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.

Posted on - Comments Off on alt.ctrl.GDC 2018 coverage
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alt.ctrl.GDC 2018 coverage

As you might know, three of our student games just returned from the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco. And, judging by the press, they were as well received there as they were here! We thought, let’s gather some of the love in one giant #notsohumblebrag-post. 🙂

Make: Magazine interviews 1st year student Eric Osana for Pump the Frog at 7:56.

Kotaku loved Totally Not a Game Studio’s “Grave Call“. It’s a fantastic 2-player game where one of the team has been buried alive, and the other is a police operator trying to find them. The best part? The buried player actually climbs into a coffin.

Scott Manly both tweeted and recorded video from the show floor:

His video cover a bunch of the games, including Grave Call at 3:31 and Yo! Bartender at 4:50

Anita Sarkeesian / Feminist Frequency also tried Grave Call (at 2:55):

Other outlets that wrote about our students and their games includes Polygon, The Verge, Tom’s Guide and Newsweek!

Of course, reading about these games is not the same as playing them! If you want to try our new games out (without having to travel to the US to do so), come meet us at this years Gotland Game Conference in June. There is a Pay What You Want-option to get full access to ~50 entirely new games, plus a series of unique presentations trying to uncovering the emotional potential of games. It’s also a great opportunity to meet our students and faculty, if you’re interesting in studying game design and development.

Find out more at the Gotland Game Conference website, and get your tickets here!

Posted on - Comments Off on Meet us in Stockholm on the 4th of April!
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Meet us in Stockholm on the 4th of April!

The Department of Game Design at Uppsala University is attending The Swedish Game Industry Career Fair, at Nalen in Stockholm. The event is free to attend, and is an excellent opportunity to meet a ton of game studios and whole lot of game educations, to see if game development might be for you.

The 4th of April is ~10 days before the national application deadline, so we highly recommend you swing past and check the options out before applying to higher education. We will make sure to bring a couple of our students so you get to speak with them directly, and maybe try their games while you’re at it!

Gratuitous photo of students setting up our booth at Gamex, in 2013. Because why not. :)
Gratuitous photo of students setting up our booth at Gamex, in 2013. Because why not. 🙂

See you there!

Posted on - Comments Off on The Jury (so far)
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The Jury (so far)

Update: the full Jury for GGC 2018 is listed here.

The jury represents the most hard-working participants at the Gotland Game Conference (save for our students, natch). Jurors travel from around the globe to hear our students’ presentations a day before the conference even starts, and to spend the better part of a week playing all of the student productions on the show floor.

Johannes Wadin (Might & Delight), leading the 2nd Year Jury at the 2011 Gotland Game Conference

Each member brings their own set of experience and expertise, and share that insight directly with the students at the GGC. We have academia and graphics solidly represented now, so the next bunch of seats are reserved primarily for programmers, HR and the nebulous “production“-people. There’s is of course always room, too, for people with investment or recruitment needs!

Feel like that’s you? Fill in the application and maybe we’ll see you in Visby in June!

So without further ado, here is the 2018 Jury list, so far:

  1. Doris Rusch, Game designer and Researcher, DePaul University
  2. Elizabeth Sampat, Game Designer, Author and Activist
  3. Malena Klaus, Game Programmer and Inventor
  4. Henrik Jonsson, Executive Producer, Goodbye Kansas Game Invest
  5. Josefin Westborg, Founder and Game designer, Lekreativ/Lajvbyrån
  6. Anton Albiin, Association of Swedish Game Developers
  7. James Newnorth, CEO, Spelkollektivet Sweden
  8. Joshua Juvrud, Developmental Psychologist, Uppsala University
  9. Mårten Jonsson, Freelance developer, JMJ Interactive
  10. Martine Pedersen, LudicIndspark
  11. James Newnorth, CEO, Spelkollektivet Sweden
  12. Nicodemus Mattison, Art Director, Virtuos
  13. Martin Greip, CEO, Eat Create Sleep
  14. Niklas Eneqvist, Art Team Manager, Fatshark
  15. Rabi Afram, Dev Manager, King
  16. Teddy Sjöström, Programmer, Pixel Ferrets
  17. Emelie Rodin, Developer, BetterBuilt Studio
  18. Fred Ström, Animator, Pixel Ferrets
  19. Jens Berglind, Lead Programmer, Might and Delight
  20. Kalle Henningsson, QA & Submission Manager, Playdead
  21. Kim Aava, 3D Artist, Fast Travel Games
  22. Vilya Svensson, 2D Artist, Pixel Ferrets

Names in bold are alumni from this education – welcome back! 😀

Thanks in advance to everyone for taking the time – and putting up the effort – to help improve our students, our education, and our medium!

Posted on - Comments Off on Regional collaboration for serious games
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Regional collaboration for serious games

“Universen” is a magazine for Uppsala University employees. Issued six times a year, ~7100 copies are sent to the homes of all employees and other interested parties. In the first issue of 2018 our colleague Lina Sors Emilsson is interviewed about her course Product Development for Games, 15 credits (5SD952).

Lina Sors Emilsson at the Gotland Game Conference 2017
Lina Sors Emilsson at the Gotland Game Conference 2017.

The interview is unfortunately entirely in Swedish, but she’s talking about how we use this course to have game design students work with external “real-world” concerns, such as; crisis management, Gotland’s water shortage, job market access for the differently abled, and so on. For the first iteration we worked closely with Region Gotland and local industry to come up with realistic concerns and evaluate the student output.

If you’re gifted with the Germanic languages you can try reading the full interview below, or on Issuu.com. You can even browse the full Universen archive at uu.se.

The course is a part of our international Bachelor Programme in Game Design and Project Management. You can apply to the program via universityadmissions.se! The international application deadline is 15th of january, while Swedish applicants have until April 15th.

Universen nr1 2018, page 17