The department of Game Design at Uppsala University, campus Gotland
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!
Fyra killar sätter fart på fyra stora kulor som är fästa i spelbordet. På skärmen rullar kullarna i samma takt och riktning som de fyra snurrar på kulorna. Killarna spelar med hela kroppen och skrattar oavbrutet. Spelet är uppenbart så barnsligt att de inte kan hålla sig för skratt. Efter några minuter är det över och de fyra spelarna vandrar vidare.
Jag stannar kvar och talar med Nehmo Tapio och Markus Mattfolk Stenberg som gjort spelet under sin utbildning på Gotlands Högskola. Game är en treårig utbildning med inriktning på spelutveckling, speldesign och programmering. Nehmo och Markus tror att dataspel där man rör sig, så kallade physical interactive play, kommer att växa snabbt under de närmaste åren.
Teotl Studios (formely known as Toltec Studios) is a young game development studio located in central Sweden, currently in its final stages of production on its debut game, The Ball.
Sjoerd De Jong – lead designer and developer of The Ball, and founder of Teotl Studios – is coming here this week for two reasons: first to give you guys feedback on the levels you’ve produced since his last visit, and second; to give two lectures.
Thursday, 22nd April (10:00 – 17:00, E31)
Friday, 23rd April
Lecture 1: The Ball (10.00-12.00, B51)
Lecture 2: Working in the Games Industry (13.00-15.00, B51)