The department of Game Design at Uppsala University, campus Gotland
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.
Gotland Game Awards are three short days away. This is what a crunch looks like. 🙂
To our students a “weekend” is a purely theoretical concept at this point. For the rest of you; have a good one! We hope to see you all monday, at what will undoubtedly be the most impressive Gotland Game Awards yet!
Gotland Game Awards 2010 – the fifth in as many years – takes place at Wisby Strand next week, Monday 7th and Tuesday 8th. Admittance is free and open for the public! So if you’re passing by Almedalen make sure to drop in and test all games on display, watch some movies and win something. 🙂
Gotland Game Awards is an annual competition and price ceremony where our students gets to display their productions to a jury of industry professionals. The jury this year includes over 25 international members from the game and computer graphics industry; people from Lionhead, Microsoft, Starbreeze and Paradox (just to name a few) will come here next week to play and give feedback on the games.
The students are competing in 18 different categories spanning from “Best XNA Game”, to “Best Serious Game”. One of the most important awards is the UNICEF Award for Human Rights. There are also special categories for the students creating computer animated movies. Last year Disney Pixar attended GGA and held seminars and gave feedback on the students’ projects. This year John Klepper and Steven Ilous (who created the special effects for The Matrix Trilogy!) will participate in the event.
Our industry sponsors have donated prices totaling more than 300 000€ to award the students. These prices range from games and software licenses, to travels where the students will get to show off their games at some of the biggest game events in the world. All prices are handed out during the glamorous award gala of the second evening.
It will be a spectacular show with champagne, fireworks and frickin’ laser beams!
“Spikning” (lit. nailing) is an academic ritual in connection with the submission of a dissertation. Three weeks before the dissertation thesis is published it must be made available to anyone who wants to read it and come up with criticism for the disputation. The Swedish tradition is to have the respondent ceremonially nail a copy of the dissertation to a wall, for public display.
Our soon-to-be doctor Mirjam Palosaari Eladhari has done research in story construction, characterization and identity in massively multiplayer online role-playing games. She has built an AI-system (The Mind Module) that infuse game actors with “individuality”. The system can simulate personalities, relations, feelings, mood and temper, and many other character factors. The system was tested and evaluated in a MMO prototype; the Pataphysic Institute.
Mirjam passed the Viva Voce with flying colors at Teesside University the 23rd of February, examined by Dr Alan Hind and Prof Richard Bartle (co-creator of MUD, 1978).
Video in Swedish only, sorry. 🙁
Sjoerd De Jong has been here for the past five days and taught our second year game students everything about the Unreal Development Kit. Sjoerd has been working with the Unreal Engine since 1999. He’s been involved in the development of five commercial Unreal Engine titles, has authored two books, released a training video and runs the worlds largest Unreal Engine 3 tutorials website! Add to this his five very large non-profit projects and more than 30 award winning Unreal levels and Sjoerd “Hourences” De Jong can safely claim to be an expert level designer and environment artist!
