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.

WSQ Diploma Courses in Digital Game Art or Programming from IDGT-NTU (IMI)

Institute of Digital Game Technology (IDGT)-NTU (IMI) is offering WSQ Diploma Courses in Digital Game Art or Programming (1 Year).

 

It aims to nurture a new generation of Asian game developers through customized professional training and R&D in advanced game technology.

 

IDGT has two campuses, the Singapore campus within the Nanyang Technological University and its sister campus in the Shenzhen University, People’s Republic of China. 

 

These training courses are for fresh graduates to upgrade their skills and join computer and Video game industry which is a rapidly growing sector in Singapore.

 

Overview of their Training Course:

1. Emphasis on teamwork and workplace communications between students from both programs. 

2. Opportunity to work on real world projects. 

3. Curriculum that is recognized for its standard and quality by WDA. 

4. SPUR funding available for up to 90% of course fees. 

5. Monthly stipend of S$ 1000 during the course tenure (1 year). 

Please feel free to call J. Deepha, Marketing & Admin Executive - Institute of Digital Game Technology (IDGT) at 65137654 or email at deepha@tqglobal.com.sg for further discussion.

XNA Xbox LIVE Community Game Sales Numbers

During the last GDC, some numbers from sales of Xbox LIVE Community Games were released.

Check out the articles on GamerBytes and Gamasutra. There's also a deeper analysis on Gamasutra as well on how and why some games sell.

DreamBuildPlay 2009

It's coming again in April 2009! Get your coding gear on and get a Creator's Club License as well.

DreamBuildPlay is the one coding competition for XNA you must not miss!

XNA Game Studio 3.1 + Avatars!

XNA Game Studio 3.1 is coming later this year. Along with it, cool features such as:

Avatars - you'll be able to use player's avatars in the games you make; that's right, no more fumbling with FBX models.

Video Playback - do I hear a YES out there?

News released from GDC 2009.

DMIT Annual Dinner & Dance 2009

Hey folks, the DMIT club has planned the Annual Dinner and Dance 2009 event on 20 Mar 2009 (Fri) at Orchard Hotel and would like to invite you to be attend the event.

The event details are as follows:-

Date: 20 Mar 2009 (Fri) That's tomorrow!
Time: 6:30 pm
Venue: Orchard Hotel
Attire: Formal Attire
Amount: $60

Anyone going? Send me a message!

Public Symposium: "Social Interactions in Virtual Worlds"

There's a free symposium exploring virtual worlds such as 2nd Life. If you are going to work on, or have worked on one of the 2nd Life projects, this would be a most relevant event to attend.

For those who have not been involved in 2nd Life before, you should still attend to find out more about virtual worlds as a possible development platform, whether for games or social interaction.
"QUOTE"

Announcing a Public Symposium: "Social Interactions in Virtual Worlds"

Virtual worlds provide rich and new environments in which AI researchers, social psychologists, and game developers can explore, model, and study a whole range of interactions between humans and other agents. These environments raise a host of questions such as how different agents behave under stress, what are the mechanisms whereby agents construct representations of themselves and others, how groups and coalitions form and disintegrate, how complex networks and information flowing within them evolve, and so on.

AI systems provide more than passive aid to researchers. They provide dynamic and relatively inexpensive tools that allow researchers to implement, test, and refine their theoretical models. Formal computational models of social processes allow AI researchers to develop more sophisticated (and humanlike) virtual agents that can recognize and react (appropriately) to the subtleties involved in typical human-human interactions, allowing computer characters to play active roles in applications such as training simulations, decision-support systems, and gaming.

This two-day interdisciplinary symposium will comprise public talks by a panel of distinguished computer scientists and social psychologists, followed by a discussion panel at the end of the second day. The programme has been designed to cover a wide range of key issues from both the computer science and psychological perspectives.

