April 23, 2014 — Stereo 3D Photography and Imaging
Wednesday, April 23, 2014 from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM at The Nerdery
Stereo 3D Photography and Imaging – Patrick Swinnea
Creating an immersive VR experience starts with understanding the basics of stereoscopic imaging. When is it awesome? When is it mediocre? When does it make your eyes bleed!!? And most importantly, how can we apply the tried and true rules of stereoscopic still photography to the creation of delightfully immersive VR?
The discussion will cover:
- stereo photography methods
- shooting techniques
- camera hardware and firmware hacks
- hardware and software tools
- guidelines for realistic vs artistic stereoscopic imagery
Patrick Swinnea is an independent game developer and Stereo 3D enthusiast. Patrick’s games are on BoiledGoose.com and photos are on his blog 3DManifesto.com and on Flickr.
Games Played at the April Multiplayer Extravaganza
Last night’s Multiplayer Extravaganza went off without a hitch, and everyone seemed to have a blast playing all the various games that we had on display.
A ton of great indie developers sent us builds of their games for us to check out, and this post is just one way of saying thanks for that generosity. In alphabetical order, we had on hand:
- Crawl by Powerhoof — This dungeon crawler got a lot of attention, partly because you can play it for hours. Super fun concept, and definitely a blast to play.
- Field-1 — I personally couldn’t get enough of this game that describes itself as “like playing hockey inside a pinball machine”.
- Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime by Asteroid Base — It’s safe to say that this game drew onlookers and admirers from all over.
- One Spear by 36peas — We got a sneak peek at the mac/pc version of this game already out for iOS
- Particle Mace by Andy Wallace — A super-fun retro arcade style game. It’s got a single player mode that I will be checking out in the near future, and is available now on the Particle Mace website in a “pre-alpha” (but perfectly playable) state for purchase.
- Protoboros by Zachary Johnson — Zach’s multiplayer snake game from the 2012 GGJ had us hot on each other’s heels.
- SlashDash by Nevernaut Games — Capture the flag doesn’t begin to explain how fun this game is.
We had three other screens, one playing Towerfall: Ascension on a PS4, another hooked up to an Xbox 360, where both Speedrunners and Hidden in Plain Sight were played, as well as one playing some steam favorites like Samurai Gun and Gang Beasts. Though it was advertised, I don’t think Starwhal got any playtime. There’s always next month.
One of the Glitch folks brought a prototype card game that got played at least once, with the designer sitting on taking notes.
Thanks again to Glitch organizers and IGDATC organizers for putting the event together! Thanks to Hollie Figueroa for taking the photo used in this post. And thanks to everyone who showed up and played the games! Let me know in the comments if I missed mentioning any games that were played!
April 9, 2014 — An Introduction to Glitch
Wednesday, April 9, 2014 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM at The Nerdery
An Introduction to Glitch, a Thriving Community of Video Game Enthusiasts at the University of Minnesota
Glitch is home to hundreds of students with diverse backgrounds who engage in numerous video gaming initiatives and activities throughout the school year. The organization provides extensive programming, hands-on experience and mentoring to promote gaming culture within the community while increasing career awareness for students looking to jump-start their journey into the industry.
Co-Founders Evva Kraikul and Nicolaas VanMeerten will be sharing their experiences building the Glitch community and running a non-profit organization along side the following topics:
- History and Goals
- Current Programming
- Student Showcase
- Funding Glitch
- GlitchCon Post-Mortem
- Getting Involved with Glitch (i.e use us as a resource!)
Connect with Glitch on Facebook | Twitter
Game Developer Conference Recap
Many of our members went to GDC this year, and we’ll spend a little time before the main events talking about industry news and member experiences generated there.
Member Project Needed!
10-20 minutes of content on anything game-ish that you yourself have worked on. First convincing email to igdatc gets this spot!
April 2, 2014 – IGDATC and Glitch – Mixer and Multiplayer Extravaganza
Wednesday, April 2, 2014 from 4:00 PM to 10:00 PM.
