It’s time for the Boston Post Mortem again, and this time around we’re having our very first Wii game Post Mortem!
This month Kurt Reiner of Demiurge Studios will talk about developing “Brothers in Arms: Double Time” for the Wii in conjunction with Gearbox Software. This project began with porting the Unreal Engine 2 engine from the Xbox to the Wii. It then required migrating/redesigning game content as well as designing the movement and combat controls to utilize the Wii remote. The talk will touch on the team needs for Wii development and the lessons learned from this project.
Kurt Reiner serves as Technical Director at Demiurge Studios but sometimes manages to sneak into engineering lead and programmer roles when others aren’t looking. Kurt has been in the game industry since 1998, when he helped found Shaba Games. After Shaba, Kurt moved on to Electronic Arts. There he worked on several critical intellectual properties including Tiger Woods Golf, James Bond, and the Sims. Kurt holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.
Logistics:
Wednesday, May 14 @ 7pm
The Skellig, Waltham
You can find all the other logistical information on our “About” page.
Should be fun!
Turbine just announced that they’ve received $40 million in funding. Congrats!
| April 16, 2008 |
| 1:00 pm | to | 5:00 pm |
The New England Institute of Art
Senior Portfolio Show
April 16th, 1 - 5 PM
The Brookline Holiday Inn, 1200 Beacon Street, Coolidge Corner
Come see the creative 2D and 3D work of our talented Animation seniors! Many are available for freelance or full-time work opportunities. Pre-screen future resources, or just come see some inventive demo reels.
RSVP to: Kristin Casasanto, Senior Career Advisor, Media Arts & Animation at NEiA: kcasasanto -at- aii.edu
Contact Kristin for directions or questions.
There’s a post mortem of AudiOdyssey up on GameCareerGuide. For those of you who weren’t at our December meeting, AudiOdyssey is a Wiimote-controlled accessible rhythm game made by the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT lab last Summer.
I was surprised (to put it mildly) to see an article in Entertainment Weekly written by Stephen King, decrying the HR 1423 bill that Kent Quirk (along with the ESA and IEMA) testified against. King’s article mostly takes a common sense, “shouldn’t the parents be protecting their kids?” standpoint. You can read the full article here.
In case you haven’t heard, Rockstar Games recently acquired Mad Doc Software. You can read the official press release here. Congratulations to the hard-working devs at Mad Do–no, wait: the hard-working devs at Rockstar New England!
| April 9, 2008 |
| 7:00 pm | to | 10:00 pm |
Post Mortem is coming up next week: note that the meeting is Wednesday, not Tuesday as you might guess (the Skellig was booked, sorry). Our speaker will be Alex Engel from Turbine, and here’s the info on his talk.
Title: Exploring the Exploitation of Online Games: Real Money Transactions
Description: The explosion in popularity of online games such as World of Warcraft has created a lucrative secondary market for virtual items and goods. This has caused friction between players who engage in these activities and companies who discourage it. Drawing on experience from several Massively Multiplayer games, Turbine’s Alex Engel will discuss the problems and challenges of dealing with groups that play your games for profit, not fun.
Logistics:
Wednesday April 9, 7pm
The Skellig in Waltham
Directions here: http://bostonpostmortem.org/SkelligDirections.htm
Hope to see you all!
The Interactive Media & Game Development (IMGD) program at WPI has been running a weekly speaker series for the past few years, open to the public.
Recently, they began to video record the talks, and they post them online.
And if you have something interesting to talk about, they are always looking for speakers. You can get an idea of what types of talks have been given by looking at the site. Links to talks from previous semesters are near the bottom.
| March 20, 2008 |
| 5:00 pm | to | 6:00 pm |
Sorry for the short notice, but I just found out that Denis Dyack is speaking this evening (5pm) at MIT. Reposted with permission from the GAMBIT blog:
This afternoon the US GAMBIT lab is playing host to Denis Dyack, the founder and president of Silicon Knights (Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, Too Human). In addition to guest-lecturing in a game design course or two, Dyack will also be giving a presentation on Games as the Eighth Art and Engagement Theory for the MIT CMS Colloquium series. The Colloquium lecture is free and open to the public, and runs from 5-7 PM this evening in building 2-105.
From the official description at cms.mit.edu:
Denis Dyack is the founder and president of Silicon Knights. In this capacity, he oversees the creation and development of games, and continues to further the growth of the company. Dyack is a noted authority on interactive software development and offers valuable insight into the process of designing next-generation games that appeal to the masses. Under Dyack’s direction, Silicon Knights has evolved into one of the top independent interactive software developers in the world. Dyack (B. Phed, H. B.Sc, M. Sc.) founded Silicon Knights in 1992 after publishing Cyber Empires in 1991. Since that time, Silicon Knights has moved from creating PC games to premiere AAA console titles, such as Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain for the original PlayStation. Working with Nintendo as a second party, Silicon Knights created the critically acclaimed Eternal Darkness. Together with Nintendo, Silicon Knights worked with Konami to create another critically acclaimed game, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. Dyack and his team are currently working with Microsoft on the Too Human trilogy for the Xbox 360, and developing an exciting new game for Sega of America.
For more on Dyack and Engagement Theory, check out the related Developer’s Diary video podcast at gametrailers.com, then come down to campus and say hello!
The hearing at the State House was a bit confusing. There were a number of bills up for consideration, and a couple of hundred people who were there to support and/or protest one or another bill. After about an hour and a half of presentations on other laws, I was suddenly called as part of a panel of speakers; we had someone there from the ESA, the ESRB, a local company who rents video games, someone representing game sales, and me representing the local game creation industry. The entire panel had 8 minutes to present.
My prepared remarks are after the break — but they were intended to take 3 minutes to present. I tried to keep the entire presentation under 2, so I skipped large sections of it. My best recollection of the parts I left out is highlighted in blue.
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