Programme Outline
View the provisional symposium programme outline

Online Pre-Registration
Registration for this symposium is free of charge .
To facilitate our planning and catering, we would appreciate if you could register by 1 April 2009. However, if for any reason, you are unable to do so, onsite registration is still possible at the symposium venue on both days.
Click here to pre-register online

Dates and Venue
This two-day event will be open to public.

Date: Tue, 14 April 2009 - Wed, 15 April 2009

Venue: Level 4, Breakthrough Theatrette
Matrix @ Biopolis
30 Biopolis Street, Singapore 138671

Registration:
0845hrs - 0915hrs (Day 1)
0830hrs - 0900hrs (Day 2)

Getting There:
Nearest MRT Station : Buona Vista (EW21/CC22)
Shuttle Bus schedules available here .
Location Map of Matrix @ Biopolis
Getting around Biopolis

Homepage
Visit our home page at http://cogsys.ihpc.a-star.edu.sg/symposia/

Contact Us
If you have any queries, please feel free to write to us at ccss.mail@gmail.com

"End Quote"

Contest: Mission Darkstar

Earlier this semester, the organisers of the Heritage Gaming Contest came down to give a briefing about Mission Darkstar.

The deadline for proposals has been extended to next Monday, 9th March 2009.

Check the proposal requirements and submission here!

DigiPen School Tours, March 2009

DigiPen is organising school tours that cover introduction to the game industry. These are small group tours, with only 40 students per visit.

Please send me an email (check Blackboard) to let me know if you are interested.

"QUOTE"

We would like to extend an invitation to your students to attend a school tour organised by DigiPen Institute of Technology Singapore in March. DigiPen Institute of Technology, a long-standing pioneer and global leader in the field of digital entertainment higher education, offers graduate and undergraduate degrees in game development, computer engineering, game design and production animation. DigiPen, headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, has opened a branch campus in Singapore in 2008.

The school tour will be conducted at DigiPen daily from 8th to 13th of March 2009. There are 2 sessions for each day:
1) 10am to 1pm
2) 2pm to 5pm

Please note that the school tour is only limited to 40 students per visit. Registration for the school tour is carried out on a first come first serve basis. Some background information and the program line-up is included below for your perusal.

Background
Computer/Video games have been a part of human culture for many decades now - evolving from simple single player games to massively multiplayer online games. During this period, the game industry has grown to a global industry with an annual income exceeding US$18 billion in the U.S. and US$35 billion on a worldwide basis. Game development is a serious and compelling occupation requiring highly specialized cross-disciplinary teams consisting of individuals spanning a wide array of subjects including computer science, computer engineering, mathematics, physics, fine arts, humanities, social sciences, and game design theory. Individuals interested in entering the games industry must be well prepared and educated to solve the myriad technical challenges that arise in the design and development of games. There is an increasing demand for such well-educated and skilled professionals for the entertainment/simulation software and other digital media industries in Singapore and abroad.

The DigiPen School Activity aims to provide students a platform in understanding how today's digital games and interactive experiences are created.

Program for one session

30 mins
Explore the game industry
This session will cover:
-Game development process
-Fields of study and different career options

1 hr 30 mins
Games Preview Session
Students will have the opportunity to play award-winning games created by DigiPen ProjectFUN students and DigiPen undergraduate students

1 hr
Introduction to ProjectFUN Workshop
Academically, these workshops help student develop problem-solving skills and enhance their thinking processes. In addition, students discover the role of mathematics, physics, and arts and the importance of the integration of these academic subjects in the field of software engineering.

"END QUOTE"

Fantazzztic Ads Awards 2009, Granado Espada

IAH Games is organising a Machinima contest using Granado Espada engine, called Fantazzztic Ads Awards 2009

If you're a graduating student and have time on your hands, get on board and working on your video!

International Simulation And Gaming Association 2009

The ISAGA will be coming to Singapore this June/July.

Check it out at http://www.isaga2009.ssagsg.org/index.html

Ideeeeas for games?

Here's a nightcap for bed. Video from youtube.