Buffalo Wild Wings (U of M)
2001 SE University Avenue Suite 100
Minneapolis, MN
IGDA Twin Cities is excited to announce our first collaboration with Glitch Gaming from the U of M. We also timed this social event to the end of the IEEE VR conference, and a special MN VR/HCI meeting the Fri before with guest speaker Impulsonic. Welcome cybernauts! Please join us.
Mixer and Multiplayer Extravaganza!
We’ll once again be chatting, eating, drinking and most importantly playing and shouting at the greatest in shared-screen multiplayer games, but this time on 4 screens and platforms at once.
We’re bringing back the crowd pleasers Starwahl, Samurai Gunn and Gang Beasts.
We’ll be adding Towerfall, SpeedRunners, Hidden in Plain Sight, and testing a few more.
Buffalo Wild Wings has a small attached parking lot, and street/ramp parking near by. Happy hour is until 6:30.
More info and further discussion can be found on the IGDA-TC google group.
March 28, 2014 – MN VR and HCI – Acoustic Simulation with Impulsonic
Friday, March 28, 2014 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
The Nerdery
9555 James Ave S, Suite 245
Bloomington, 55341
Note: Special IGDATC / MN VR and HCI meeting on Friday just before the IEEE VR 2014 conference starts. Arrive close to 6 to try a short live demo.
Acoustic Simulation with Impulsonic
Lakulish Antani – VP Engineering at Impulsonic, Inc.
In most of today’s games, directional audio is not affected by objects in the game world. You’ve probably experienced this when you heard an enemy straight through a wall, instead of hearing them through the doorway. In the real world, when sound waves interact with objects, they get “colored” in complex ways, much like the way light is colored when it bounces off of objects. Recreating these effects correctly increases immersion in any 2D or 3D game, and is especially critical to a sense of presence in VR. Games have traditionally avoided simulating such effects because of the computational challenges involved.
Impulsonic is building technology to make realistic acoustic effects available to games across multiple platforms. The technology simulates how sound waves interact with game geometry, so large rooms sound reverberant, carpeted hallways sound quiet, and enemies are correctly heard through doorways. The technology works on standard headphones and speakers, has an affordable runtime cost, and required straightforward setup. It has been deployed on PC, Mac, and mobile devices, and has been integrated with Oculus Rift.
The technology consists of two parts: the first is a run-time layer that sits on top of FMOD and uses it to render advanced acoustic effects; the second is a content creation tool that integrates with game engines to help author next-generation audio content. We’ll be showing a preview of a content creation plugin for Unity Pro.
Try for yourself! We’ll have a short interactive demo available that compares traditional directional sound to Impulsonic.
The talk will cover:
- Summary of real-life sound and hearing
- What’s possible in the next generation of audio
- Past research
- How Impulsonic tech works
- Preview of the Unity plugin
- Tips for best results
About the speaker:
Lakulish Antani is co-founder and VP (Engineering) of Impulsonic, Inc. He has a PhD in real-time sound simulation from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a B. Tech in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. His research has been published and presented at leading venues in computer graphics and virtual reality, including SIGGRAPH and IEEE VR. He has worked on real-time audio at Intel, and on lighting technology for mobile games at Disney Interactive.
Agenda:
6:00 Social, Setup and Soda – Thanks to the Nerdery for hosting. Impulsonic demos start
6:30 Quick recap of VR news out of GDC – Did you order your Rift DK2?
7:00 Lakulish Antani from Impulsonic
After, we’ll head to Joe Sensers in Bloomington.
IGDATC Mar 2014 – My Pants RPG: A Debrief
Wednesday, March 12, 2014 from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM (CDT)
My Pants RPG: A Debrief – Zachary Johnson
The first three episodes of my serial RPG The Legend of Equip > Pants have been out for a few months. It’s a punny old-school pantsventure RPG broken up into 15-20 minute episodes. Find out more at http://GoGetYourPants.com/ and play for free on iOS or at the Chrome Web Store. This talk will answer all of your questions!
- Is there room in the market for 2D pixel art RPGs filled with bad puns?
- How do you make a cross-platform game like this?
- What are some marketing tactics for one-person teams?
- Just how many people will pirate the In-App Purchase for an entirely optional donation in a free game?
