance testers for their games. These testing sessions would help expose students to the development processes of the game industry, and give them valuable feedback on how to improve their games. All students selected for the sessions will receive tokens of appreciation, which include movie tickets and other vouchers.

Students can register for the game testing sessions at http://tiny.cc/gambitplaytesting.

DIT GD Graduate's work post-mortem on Game Developer Magazine's Career Guide

If you have time, take a look at

http://gamedeveloper.texterity.com/gamedeveloper/2009fall/

Game Developer Magazine's annual Career Guide has featured Law Kok Chung's teams' Akrasia, the game made during his attachment at MIT-Gambit labs in Boston, USA. See page 22 onwards.

You can download a copy for offline reading as well.

Achievements Unlocked!

Just yesterday during my XNA Game Studio class, a student asked me if we could include achievements in his Xbox 360 XNA game... yes, you know what he was thinking... 2 million gazillion gamer points!

Unfortunately, no. That's not possible with community games... yet. :)

That brought back fond memories of a spoof of metagaming late 2008.

So, you wanna be a Game Designer?

Read this article on what it takes to become a game designer in the real world.

Article: Making a Better Community Game

Xbox LIVE Community Games are a great place for budding game developers to show their talents, but very often, their games fall short in sales.

Ryan Langley's article on how to make our games better is a must read for XNA developers.

How to draw Transparent Objects?

Someone asked me recently how to draw transparent 3D Objects in XNA.

Shawn Hargreaves has a good blog entry that describes the different approaches you can take, and the steps to do so in XNA.

Visual Factory Hiring Software Developers

"Visual Factory Pte Ltd

Interactive Digital Media - Software Developers (Engine Module) - 2 Positions

Technical Skills:
• Highly proficient in C++ programming
• Sound knowledge of Object Oriented Technologies (Design & Implementation)
• Highly disciplined and able to write cross platform codes (including XP, Vista, Fedora & MAC OS)
• Sound knowledge of Gaming Technologies (including Graphics, AI, Physics & Camera Control)

Soft Skills:
• Highly motivated
• Optimist & positive mindset
• Good communication & interpersonal skills

Preference will be given to candidates with at least 2-3 years of working experience in Software Development & a sound knowledge & interest in computer graphics and game programming.

Successful candidates can expect a rewarding & challenging career with our company, which is actively engaged in the Interactive Digital Media sector with an attractive annual compensation package up to S$36,000.

Interested candidates can submit their resumes to the following email: recruit@visualfactory.com.sg"

Force Feedback Class

XNA gives a good raw functionality for vibration on the controller, but here's a cool class for simulating force feedback.