Intern Joshua Cho from UCLA-CS here! This week was spent applying some of what I’ve learned on digital-tutors about Unity. I spent some time working on building some “architecture” using primitive shapes on Unity. I applied knowledge of navigating the UI and incorporating use of some hotkeys in order to move shapes, rotate them, duplicate [...]

Bouncy Animals is a new game in progress involving the use of large bouncy balls covered by fabric animal skins and textures. The current direction that the Game Lab is leaning towards is that of a Mario Cart-Wii combination-esque game where the bouncy balls act as the “joystick” critical to maneuverance and mobility. On a [...]

Interns Jonathan and Joshua return once more with some random game testing. Last week, we forgot to mention that we were able to play-test Mark Essen’s prototype Pachinko game. In the current state of the game, it’s very generic aesthetically, but the systems involved that make the game what it is work perfectly fine. Much [...]

In the past few days, we’ve spent time observing scripts in C# and JavaScript, learning about some of the basic albeit keystone terminology utilized in scripting languages. Below are a few of the terms covered for the week. Int; short for integer. Float; a non-whole number, a decimal. String; an object, may contain characters. Var; [...]

Game Lab interns Joshua and Jonathan back for week 2 with a confirmed concept to work with. The basic idea is to create a functional game that primarily utilizes physics due to its simplicity of implementation. Included in this post is an array of image references and a rough demonstrative model.

March 13, 2012 at 6pm UCLA Broad Art Center EDA Paolo Pedercini will present Molleindustria, a project exploring the intersection of ideology and electronic entertainment. Since 2003 Molleindustria released experimental video games dealing with unusual themes such as sex, religion, labor and ecology. Sponsored by the UCLA Game Lab Parking directions: http://dma.ucla.edu/information/directions/

Game Lab interns Jonathan and Joshua here this week, and a couple things have changed since the previous year. We’ll begin with a little new and re-introduction. Jonathan: I’m a returning Game Lab intern for round two, and this time I’m looking forward to working on something, anything that would be a step up from the [...]

Join us on Thursday, where Jonathan Cecil will lead a workshop on creating meshes in Unity. 12pm, snacks and learning! The Unity Mesh Creator is a tool that allows you to easily and automatically convert 2D images into 3D models. Super Simple Super Awesome! More info on the Unity Mesh Creator can be found here: http://games.ucla.edu/resources/unity-mesh-creator/

The Game Lab hosted a playtest last Thursday (2/2) for David O’Grady’s card/die-game prototype of Foursquare (the popular children’s playground game, not the social media app). Playtesters Chris Reilly, Aliah Darke, Sean Soria and Jennifer Porst graciously volunteered their time to throw down slammies, warheads, and other trick shots in an effort to knock various classmate-avatars out of the game–and earn the most bragging rights in the third-grade class!

Submit Your Game & Spread the Word! Independent developers of interactive games from around the world are invited to submit games of all types, from tabletop to text-based, alternate reality to action-adventure, roguelike to real-time strategy, to genres not yet explored!

If you’re around the Game Lab tomorrow at noon be sure to stop by and help us play test David O’Grady’s card game and have some pizza! David O’Grady would like to playtest a card-game protoype of Foursquare (the playground game, not the social media application). To do so, he is looking for four playtesters [...]

Jeffrey Scudder at Yale University recently developed a fantasy game played exclusively via e-mail. He is looking for people outside of his school community who would be interested in participating. Want to try it out? Visit a.dventur.es to play the game.

Hey, This is the intern duo Justin and Jonathan here for one last blog post. As you may or may not remember or know, we are seniors hailing from your friendly neighborhood UCLA Community Schools, built upon what used to be the Ambassador Hotel in Koreatown, Los Angeles. We are here for a recap of [...]

Hey everyone, this is Jonathan and I’m going to go over the events that took place in the Unity Workshop. I had also participated in the workshop, although it was unfortunate that Justin was unable to attend the event. My version of the Angry Turds 3 template can be found at the end of the post as an [...]

CALL FOR ENTRIES: LGRU Networked Graphics DEMOPARTY & CONTEST call for original visual browser-based artworks that make creative use of canvas / WebGL / HTML5 geekery! This Saturday WORM is hosting the ‘LGRU Networked Graphics DEMOPARTY’, an event in the context of the ‘Libre Graphics Research Unit’; a traveling lab where new ideas for creative [...]

