Category: Guest Lectures

We use our ever-growing network to lure speakers from the game- & movie industry, academia and independent scene to the island. Unfortunately we’re very poor with keeping this category up to date; including the Gotland Game Conference we average 1 guest lecture every 14th day! Some of these are recorded – check the youtube channel. If you wish to speak with Sweden’s strongest game design students (or their staff), contact Ulf!

Posted on - Comments Off on Guest Lecture: Jan-Jaap Severs (Grendel Games)
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Guest Lecture: Jan-Jaap Severs (Grendel Games)

  • Grendel Games (Netherlands) have been making serious games since 1999!

Jan-Jaap Severs is visiting us again next week for a guest lecture on serious games and the challenges inherent to the production and design of these types of games. Jan-Jaap is one of the co-founders of Grendel Games, a studio that’s been producing validated and commercially successful serious games for twenty years now! That is a lot of experience to be listening in on.

Time: 10:00-12:00, Thu 14th March
Place: E22, Campus Gotland

“Dealing with stakeholders, requirements and evidence in serious games development”

Jan-Jaap Severs, Grendel Games

During this lecture we will discuss several aspects that make serious game design and development a challenging endeavor.

We will look at managing stakeholders and domain experts with different backgrounds, who speak totally different languages. We will investigate methods of gathering requirements from these stakeholders and the common obstacles we face during that process. Finally, we will discuss the gathering and dissemination of scientific evidence of the effect of a serious game and how we can prepare for this during the design phase.

The lecture will be structured around three in-depth examples in the fields of surgery training, behavioral change pertaining to water consumption and mathematics training for children with learning disabilities.

Time: 10:00-12:00, Thu 14th March
Place: E22, Campus Gotland

Please note: students taking the Serious Games class must be given priority. There are only ~20 free seats available, so guests have to be prepared to sit in the stairs!

Questions? Contact the course responsible; Ernest Adams.

Posted on - Comments Off on Alumni Days 2018
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Alumni Days 2018

Update 2018-12-21: the Alumni Day talks have been published. Enjoy!

The Alumni Days are back again! The 14-15th of December we’ll have guest lectures, portfolio reviews, coder job interviews, mentor speed dating and a party!
Alumni Days 2018 Schedule

Speakers:

  • Daniel Gustafsson (MAG Interactive)
    • “From school to industry – real world advice from us at MAG”
  • Eva Sokolova (Valiant Game Studio):
    • It’s not cheating if you call it a workflow
      A game artist’s thoughts and tips after a year in the indie space and why having the skills to create appealing art is only one of the artistic challenges in shipping an indie title.
  • Martin Greip (Eat Create Sleep):
    • Studio Startup Survival Kit
      The rosy days of the golden indie age are gone. Do you want to start a new studio but feel lost and think “where do we go from here?”. In this talk Martin will talk about their journey at Eat Create Sleep since they started their company in 2014 and give you some insight in how you could survive as a startup. Mileage may vary.
  • Peter Stråhle (Might & Delight)
    • The Developer Ethos of Might & Delight
  • Simon Wulf (Starbreeze)
    • Character Customization IRL
      A web programmer turned game developer shares his list of some of the best skills you won’t find in the curriculum.
  • Emelie Rodin (BetterBuilt Studio)
    • An indies Survival kit – or – How I learned to double down and love the niche
      Ever wondered about the glorious life of a indie developer? Let us talk what it takes to survive out there, with the deluge of games growing by the minute? How do you stand out and what do you need to make it?
  • Science Park Gotland
    • What is there to learn from the startup world?
      The choice is before you to dare to team up and build your own venture in the gaming industry or spend half your life working for the “man”. We will share three key learnings from those that have tried, make clear the support, funding and connections that actually exist here on Gotland as well make sure we have answered or confirmed any questions or thoughts you have in the space.
  • Lisa Swanström, Star Stable
    • Artist’s Journey to the Games Industry

Note:

    • All lectures are in E22 and open to the public.
    • The party and alumni Mentor Speed Dating requires registration*
    • Portfolio Reviews requires registration (and some preparation)*
    • To apply for a coder interview, you’ll have to submit a work sample to MAG Interactive*
    • * check your student email for the links and MAG information
Posted on - Comments Off on Guest Lecture: Kali Fontecchio, on Character Design
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Guest Lecture: Kali Fontecchio, on Character Design

Kali Fontecchio has designed characters and concept art for Emmy award winning Micky Mouse shorts, Lego Movie 2, SpongeBob as well as color designing for Rick and Morty.

She’ll talk about character design, concept art and the importance of color from the perspective of her career to date.

Throughout, she’ll use examples of her work to illustrate these themes, take questions and will end the afternoon with a live demonstration.

When and where: E22, Wednesday 21 Nov, 13:00-16:00
For whom: Open to the public! Primarily useful for artists, and designers that lean towards art – but anyone with an interest in visual design!

Posted on - 1 Comment on Educating social workers on problem gaming
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Educating social workers on problem gaming

Patrick Prax was invited by Region Gotland to educate our local social workers and medical providers about problematic gaming, youth and “addiction”.


(the lecture was in Swedish – you can help us add subtitles on Youtube!)

The talk was in Swedish but Patrick recommends the book “What’s the Problem in Problem Gaming”. It is an anthology which provides a number of perspectives on the issue, such as players’ life conditions and lifestyle choices, problem gaming from a family perspective, the voices of treatment professionals, and how game design can become problematic. The book is an essential read for researchers in the field as well as for policymakers, social workers, clinical psychologists, teachers and others who encounter problem gaming in their profession, and the digital version is freely available to download here.

Vad är problemet med problematiskt datorspelande?
Många barn och unga spelar datorspel. För de flesta är spelandet ett utvecklande intresse eller avkopplande tidsfördriv. Somliga har svårt att begränsa datorspelandet vilket kan medföra att skola, kamrater och andra viktiga åtaganden försummas. För att kunna stödja barn i deras digitala vardag kan du som vuxen skaffa dig mer kunskap om datorspel. Hur fungerar spelvärlden? Varför väcker spel engagemang? Och när blir spelandet ett problem?

Du som i ditt arbete möter barn, unga och föräldrar är välkommen till en halvdag (för- eller eftermiddag) om datorspelande (på engelska ”gaming”). Ni får lyssna till Patrick Prax, forskare anställd vid institutionen för speldesign Uppsala universitet Campus Gotland, som kommer att ge er kunskap om gaming, presentera forskning på området och berätta vad vi vet om problematiskt spelande och hur det kan förebyggas och hanteras.

Föreläsningen arrangeras av BarnSam inom ramen för partnerskapet mellan Uppsala universitet Campus Gotland (UUCG) och Region Gotland.

Datum: 27 september 2018
Tid: 8.30–12.00 eller 13.00–16.30
Plats: Ljusgården Rådhuset, Visborgsallén 19 i Visby
Anmälan för regionens medarbetare via särskild länk som erhålls via BarnSam

Utbildning om problematiskt datorspelande 20180927 (.pdf)