X48 and Game Jamming

I thought that i would draw the class' attention to this event that has been running this weekend... The X48 GameCamp at the University of Derby. I have been following this as it has developed over the weekend after latching onto it as it flew by on my blog dashboard of updates from Wonderland. As an event closely relating to the idea of Indie Game Jams and the Global Game Jam discussed in the first session.

I am not sure how i feel about the corporate sponsorship of these sorts of indie events as it seems to fit somewhere between "Cool Hunting" and good publicity.

I think one of the things that is so interesting is the use of web 2.0 technologies to publicise the event and follow its progress (YouTube, twitter, blogging, facebook, Flicker, daytum, Last.FM play lists).

(I think we could all learn a little from this approach)

I think that it is also interesting to see the idea of a Jam with XNA rather than Flash or the ipod dev tools seen at a lot of other Jams.

Jason Rohrer: A Close Textual Analysis

We will be forcusing on a close textual analysis of a specific designers work during the session this week... Jason Roher

More specifically we will be focusing on 3 games in his ouevre Gravitation, Passage and Between

Rohrer J. (2008) Gravitation [download], PC/Mac/Linux, http://www.sourceforge.net/

Rohrer J. (2007) Passage [download], PC/Mac/Linux/iphone http://www.sourceforge.net/

Rohrer J. (2008) Between [download], PC/Mac/Linux, http://www.sourceforge.net/

This is a full list of Jason Rohrer's videogames
Primrose - A compelling tile-placement puzzle game
Between - about consciousness and isolation.
Gravitation - about mania, melancholia, and the creative process.
Passage - shown at Kokoromi's curated GAMMA 256 event
Cultivation - explores the balance between conflict and compromise.
Transcend - an abstract 2D shooting game that doubles as a multimedia sculpture.


Jason was named one of Esquire magazines best and brightest of 2008 and ran a design journal for Escapist magazine during 2008, Wired have refered to his games as "a superb and tightly crafted sonnet... more than any game I've ever played, it illustrates how a game can be a fantastically expressive, artistic vehicle for exploring the human condition." Clint Hocking, best known for his work on the Splinter Cell at the 2007 Game Designers Conference said... "Why can't we make a game that fucking means something? A game that matters? You know? We wonder all the time if games are art, if computers can make you cry, and all that. Stop wondering. The answer is yes to both. Here's a game that made me cry. It did. It really did."