Category: Guest Lectures

Our dear Professor Ernest Adams is back to open your eyes and blow your minds.

In this lecture, he’ll show you the past and future of women in gaming: what they contributed to the early development of the medium and how they will change it in the 21st century. He examines several different aspects of the question, including the way women are portrayed in games; women as designers and developers; and the wants and needs of the female player.

“Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels.” Women game developers must also work backwards and in high heels — backwards because they are usually developing games for a male market; in high heels because they are often impeded by a masculine development culture.

This talk is open- and highly recommended to all game students!

Time: Friday, October 1st, 13:00
Location: E22

Media Molecule is a British video game developer based in Guildford, Surrey. The studio was founded in 2006 by the same people who produced Rag Doll Kung Fu while still at Lionhead Studio, but you guys probably know of Media Molecule as the creators of LittleBIGPlanet for the Playstation 3. 🙂

Daniel Leaver designed and created levels for LittleBIGPlanet and LittleBIGPlanet 2. And to quote the fluently persuasive and articulate video game critic Ben Croshaw –

[…] the level design is really, really good. Like something good. That’s… made of chocolate.

Daniel also helped in most design areas, from gameplay elements to scoring and the online aspects of the game. The content of his talk is currently kept under wraps, but his enthusiasm is promising. 🙂

The objectives of this lecture is to familiarise the student with common AAA level design techniques using examples from LittleBigPlanet. We will look at the process of designing a level from “white box” to completion using motifs. Gameplay flow and player direction as well as co-operative gameplay will be discussed. Finally we will also have a look at team work when doing level design at a game development company.

This talk is open for the public, with priority for students taking Level Design II.

Time: Tuesday, September 28th, 13:00
Location: E22

Joakim Setterberg is a level designer credited in titles such as Diplomacy (2005), Terminator: Salvation (2009) and the newly released Lead and Gold (2010).

He will talk about direct and indirect player control. How to create the illusion of player choice, even when forcing her through a linear path.

This lecture is open to the public, but with priority for students taking Level Design II.

Time: Torsdag, September 23rd, 13:00-14:30
Location: E22