For those who are interested in the Unity Workshop tomorrow, Peter Lu will be leading the Unity Workshop from 12-5 PM, and within those hours participants can expect to create their own game similar to the iPhone applications. For example, Lu’s ‘Angry Turds 3′ test project is a 3D descendent of the popular Angry Birds [...]

Friday, December 9, 5:30pm – ? Broad 4230 Get a crash course in Game Maker, a simple game design engine perfect for beginners yet able to produce more complex games as well. Make a game without writing a line of code. Led by Mark Essen.

The GameLab of the Institute for Postdigitale Narrative of the University of Arts and Design, Karlsruhe invites you to: Mary Flanagan, media artist and game studies scholar, is holding a talk on November 30th, 8:00 pm at the University of Arts and Design, Karlsruhe (Germany). Subject of her talk: “Playful Systems”

Hey everybody, remember our fancy arcade cabinet from the first annual game carnival? We were running Mark Essen’s The Thrill of Combat, Peter Lu’s Roulette, and a few other games. This year we’ve decided to update the cabinet with some new features. We installed fans in the front and back compartments of the cabinet and [...]

Friday, December 2, 12pm-5pm Broad 4230 Get a crash course in Unity, the popular game design engine! Designed for those with OR without experience – come build your skills from the ground up, or tackle more difficult problems and meet other designers. Or even make a completely new game in five hours! Led by Peter [...]

Earlier today, interns Jonathan and Justin interviewed Game Lab members Peter Lu and Mark Essen. Below are the questions and answers of the interview.

Burn & Turn by Robot Bear is officially released. Do check out our intern’s thorough review of the game http://blog.games.ucla.edu/?p=560 Burn & Turn is an arcade action game that is a the classic knight in shining armor saving damsel in distress turned on its head. In Burn & Turn you play the dragon and capture the [...]

Today, in addition to a bit of game testing, Justin and I have been exploring the basic fundamentals of Unity, a powerful 3-D game engine that incorporates traditional mechanics that allow a game to be what it is – a game. To start off on our learning curve, we’ve followed the Game Lab’s first of [...]

UPDATE (11.16.11) Messoff’s Dog Fights game expanded to a multiplayer game so now it you can have dog fights between you and your friends, so as long as you can hook up (an) additional keyboard(s) to your computer.  The game seems to run faster and smoother. Jonathan and myself spent a good twenty minutes blowing [...]

NONDESCRIPT SWORD-FIGHTING GAME Recommended Number of Players: 4+ Design by Jonathan H. Bae A work in progress…   Table of Contents 1. Abstract 2. The Grid 3. Players and Spectators (NYI) 4. Game Objectives and Modes I. Deathmatch II. Capture the Flag III. Command and Conquer 5. Game Mechanics (WIP) I. Rounds IA. Preparation Phase [...]

STOPPHONE (Not final name) By Justin Rabanales   Table of Contents I. Introduction II. Materials III. How to Play/Rules IV. Points V. What are points for?   1. Introduction In this game of Stoplight and Telephone, One can use their drawing, communication and charade skills to try to deliver a given message to their team mates. [...]

Hey, this is the intern duo again doing what we love most — playing games. Today, we were asked to test games from Pirate Kart, a compilation of roughly 300 games designed by over 100 developers. The entire lot was an entry to the 2012 Annual Independent Game Festival as a last minute submission. We [...]

This is an exciting opportunity for students interested in game design! With game design being such a hot trend these days, Studica and Unity are happy to give students the chance to showcase their skills. The challenge for the contest is to develop a web-based game that involves a “robot”. Students have the option to [...]

Hey everyone, this is the intern-duo from UCLA Community Schools once again and for this week, we have been asked to come up with a simple concept of a game and to expand on that idea. One of the games is a mix of Stoplight and telephone and the other involves the use of ‘sticks’ [...]

Hello, this is Justin Rabanales and Jonathan Bae and we are interns at the UCLA Game Lab. We both come from the UCLA Community Schools located at the RFK ambassador site and have been interested in the Game Lab due to our love for games. The both of us have been leading a gaming career [...]

