The department of Game Design at Uppsala University, campus Gotland
Category: Blog
This is the highly informal blog of the GAME-department. We use it mostly to document the things we do outside of running one of the worlds strongest game educations. For information about our education, programs and courses, check the official site at Uppsala University.
When: Feb 8, 2022, 7 – 8:30 PM Central European Time (CET) Where: Online on Zoom Register here: https://tinyurl.com/jbncfmke
Description:
Question: At Google, what differentiates their highest performing teams from everyone else?
Answer: Google conducted an in depth data and statistical analysis to find out what special secret supercharged their most innovative teams, and the number one answer was… psychological safety. This lecture explores how we can leverage this truth in our game designs with the goal of creating transformative experiences. John Stavropoulos will provide concrete step by step best practices and use examples from his work in games (Dungeons & Dragons, Critical Role, Gen Con) to illustrate how you can do the same.
The Transformative Play Initiative Event Series is hosted by the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design, Uppsala University Campus Gotland. The series explores the use of analog role-playing games as vehicles for lasting personal and social change.
Join us for the first lecture in our Spring 2021 season of the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series, “Designing Intensity: A Case Study of an Extraordinary 24h Scenario Session” by Lauri Lukka!
The Zoom-link will be provided to registrants on the day of the event. Make sure to sign in with the same name you used to register.
The Transformative Play Initiative Event Series is hosted by the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design, Uppsala University Campus Gotland. The series explores the use of analog role-playing games as vehicles for lasting personal and social change.
Screenshot from the 2020 Alumni Days on Gather.town
Due to the worsening Covid conditions on the island and across Europe, we have made a last-minute decision to move all Alumni Day events online. This means two things; that the schedule is still somewhat in flux, and that everyone can join us from from the comfort of their own browser!
When: 9-10 December (thu-fri) Where:In Gather.town (the same space as Gotland Game Conference)
… You?Reach out if you’d like to spend an evening or two helping game design students navigate the treacherous waters of a future career in the games industry!
Presentations:
Technical Art: Tips and Tricks for Open-World Games Jan Plähn – Aesir Interactive In this talk, I am going to summarize tips and tricks that are applied by technical artists developing Stable Girl (Working Title), an open-world horse-riding game currently in production. The talk covers workflows and tools for faster content creation, as well as optimization techniques that were applied to display the rich landscapes in the game world of Stable Girl.
About Jan: After graduating from the game design programme in Visby in 2020, Jan began studying game design and technology at Gothenburg University. Half a year later, he moved to Munich to fill a position as a Programmer at Aesir Interactive. He soon discovered his interest for technical art and migrated into the position of Technical Artist. Meanwhile, he is finishing his master’s degree (online) at Gothenburg University.
Animating using Control Rig in Unreal Engine Ana Laura Martinez Cuerda – Aesir Interactive In this talk, I will give an overview of my animation workflow using Unreal Engine for Police Simulator: Patrol Officers, a simulation game that lets you explore the basic duties of a beat cop. I will cover the basics of Control Rig, the level sequencer and how I use them to iterate and create all the animations.
About Ana: Ana graduated from Game Design and Graphics at Uppsala University just a year and a half ago. For the past year, she has been working as the 3D animator at Aesir Interactive in Munich on two very different projects; a secret open world horse riding game and ‘Police Simulator: Patrol Officers’.
Job Hunting in the Creative Industry – The Obvious, The Hidden, The Unicorns Timothee Engels – PhotonEngine A decade of job hunting experience on 3 across continents and multiple (business & local) cultures distilled to the most important lessons and concepts. Learn how to find opportunities, evaluate them and find the right way for your career path.
About Timothee: Timothée Engel is a Software Engineer and Producer at PhotonEngine. As a software engineer he specializes in the design and programming of multiplayer gameplay interactions. As a producer he manages the incubator and accelerator partnerships across Asia and Europe to help independent teams understand, grasp and execute on the opportunities presented by multiplayer games. Prior to entering the game industry, he worked in the entertainment and event industry as a freelance photographer, creative lead and brand consultant.
Be the support player! Eric Osana – Nexile With this talk I intend to light a fire in every person attending. I am going to talk about the most important characteristics and skills that you need, in order to be successful in any job! These are the characteristics that will make people want to work with you, which in turn will multiply the amount of opportunities you can take!
About Eric: My name is Eric Osana, I left the Department of Game Design in 2019 with multiple international game awards to my name. I am now 26 years old and have co-founded the game studio Nexile, currently working on Jump King and Jump King Quest.
Posted on - Comments Off on Announcing the Transformative Play Initiative CategoriesBlog, Guest Lectures
We are delighted to announce an exciting new development at the Department of Game Design at Uppsala University Campus Gotland! The Transformative Play Initiative will create events, archives, research, and graduate programmes with an emphasis on analog role-playing games. We are specifically interested in games designed and implemented by people in helping professions who wish to use play as a vehicle for personal and social transformation.
Each month we will host 1-2 lectures, roundtables, or town hall meetings. These events take place on Tuesday evenings live on Zoom in webinar format. Lectures are one hour long on a variety of cutting edge topics from researchers and practitioners, with thirty minutes for questions at the end. Roundtables gather the lecturers together for a structured conversation. We also have Town Hall meetings as a more public discussion space, where community members can request slots for 5-10 minute lightning talks on related topics, followed by short breakout rooms for discussion.
Everything is archived on YouTube to encourage sharing and open access. Although the series focuses on analog role-playing games, the topics are broad enough to be useful to students focusing on digital games and other forms of play as well.
