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”

The talk will be streamed live and available here:
http://www.justin.tv/gamelab

Mary Flanagan is a media artist and one of the most acclaimed game
studies scholars. She combines creative praxis with cultural research in
her scientific work.

She has written more than 20 critical essays and chapters on the subject
of digital art, cyberculture, gaming, and responsible design. Her last
book, Critical Play was very well received by the game studies
community. Her central thesis in this book examines how games can
question established cultural rules and by doing so enable a bigger and
much richer field of game play experiences.

Besides her interdisciplinary research activities, she is well known for
her ongoing pioneering contributions to the field of digital art. Her
artwork ranges from game based systems to computer viruses, embodied
interfaces to interactive texts.

[1]: http://postdigital.hfg-karlsruhe.de/gamelab
[2]: http://www.maryflanagan.com/bio
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Flanagan

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 we’re building a door for the front to better access the hardware (previously Peter would crawl inside the machine to plug stuff in).

Peter made these great router guides on the laser cutter for routing out the fan holes. The fans are recessed halfway through the wooden panels.

Here’s the hole for the door – we’re still deciding on the best mount that doesn’t disrupt the front surface of the cabinet.

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 Lu.

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

Read more on “Interview with the Game Lab” »

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 princesses while defending your tower from knights and other medieval fan fare. Traders will drop powerups that stack and combine for “devastating effects” as you can see in the trailer. Give it a go. Burn & Turn is available on all major mobile platforms and soon to be available on PC, MAC and linux. Buy it or try it at www.robotbear.org

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 each other up. The controls are much more fluid and less of a hassle, so performing backflips and defensive maneuvers  are much easier than before. The repair system is still in place, and additionally, slows your fall as you try to repair.

“However, if you are like Jonathan, you would chase your opponent down even though they are on fire and keep spamming the space bar and not give them a chance to recover. >_<*” -Justin

“It’s pretty cheap of your opponent when they abuse the edges of the screen, since they cut out the ammunition from appearing on the other side of the screen, much like a wall, and therefore make your opponent that much harder to kill.” -Jonathan

Read more on “Buttonmashing to the Max (Updated: 11.16.11)” »

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
• IB. Active Battle Phase
• IC. Grid Placement

II. Points (NYI)
III. Events (NYI)
IV. Objects (NYI)
V. Line of Sight (NYI)
VI. Fog of War (NYI)
VII. Player-Controlled Mechanics (NYI)

• VIIA. Movement
• VIIB. Life
• VIIC. Damage and Defense
• VIID. Experience
• VIIE. Upgrades
• VIIF. Weapons
• VIIG. Cooldowns
• VIIH. Respawning
• VIIII. Perks

Read more on “Nondescript Sword-Fighting Game — A-Not-So-Complete-Game-Compendium” »

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. However, sending the message is harder than one would expect. The players cannot directly say the word in which they are told to send to their team, but have to give hints!

Read more on “StopPhone” »