- How can I design levels so that heat-maps of player deaths form entertaining shapes?
Discover all this, and more.
Member Project
Paul Eckhardt will talk about the recently released App (a “Learning Game”) Learn Chinese Language Mahjong. Paul did all the graphics in 3D rendering applications rather than photoshop – giving the game a really fun look. The game is designed to have the fun gameplay of popular apps, with the bonus of winning in real life by learning a language.
Plug My Thing!
In addition to informal verbal plugs, we’ll also show your trailer, user group, recruitment page, promo video, demo reel, etc. Grab the appropriate ticket - first come, first served.
- 6:00 Pizza and Soda thanks to the Nerdery!
- 6:30 Plug My Thing!
- 7:00 My Pants RPG: A Debrief
IGDATC Feb 25 2014 – Multiplayer Extravaganza
Tuesday, February 25, 2014 from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM.
Come to Grumpy’s downtown and play some games with us! We’ll have various games created for the Global Game Jam last month, as well as Sports Friends and various other multiplayer games to fall back on. Feel free to bring your own! (Bring your 3DS for that sweet streetpass action, or get in on a game of Zelda: Four Swords.)
Show up on time, because happy hour only goes until 7.
More info and further discussion can be found on the IGDA-TC google group.
IGDATC Feb 2014 – Global Game Jam 2014 Recap
Wednesday, February 12, 2014 from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM
Global Game Jam 2014 recap
GGJ14 was bigger than ever, with over 4,000 games and 23,000 jammers worldwide. Come hear what went right and wrong for the local IGDATC teams. Rapid fire video based post-mortems on 12 games, Relive the agony, ecstacy and sleepiness of everyone from first-timers to grizzled vets.
There are some real special games in that pile of 4,000. Help us find great and/or crazy games to highlight during this meeting, or play during our upcoming social. Enter them in this spreadsheet as you hear of them, and join the discussion in our google group.
Steam Dev Days
Chris Figureroa will give a quick overview and share personal highlights. We’d also like to hear from any other folks that were there.
Save the date: 2/25 GGJ Play Party and Social
We’re gathering at Grumpy’s for more multiplayer mayhem using GGJ games. 2 screens this time. Help us find the good games, and bring your own!
IGDATC Jan 2014 – Jellyflop! Post-mortem and Advantage Poker
Wednesday Jan 8th, 6:00 to 8:30 pm.
Main Presentation: Jellyflop! Post-mortem – Ashley McLaughlin and James Krantz from Concrete Software
A look at what went well with Jelly’s journey and what didn’t. Spanning the entire project from prototype, through content creation, to release on iOS and Android, and getting featured in app stores. Ashley will be sharing the art/creative process while James will give insight into development structure and level design.
Member Project: Advantage Poker - Erik van Mechelen
We want players to experience the familiar in a new way with Advantage Poker. One of our favorite childhood card games gone digital, it is at its core an on-the-go one-on-one 3-card poker variant.
Global Game Jam 2014 Q&A
We’re once again hosting a site for the worlds biggest game jam Jan 24-26. Mark your calendars, and sign up here for future info. Our site just got officially approved, and we’ll have additional details ready after xmas.
Plug My Thing!
In addition to informal verbal plugs, we’ll also show your trailer, user group, recruitment page, promo video, demo reel, etc. Grab the appropriate ticket - first come, first served.
Video guidelines:
- Short and sweet. 3 minutes max.
- 1 short URL, Zero setup (Media is streamable from fast/reliable site like YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)
- Your Contact info is on page or in video.
- You were a part of this project, are attending the meeting, and will introduce it.
- Meet us in the back of the auditorium at least 5-10 minutes early, so we can load your page.
Special Social Event, Dec. 18th 2013
Holiday Hootenanny!
Come to Grumpy’s downtown and play some games with us! We’ll have Sports Friends, and various tabletop games, as well as whatever YOU bring to play. We’ll be getting kicked out of our room around 9, but we can hang out in the bar and shoot pool as long as we want.
Show up on time, because happy hour only goes until 7.
More info and further discussion can be found on the IGDA-TC google group.