Please join Howard Marks, well known entrepreneur, investor and visionary at an exclusive event at Melnitz Hall 1422 on October 4th at 6:15P. Howard was the co-founder of Activision, founder of Acclaim Games and most recently Gamzee. (Recent interview about Gamzee: http://www.socaltech.com/interview_with_howard_marks_gamzee/s-0036630.html) He will be talking about his new rapid incubator built to help UCLA [...]

Adam Rafinski from Game Lab Karlsruhe and ZKM will be giving a talk and showing work from Germany TOMORROW – Tuesday September 27, 2011 at  5:00pm @ UCLA Game Lab on the 3rd floor The GameLab Karlsruhe is a label for media art dealing with the medium of digital games and contemporary play culture. Based at the Institut for [...]

Eddo Stern presents “Wizard Takes All” a game/theater/rockshow commissioned by the Aurora Picture Show for the Media Archeology Festival IN HOUSTON TEXAS (with live game soundtrax by Eric “The Apprentice” Parren “) Saturday September 17, 8-10PM AT The Orange Show for Visionary Art, 2402 Munger Street, Houston, TX http://aurorapictureshow.org/calendar.asp?pageid=83&calid=680  

Rob Manual has written a short article on Indiecade’s game jam that happened a few weeks back. Note the photos of game lab member Peter Lu (choking down on some Gamer Grub no less) as well as David Leonard in the included photographs. Several interesting projects including Miikl made by members of the game lab [...]

Check out this video of the games made by the high school students in the second week of the DMA Summer Institute’s Game Design class, sponsored by the Game Lab. The same as last week, in only one week students both learned the Unity engine and created their games. Did you miss the games from [...]

Check out this video of the games made by the high school students in the D|MA Summer Institute’s Game Design class, sponsored by the Game Lab. Students learned the Unity engine then designed and produced these games all in the span of one short week. Check back later for the games produced in Week B.

This dance group decided to implement classical sorting algorithms through Hungarian Folk Dance (incredibly inefficient and their particular implementation only has 8 bytes of memory but entertaining nonetheless) for your general edification. They’ve implemented classics like merge-sort, quick-sort and shell sort (a turtle free version of the favourite bubble sort). Check them out here. Of [...]

  Fantasic Arcade games festival taking place in Austin this summer September 22-29 is accepting submissions – submit your game here! Fantastic Arcade is looking specifically for games that will fit in to the larger context of the FantasticFest matrix of Genres – sci-fi, fantasy, heist, spy, western, horror, and monster !! Link to arcade page and [...]

Eddo Stern will be speaking tomorrow at the TEDxUCLA conference. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where [...]

On March 3, our artist in residence spoke about his work and the work of his collective. You can watch video of his talk here.

Come one, come all, to the first annual Intermural Game Carnival! Presented by the UCLA Game Lab, this year’s event showcases student game projects from several southern California schools – UCLA, USC, and UCI – with plans to expand in coming years. A night of fun, food, games, and art, this event is a great [...]

Did you miss Scott Stoddard’s lecture on February 17 about his use of flow theory in the development of his incredibly popular game, Robot Unicorn Attack? Never fear: you can watch the video of his presentation here.

The IGF award nominee Gemini Rue has finally been published by Wadjet Eye Games and is available for purchase. Azriel Odin, ex-assassin, arrives on the rain-drenched planet of Barracus to find someone. When things go horribly wrong, he can only seek help from the very criminals he used to work for. Meanwhile, across the galaxy, [...]

Game Lab artist-in-residence Mark Essen’s game Nidhogg, nominated for several awards at the 2011 Independent Games Festival, won this year’s Nuovo Award, given for “abstract, short-form, and unconventional game development.” See more of Mark’s work here.

  http://www.indiecade.com/index.php/submissions/index_2011/   //IndieCade 2011 Submissions Now Open IndieCade was established to create vibrant festivals and showcases dedicated to independent games and open to the public. It is our goal to showcase exciting and innovative new work, host productive networking environments, hold important discussions, and have a lot of fun. IndieCade invites independent game artists [...]

