Global Game Jam 2010 at Flashpoint Academy a success!

After 48 grueling hours, the Global Game Jam at Flashpoint Academy in 2010 has come to a close! After a tense strict afternoon deadline, four games were ready to play and were presented to our panel of guest judges which included Chicago game developers from Robomodo and TapMe. Incredible effort and sweat went into these games and often times the results are best measured by what happened off camera. These were team efforts 100% of the way, and it shows in what they were able to achieve in a few short hours given the theme provided by the Global Game Jam officials (theme: "deception" and games must use one or more of the following words: "man, a plan, or a canal").

Flashpoint Academy Results:

Game: Operation Scorch
As the gunner of "Hot Lips" an AC-130 gunship with the experimental "Scorch Deluxe 3000" laser, your mission is to "laz" the ground targets
Flashpoint Academy Award for Best Use of an Alternate Controller

Game: Entity
A groundbreaking exploration into the deceitful nature of humanity
Flashpoint Academy Award for Best Art and Sound

Game: Man Who Cried Wolf
Gather as many unsuspecting people while crying wolf
Flashpoint Academy Award for Best Arcade Game

Game: Hide & Haunt
Hide & Seek in a old rundown mansion
Flashpoint Academy First Place Global Game Jam 2010 Award

Flashpoint Academy Global Game Jam 2010 first report

On Friday, January 29th, Flashpoint Academy students across multiple disciplines came together to join in a worldwide event called the "Global Game Jam 2010" held at universities and game studios around the world (well over 1000 participants are now working in 38 countries! -- these crazy people are known as "jammers"). At Flashpoint's sound stage in Chicago's Merchandise Mart we started a 48-hour marathon to build games according to parameters kept secret from our jammers until the launch of the event at Flashpoint at the start of their 48-hour adventure. Jammers at Flashpoint are working in teams of about ten students to build these games by 3 pm on Sunday local time.

This year the theme is "deception" and jammers must include one or more of the following in their games: a man, a plan or a canal. Key outcomes include providing an intense opportunity for jammers to collaborate and work together in "crunch mode" doing what they love doing...making games. This is not a school assignment and it is not a business-driven game studio console game effort. These jammers are the true artists of the future. This weekend will stay for them for the rest of their lives.

We have a few special guest "judges" for the end of the weekend where we will allow the teams an opportunity to present their games to the judges. Teams will be awarded recognition in different areas, but only one game will get trophies for top honors here.

I started the ball rolling at Flashpoint after we had a student team join in with the wonderful people at DePaul who graciously invited them to be a part of the experience there in January of 2009. We would have been there again this year but we had such high interest here that we had to set up our own location. After months of preparation and the efforts and dedication by a really enthusiastic team of staff and faculty...here we are, starting up day 2. I am honored to be directing our location, but I could not have done it without them -- and without our really amazing students who surprise me from time to time when they finally realize that they have the potential to do anything in the world they want to do.

More updates to follow.

Famed video game composer Nobuo Uematsu

Some people claimed that I was too much of a fan boy when I moderated a panel discussion in Chicago today with Nobuo Uematsu. The truth is that...I am a fan boy. His music is brilliant and he is completely down to earth and nothing but sincere. I had an opportunity to ask him questions about his creative process, his career and his excellent new work in the yet-to-be-released game, Final Fantasy XIV.

Geeks trump alpha males as algos dominate Wall St

See the article below about high-frequency traders and programmers...

I've spent some time in my career building "real-time" high-performance game code. That work was instrumental in preparing me for my move over to working on trading technologies a few years back in building tools for traders and for the supporting business and technology units within that industry. I really enjoyed that environment and daily challenge -- in that process I ended up inventing new trading screens (I invented the "Time Market Grid Interface" as published by the US Patent office in August) and coding exchange gateways and building upon a variety of risk-management tools. All of this was within the confines of the trading platform vendor business and not within the proprietary trading firm as described in this link below, so I was not in a position to get the kinds of benefits described below...The flip side to that story is that everyone's algos are competing against each other, and if you are working within a market that is effectively a zero-sum game, slow and flawed code will lose...I've experimented with custom automated trading code against simulated markets though, but am hopeful to try them out in the real world!

Go to Article

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street traders aren't what they used to be -- they're not even on Wall Street anymore.

The days of swashbuckling backslappers on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange have given way to an era of trading dominated by analytical technical whizzes whose computers may be running from a town in deepest New Jersey or Texas."

who is the salty droid?

I occasionally come across things that make no sense to me. Okay, let me revisit that statement...change occasionally to constantly. But this one is perplexing to me. It stems from the following question, "who is the salty droid?"

One of the most important skills required for a game designer is "listening" which in my view requires constant observation and critical analysis of all of human experience, including my own. This is a big, impossible task, but something we strive to do as game developers to inform our activities. It comes in handy when making games that are "problem-solving activities which bring people pleasure" and creating the right ingredients to be effective in this process.

Coming back to the title of this blog entry...I came across this phrase "who is the salty droid?" from a tweet a friend of mine made. I did not ask them what it meant (which I will shortly correct). I wanted to figure it out myself. Google revealed no immediate answers from what I could tell, although some "Salty Droid" references are out there on Google. Then I decided, spontaneously, to essentially retweet the phrase. I posted a facebook status update with the phrase. Impulsive is the best word to describe this action. My skills as a game designer, in listening to my inner monologue, seemed to come to the following conclusion. I am transmitting an idea virus. There is nothing new to this in human communication, and in particular in today's age. An electronically transmitted idea virus can be gold to the right entrepreneur. But never have I so swiftly been involved in forwarding something that I didn't understand AT ALL to perpetuate this unanswered question. I want to know who the salty droid is. I want to know who made it up. I want to know why this sequence of words seems to be suddenly appearing to me.

As a game designer, I've spent a lot of time studying the human compulsion to explore and resolve unknowns in the world. Place a big button in the middle of the screen. Write text that says, "DO NOT PRESS BUTTON" and see what happens to the majority of people involved in that interactive experience. Right now, my personal button reads "WHO IS THE SALTY DROID?"

As I am writing about this, one thing has just occurred to me. I have embedded myself into the perpetual online timeline of this idea by posting information about my reflection on this thing I know nothing about within my blog. My blog is frequently indexed by search engines. It will be a part of this craziness...or perhaps even help launch this phrase even further out in the intertube ether.

Who is the salty droid? I have become the salty droid. And so will you. And doing your best to shake those five words will lead to only one thing...perpetuating it yourself.

I have a way to resolve it for you however if you are of a certain age. Read the following lyrics...

"...As cold as ice..."

"...love is a battlefield..."

or, perhaps nearly the worst of all...Hanson...

"Mmmbop....mmmbop"

Did that help? It helped me.

Bad music saves the day. Always. Trust me.

Take care Salty Droids out there!