Guest Lectures

2017/04/12 - Wed2018/02/15 - Thu - 1 Comment
Blog, GGC Updates, Guest Lectures

The votes are in, and the fifth talk is…

Our fifth speaker presented us with not just one idea, but four(!). We wanted all of them, natch, and the arguing about which one to pick was so fierce we just decided to abdicate our responsibility and let someone else choose. You all voted in our Facebook poll and the result was 40% for a critical examination of so called “empathy games”.

So Bonnie Ruberg – founder of the Queerness and Games Conference, academic overachiever per-excellence and a well known fan-favorite of ours – is coming to GGC to talk about games that allow players to experience the lives of the marginalized. These games, designed to be immersive, impactful, and socially meaningful, run the risk of being appropriative. As Robert Yang recently put it; “If you walk in someone else’s shoes, then you’ve taken their shoes.” So Bonnie will help us look at the problems with game empathy, and methods of solving these problems.

The full abstract has been added to the existing line-up for your perusal.

So let us just gush about Bonnie for a while, because we have been ~~fan-girling over~~ following Bonnie for quite some time! We had her on the island back in 2010 when she ran a full day workshop with our students, about bravely (yet responsibly!) approaching sex and gender representation in their game designs.

From Bonnie Ruberg’s 2010 workshop “Re-Doing Sex/Gender in Games” on campus Gotland

Then we had her back for the keynote at GGC 2011 where she talked about close reading video games – because there is no such as thing as taking your entertainment media too seriously! More recently her work with the Queerness and Games Conference have contributed greatly in helping us make not only our education, but also this conference as inclusive, welcoming and safe as possible!

In short; we like Bonnie quite a lot, and we think you will too. 🙂 We are extremely happy to have her back, and slightly embarrassed it’s been so long!

Thank you Bonnie, and thanks to everyone who participated in the poll! We hope you take the opportunity to see Bonnie deliver the presentation live next month!

2016/12/11 - Sun2016/12/29 - Thu - Comments Off
Blog, Guest Lectures

Alumni Days 2016 gallery

Looking for details about the Alumni Days? Check this post. The YouTube playlist is available here.

2016/11/14 - Mon2016/12/29 - Thu - Comments Off
Blog, Guest Lectures
alumni

Alumni Days 2016

Note: all lectures are now available on our YouTube-channel, and you can grab some pics right here on the blog.

The weekend 8-10th of December sees old students returning to the education for our annual Alumni Days. All of them started where our students are now, and are now firmly part of the games industry either as members of a AAA studio, or as a lone indie developer. By bringing alumni back we kick start our students industry networks, and show them how our education can help them get a start in the industry after they leave.

This year’s speaker line-up cover the full range of industry positions, but don’t worry if you can’t be here in person – most of the presentations are recorded and will appear on our YouTube channel.

Are you an ex-GAME student? Join the Uppsala University Alumn Network.
And, of course, join our Facebook group for students past and present.

Here’s a schedule for your copy-paste convenience. Please note that the schedule is tentative. Talks might be brought forward or delayed. ALL UPDATES REGARDING TIME CHANGES WILL BE DONE ON THE FACEBOOK EVENT. So please sign up if you want updates. And not just regarding time, but whether a session is full or other important updates.

08 December, Thursday, B51

10.30 Sebastian Larsson – Game Designer, Team Crew. Sebastian is giving a postmortem for Frog Climbers.
13.00 Robert Graff – Game Designer, Freshly Squeezed. Robert is giving a postmortem for Defunct.
14.15 Christian Kähkönen – 3D/Tech Artist, Zoink Games. Christian will be talking about how he went from never had worked on a game to be a Tech Artist. And what a Tech Artist does at Zoink and what you should think about before seeking out an internship.
15.30 Niklas Hallin – Solo Developer, Neckbolt. Niklas will present his timeline. From student, to studio founder, onto freelancing artist and arrive as a well-renowned solo developer and his time at Stugan. He’ll also give a sneak peek of his next project after he’s done with the elephant game.
16.45 Malin Lövenberg – Game Designer, Lionbite. Malin will give some tips about how to get your first job. And then go on to talk about everything you can learn as level designer by writing comics. As well as challenge tropes.

