Polygon plays Yo! Bartender

screenshot from polygon.com
Think you can actually bartend? This game simulates just how hard it is

Yo Bartender! uses Wiimotes and real bottles to simulate making drinks in a hurry

Dante Douglas over at Polygon met one of our student teams at the Game Developers Conference, and wrote a little piece about Yo! Bartender.

[…] The bottles arrayed around the play area are slightly weighted and use six Wiimotes (one inside each bottle) to register when they are turned upside down over the drink cup, adorned with lights picked up by the internal light sensors in the Wiimote. Hold a bottle upside down over the cup, and it “pours,” showing how much poured on the display. The system is simple but effective, making each “mixing” process into a game of trying to remember where you set down the rum bottle, or which button drops ice into the cup. […]

Read more over at Polygon.com!

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!

About the Alumni of the Year award

Adam Mayes reading the motivations and handing out the Alumni of the Year-awards at the Gotland Game Conference 2017. Spoiler: Pernilla Sparrhult and Joakim Andreason were recognized both, for their incredible last couple of years as producer and designer (respectively) at Paradox Interactive.

We are embarrassingly proud of our graduates and former students of the education. We have been teaching game design- and development on Gotland since 2001, so our network of alumni counts in the thousands, with careers across the globe.

GAME Alumni around the world (map generated 180317)
[map generated 180317].

They constantly surprise us with their insight, their productivity, their skill, their willingness to listen, advice and help out. Whether it’s as jury at the Gotland Game Conference, or inspiring the generation of students coming after them at our annual Alumni Days – they always seem to go the extra mile.

With all the value we get from our Alumni, we like to give something back too. And so, as often as we can, we try to recognize former students for their contribution to the education, to the games industry or to their specific field – be it game design, entrepreneurship, activism or academia.

YearNameNotes
2007Mats AnderssonAvalanche Studios
2008Anders EkermoStarbreeze
2009Peter StråhleGRIN
2010Johannes WadinMight and Delight
2011Karin RydingOzma Games
2012???No data in our archives!
2013Annika O. BergströmSödertörn University
2014Ted SjöströmPixel Ferrets
2015Rikard JakschKing
2016Kim AavaGuerrilla Games
2017Joakim AndreasonParadox Interactive
2017Pernilla SparrhultParadox
2018Max TiilikainenStunlock Studios
2019Jona MarklundStar Stable
2020n/aNo nominations due to Covid-19.
2021n/aNo nominations due to Covid-19.
2022Aydin AfzoudLead Game Designer at Ubisoft Stockholm
YearNameNotes

Are you a former student of the game educations on Gotland? Please join the Uppsala University Alumn Network! And consider joining the 700-people strong GAME community on Facebook. It is run entirely by Alumni and has become the gathering point for all people who is or have been part of the GAME-educations on Gotland.

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!