Since Walter’s lecture where he talked about the Wi-Fi hacking workshops that he runs in Europe, we had a huge demand for one here. We’re real excited to announce that Walter will be running his notorious Why-Fi workshop before he leaves his residency here. Workshop is TOMORROW, get more info here.

http://kathack.com/

Scrum is an iterative, incremental framework for agile software development. Clinton Keith combines his experience as both video game developer and Agile practitioner to apply Scrum philosophy to the unique challenges of video game development. Blizzard, Lucas Arts, Apple, and EA, are just some of his myriad well known clients. From Wikipedia: Scrum is a [...]

Walter Langelaar is a Dutch artist who lives and works in Rotterdam and Berlin. Currently working in the field of post-interactive sculpture, he deploys dedicated machines into a variety of gallery, festival and party circuits. His working interested include open source game engines, bot AI and neural networks, and “strange loops” through virtual and physical [...]

The long-awaited Gemini Rue, created by Game Lab artist-in-residence Joshua Nuernberger, is now available for PC via Wadjet Eye Games. Gemini Rue was recognized at the 2010 Independent Games Festival, as well as showcased at E3 and the Indie games Arcade. Check out the trailer:

Nidhogg, a game by Game Lab artist-in-residence Mark Essen, has been nominated for the Excellence in Design, Nuovo, and Grand Prize awards at this year’s Game Developers Conference. Are you going to be in San Francisco for the conference? Be sure to make it to the Nidhogg tournament and afterparty on March 2.

Come help us kick off our game movie series with Double Dragon, the under-appreciated 1994 film adaptation of the classic game. Snacks! Fun! Roundhouse kicks! Monday, February 28, 5 PM Broad Art Center – EDA Free!

The Game Lab lecture and workshop with Scott Stoddard were featured in the Daily Bruin. Check out the full story.

Visit the Lab site to read an interview with Scott Stoddard, who will be lecturing and leading a workshop at UCLA on Thursday and Friday.

Visit the Game Lab site to read an interview with Cactus, prolific designer of games dabbling in the bizarre, the absurd, the experimental, the amazing.

Robot Unicorn Attack Creator Scott Stoddard Lecture Thursday, February 17, 2011 5pm EDA, Broad Art Center     The UCLA GAME LAB presents Scott Stoddard, the creator of the web phenomenon Robot Unicorn Attack. With over 35 million plays online, the game has inspired people around the world to create thousands of fan art images, [...]

Tonight at 6 is Coordinate Quest, a game by Tom Sennet whom you might remember as the quirky developer behind games like Tom Sennet, Procrastinator and the perhaps slightly more interesting but no less ridiculous RunMan: Race Around the World. The goal is to assemble a team and coordinate together to find all the MACGUFFIN [...]

After two days, Global Game Jam is over! Some guys you might recognize organized “So Many Rooms” as part of the Global Game Jam. The premise is to implement their flash api (templates interfacing this api with flashpunk and flixel were also provided) and create a one room game. When the game ends, it automatically [...]

Wiki calls for papers is a searchable directory of open calls for paper. There’s a fairly large “Game” category on the site as well so if you have a paper on games you want to submit, mosey on over to see if one of the calls fits your paper. http://www.wikicfp.com/cfp/call?conference=games

Cube 3 is a mobile puzzle game made as a collaboration by several members of the Game Lab. Cube 3 is a competitive puzzle game reminiscent of tic-tac-toe. The game is played on a 3×3 cube and the winning conditions of the game are the same as tic tac toe.  The trick is that while [...]

Here’s to another exciting Global Game Jam! Global Game Jam has already started and ends the 30th. We’re already working hard on our games and so is everyone else.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 09, 2011, 7:30 PM Can Video Games Save the World? Jane McGonigal Many of the 174 million Americans who play video games have probably been called lazy for spending too much time with a console. But video games can be hard work. They require players to pursue challenging quests, learn from and even [...]

Kongregate Unity Game Contest with $25,000 in Prizes Kongregate’s game contest for developing innovative and fun Unity games is well underway (yeah, there’s the judging criteria). There are more than 100 game submissions already, and the last day for submissions is February 15. Voting the ends February 22 and winners will be announced a week [...]

The Game Lab was featured in today’s issue of the Daily Bruin. Check out the full story.