09 December, Friday, B51

09.30 Maria Norkvist – 3D Artist, Lionbite. Maria will talk about how she is building the world of Rain of Reflection. She will also talk about and demonstrating how to build props with modularity in mind for optimization. So environment artists don’t want to miss this.
10.45 Olof Wallentin – Gameplay Programmer, Starbreeze Studios. Olof’s presentation is a two-parter. First he’ll be covering his time in Kyoto, the new indie scene that is growing in Japan and how the corporate culture can suffocate creativity. The other half is dedicated to Starbreeze ambition and vision for games as a service and the future of VR, primarily StarVR.
13.00 Robin Powell – QA Art Analyst, DICE. Robin will be talking about how he balanced his work as an Art Analyst on Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and Battlefield 1 and at the same time studying for a master in Human-Computer Interaction. How can you combine work and studies and how do they overlap.
14.15 Annika Fogelgren – Producer, King. Annika will talk about how to create the best environment for your team to deliver a game in a 10 points format. She’ll also talk about how she views the current state of the game industry.
15.30 Daniel Hagström – Developer, Resolution Games. Daniel will give the latest updates on what Resolution Games has learned from developing games for VR, as well as talking about soft values. The importance of a good work environment, dealing with imposter syndrome and that perks shouldn’t replace pay or sleep.

10 December, Saturday, B51

13.00 Viva Ivarsson – Game Designer, A Sweet Studio. Viva will be talking about how to design games for soft launch as well as presenting 7 lessons you can learn from Jack Skellington (The Nightmare before Christmas) about game design.
14.15 Karin Bruér – Art Director, Fast Travel Games. Karin will be talking about going from artist to Art Director as well as going from mobile to VR. She also give some inside tips about how to recruit artists and what your portfolio should contain. As well as 5 lessons from 5 years in the industry.
15.30 Aydin Afzoud – Game Designer, MachineGames. Aydin will talk about his work on Wolfenstein and DOOM as well as things you should know as a designer.
20.00 Alumnipanel & Party (at Rindi) Come hang out, play some games and make new friends.
In order to attend the Alumni Panel and the party you need to fill out this form before 17.00. And while you’re at it, send in a question for the panel!

2015/12/13 - Sun2016/12/05 - Mon - Comments Off
Blog, Guest Lectures
alumni

Alumni Days 2015

UPDATE: all talks are now published on our Guest Lecture playlist on YouTube.

This weekend we took a break from everything that has to do with Christmas preparations hullabaloo and invited some of our alumni to come and inspire our current students and spread their knowledge.

Martin Greip showed a very impressive graph of “All the Feels”™ of being an indie developer and the daily struggle of running a studio. And by “accident” he also revealed Eat Create Sleep’s next game, Project Synvilla.

Martin Greip - Eat Create Sleep — Martin Greip – Eat Create Sleep

Albertina Sparrhult held a very personal introduction (with cows, bathroom queues and everything), to what Diversi is all about and why we all benefit from more diversity within our games.

Albertina Sparrhult - Diversi — Albertina Sparrhult – Diversi

Captive audience — 1st, 2nd and 3rd year GAME Students

Nobody knows how to herd cats and destroy all the fun more than Ylva Sundström, who shared her biggest secrets on how to become an exceptional game producer.

Ylva Sundström - GameDuell — Ylva Sundström – GameDuell

After he conquered Europe, the son of Gotland return to talk about his conquests. Andreas Svensson has been working at several game studios around Italy and Germany. Now he’s back at Blue Byte, one of the first companies he worked at.

Andreas Svensson - Ubisoft BlueByte — Andreas Svensson – Ubisoft BlueByte

Making a game is easy. Making a game that people understand is hard. Kalle Henningsson, QA Manager at Playdead, showed of some examples of the different iterations of Limbo and their upcoming title, Inside.

Kalle Henningsson - Playdead — Kalle Henningsson – Playdead

Daniel Polgar & Lee Kåberg hade the audience clapping and cheering while they talked about the process of starting up their company, Bridgeside Interactive. They spilled the beans on everything from how to form the company culture, what positions you need to fill and where the money is. Not only that, but they also showed of their first game, Clapper. Which is based on a game they produced during, the objectively best course on Campus Gotland, “Theme Park”.

Lee Kåberg - Bridgeside Interactive — Lee Kåberg – Bridgeside Interactive

Daniel Polgar - Bridgeside Interactive — Daniel Polgar – Bridgeside Interactive

”Who made that wonderful torch”, was the only thing everyone could think of when Horizon: Zero Dawn was revealed at this years E3. Prop modeler extraordinaire, Kim Aava, talked about what goes into a portfolio, the difference between working at an indie studio compared to a AAA-studio. But most importantly, she bravely showed some of her early work to show that everybody is a beginner at some point. An encouragement to us all!

We ended it all at the local student union pub, with a Q&A-panel consisting of some of our alumnis, mingle and some of the games produced at the education this year. It was a blast! Big, big thanks to all alumni, students and staff!

PS. we will publish all talks we’re allowed to share, on our youtube-channel. Subscribe to our RSS-feed for a notification when they’re up!