All entries for Monday 03 October 2005

October 03, 2005

Societies Fair

Writing about web page http://www.sunion.warwick.ac.uk/portal/Default.asp?url=ORGANISATION&organisation_id=8906

Come along today to the Societies Fair and visit us in VGDSoc (Video Game Design Society), and you never know, you might get a sweetie out of it…

The University of Warwick Video Game Design Society

Come to our first meeting at 6pm on Monday of Week 2 (The same day as the Societies Fair) in Meeting Room 6 in Union North
(The door to the right of Costcutters, up the stairs, or at the back of Cholo)

www.warwickgamedesign.co.uk

About Us

The Video Game Design Society focuses on all aspects of game development. Our aim is to dissolve the myth that game design is limited to just programming, and emphasises the artistic and genuinely creative potential of games.

The Society welcomes members from all areas of interest and of any skill level, the only requirement is an interest in game design. Graphic artists, sound engineers, musicians, writers, programmers: all are part of the design process.

Those with experience can share ideas and work together on innovative projects, while beginners can make sure of the large knowledge base to help them get started.

We plan to organise group trips to relevant game design conventions and we also have regular socials where talking about games is optional.

Get Involved

Many people incorrectly think that games design is limited solely to programmers, but this is certainly not the case. The video game industry is widely seen as the fastest growing entertainment industry by a margin due to the diversity of talent that is required for a successful video game. An average video game will need project management, designers, artists, music artists, voice artists, actors (for body movement capture), programmers, testers, quality testers and many others in order to be successful.

We believe that all members should have the opportunity to be creative, and if you have a killer game idea, we’d love to hear about it and perhaps make it an official society project.

Projects

We worked on a number of projects in our maiden year as a Society, here is a summary of the main ones:

Game Boy Advance Project

The main focus of this project was to create a Role Playing Game (RPG) for the Game Boy Advance from scratch; we created art and storylines and there is an early playable version available on our website. In the coming year, the Game Boy Advance project will continue under a new guise.

Half-Life 2 Mod

The “Zombie Mod” was a multiplayer team game based around shooting marauding zombies. A working alpha version of this mod is available from the Society website and is playable. The mod was a multidisciplinary project involving texture artists, 3D modelling, music, map editors and programmers to create the atmosphere worthy of the mod.

Rootes Challenge

“Rootes Challenge” was a web-based Java game around the setting of a night out in The Bar (in Rootes Social Building), built completely in an isometric environment with characters playable and a scoring system based on how “well” you do on a night out (with purely non-alcoholic drinks, of course…). A semi-finished version of Rootes Challenge is available for playing from the Society’s website.

New Projects?

We are always looking for interesting and exciting new projects and will be working on some new games in the coming year.

Socials

When a society covers such a diverse number of expertises such as VGDSoc does, it’s important to not confine your socials to single members of the society. As a result, our socials are based around the single premise for joining the society – to have an interest in programming games. Talking about games at socials is definitely not something that’s seen as mandatory, and socials are certainly only for one purpose – to have fun and socialise with people who have similar interests.

Learning

Although the Video Game Design Society is not an academic society, we believe that all members should be given the opportunity to learn the vital skills required to become a games designer, whether that be in industry or just to do cool things as part of projects.

Throughout the year we will run some informal workshops on the skills that are necessary to be a good games designer, and we also invite speakers from industry to talk about games design. Although these “lectures” as loosely called aren’t academic based, they are interesting – particularly if you want to get into the games industry.

We work hard to get ties with local games design companies as well as being officially endorsed by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) in order to allow our members to have the opportunities in industry as well as catering for those members who only wish to design games for fun.