Don’t forget to submit to Indiecade next month. Submissions are open starting February 14th and the deadline is May 31st 2011. This is a great festival for independent developers to get exposure for their games. And if you’re in LA be sure to head down to Culver City during the festival (October 6-9, 2011) to [...]

A nice write up about our own Peter Lu’s game Cave in Game Developer Magazine Can be read online here!

Read all about it HERE !

The UCLA Department of Statistics Seminar Series presents: Data, Games, and Real World Engagement Speaker: Kati London, Area/Code Time/Place: Tue, 1/11/2011, 3:00 PM—4:00 PM, 6229 Math Sciences Bldg. Abstract: Game mechanics are radically transforming how people interact with each other and the world around them. Companies like Zynga, Svcngr, Foursquare, Nike, Kmart, and international governments are [...]

Get four indie games for any donation $ you choose Cortex Command, Osmos, Braid, Machinerium, and Revenge of the Titans http://www.humblebundle.com/

Get 4 indie games for any donation $ you choose Cortex Command, Braid, Machinerium, and Revenge of the Titans http://www.humblebundle.com/

On Tuesday, November 30, the Game Lab is partnering with the International Game Developers Association to host a lecture by Mark Cerny. Mark Cerny is an important figure in the American video game industry, having worked on classic titles like Marble Madness and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and now owning Cerny Games and working as [...]

On November 12-14, the UCLA Film and Television Archive is holding a symposium entitled “Reimagining the Archive: Remapping and Remixing Traditional Modes in the Digital Era.” We’re especially interested in the panel “Saving the Game: New Approaches to Preserving Videogame Culture.” This panel includes scholars from Stanford, UT Austin, the University of Arizona, and Arizona [...]

Assuming you did not just come from the Game Lab site, CLICK HERE to check it out. Coinciding with Indiecade, we are happy to announce that the UCLA Game Lab site as well as the blog are now officially public.  We’re working hard on producing and adding content on the main site and keeping this [...]

This weekend LOVE by Eskil Steenberg is free to download and play. We’re very excited to give this game a try.  LOVE is the devoted work of one person, and in this MMO the motive is to collaborate with other players against a common enemy. The game has a vast manipulatable landscape to build structures [...]

GDC has expanded to both Europe and China.  Last year, the Independent Games Festival and China saw over 200 entries with Captain Forever by Farbs taking the grand prize.  Finalists in five categories are rewarded convention passes, and winners announced at the convention will receive cash prizes of up to 20,000 RMB (approximately 3000 USD). [...]

Last year Indie Games Arcade showed games like the IGF nominated Joe Danger and the baffling installation game Happening Game. The Indie Games Arcade is set up on donated space at the massive Eurogamer Expo which brought over 10,000 visitors last year, bringing to light smaller independent developers who would otherwise not be able to [...]

The Indie Fund is an organization founded by several successful indie game developers. Indie developer can apply for funding to support the independent creation of their own game. The Indie Fund is now open for submissions.

Week 2 of Summer Institute has come to an end. The 15 students in this session were asked not only to make a game but to specifically design a narrative that worked with the constraints of the game engine. All the students produced very impressive work, with stories that range from serious to surreal to [...]

Every year, the UCLA department of Design|Media Arts hosts several one week summer camp sessions – in the fields of graphic design, web, video, and of course, gaming – for older high school students. In past years, gaming has been taught by David Elliot, our current Game Lab manager, but this year gaming is being [...]

This is a brief interview with professor Eddo Stern, conducted by Vanessa Goh, a UCLA student. Eddo Stern is a professor of Design|Media Arts at UCLA who specializes in gaming and is the director of the new UCLA Game Lab.

The end of the quarter means completed projects. This batch belongs to the Game Design Workshop 1 (DMA 157A), taught Spring 2010 quarter by Eddo Stern and TA’d by Gautam Rangan. This is the third time the class has been taught by professor Stern. Visit the course page to check out the impressive final projects. [...]

We are a proud sponsor of Indiecade, an annual festival for independent games in lovely Culver City. Deadline for Indiecade submissions has been extended to June 20th. Submit now! IndieCade is pleased to announce that we listened to your requests and extended submission deadline of June 20, 2010 by midnight PST. If you have already [...]