Expo Recap

I just want to take the time to thank everyone who came out to the expo today. It was a lot of fun to see everyone's full games in all their glory for the first time. Congratulations to all the team members who have spent their sweat and tears working on these projects over the entire semester! Ace your finals, take a break, and come back ready to work on a new batch of projects next semester.

We'll be posting the games here in the coming weeks (most likely once finals are done), so everyone who couldn't make it out can have a go.

Reminders: End-of-Semester Expo, Smash For Cash

The Student Game Developers and the UVa chapter of the Association of Computer Machinery will be co-hosting Smash For Cash, a tournament in the hit Nintendo Wii video game "Super Smash Bros. Brawl", this Saturday, December 5, in the basement of Olsson Hall. The tournament starts at 2 PM and is expected to last until 5 PM. Entry fee for the tournament is $10, and prizes will be awarded. Registration for the tournament ends at 2:15 PM on the 5th, and the earliest registered participants will receive first-round byes, so be sure to be among the first to show up!

Raffle prizes will also be awarded, with raffle tickets available for $1 apiece. All money raised by the tournament and raffle will be donated to the Child's Play charity, which directly benefits children at the UVa Children's Hospital.

On the following day (Sunday the 6th), SGD will host its Fall 2009 End-of-Semester Expo. This event starts at 1 PM and will be held in Thornton E303. All projects that SGD has pursued this semester - Empyreal, Gladiators, Laser Lockdown, Recursion, T-Cubed, and Yggdrasil - will be on display, so come out and have some fun before exams start! Light snacks will be provided.

Yggdrasil Mid-Semester Update

Yggdrasil is now "functionally complete" and v0.1.1 has been released. As it stands, the server architecture is all in place to support multiple people playing in a game together. While not optimized nor secured, the basic architecture is currently there.

Videos about Yggdrasil can be found here:
https://x8.endoftheinternet.org/portfolio/games/yggdrasil/videos/

If you would like access to Yggdrasil v0.1.1, contact Dan Magnusson or John Will, at dnm5z@virginia.edu and mw6gc@virginia.edu respectively and we will get you a copy right away.

For Yggdrasil v0.2.0 (the end of Semester Expo) we plan on adding the concept of "region servers" to allow for developers to have a concept of "regions" in their world to help balance the load of their game off of the world server itself.

v0.3.0 (winter break) is a general fixup / test / fill in the blanks of all features that were cut for v0.1.0 and v0.2.0. v0.4.0 and v0.5.0 (next semester) will focus on optimization and security.

T-Cubed Mid-Semester Update

Here's a gameplay video demonstrating T-Cubed's progress so far this semester, and expanding on what we showed at the Mid-Semester Expo.

In the video, you can see the Tetris style gameplay working fully as well as our microgames and money system. In the coming weeks development will focus on adding powerups, more microgames, and balance.

Recursion Mid-Semester Update

So Recursion has made significant progress since our last update. At the mid-semester expo we demonstrated the recursion component, the Mr. Freeze powerup, future level and object designs, and art to be integrated later. We now have this gameplay video that demonstrates recursion and animation:


Between now and the end of the semester we hope to have a minimap on the top screen, more powerups added, and integrated levels. We'll be working hard to reach these goals!

Empyreal: Progress Check 11/06/09

The Empyreal team has made significant strides over the month since our last update, illustrated and explained below.

Among the features illustrated in this video:

• The first thing you'll notice is a new player ship model. Though it still needs texturing work, it's much better than it was before.
• The next thing you'll notice is the afterburner shader effect. The effect is coded in HLSL, and the size of the afterburner is dependent on the throttle control of the player. You'll also notice at the end of the video, the afterburner gets utterly massive; this is the result of the "Awesome Button", which basically is an escape mechanism for the player if he gets in a hairy situation.
• You'll also notice that basic weapons functionality is in; the player fires white cube placeholder projectiles. Though there's no clear onscreen indicators yet, weapons can have finite or infinite ammo, optional ammo recharging, and differing projectiles depending on what weapon is active. Projectiles have collision detection with other nonplayer ships based on whether the owner of the weapon which fired the projectile is friendly or an enemy; i.e. as of now friendly fire has no effect.
• Every now and then, you'll see a purple box in the lower left hand side of the screen. This is for the Empyreal Event System, which is a main driver of the gameplay in Empyreal. The inspiration of one of our programmers, Nick Wasilewski, the event system is responsible for presenting challenges and story elements to the player. Events can include the appearance of new enemy ships, text messages, audio cues (for example, voice acting sound bytes to drive a story), and more. The event system is backed by a strong in-house level editing and event planning tool which allows for the creation of many varied and challenging missions.

Much still needs to be done for Empyreal, however. Notably:

• AI for Nonplayer characters is still a work-in-progress and has not yet been implemented. This should arrive shortly.
• Unfortunately, Empyreal is still sorely lacking in content in nearly every area at this point; there is some stuff in the works, however, but the game may need a second semester to flesh out the idea completely.

Though there is still much work to be done, Empyreal is making strides and should still be ready and playable at the SGD Fall 2009 End Of Semester Expo.

Fall 2009 End Of Semester Expo, Smash For Cash Announcements

The Student Game Developers' End Of Semester Expo has been scheduled for Sunday, December 6 at 2:00 PM. The Expo is currently scheduled to take place in Thornton E303. All SGD projects will be on public display at this Expo.

In addition, SGD and The University's chapter of the Association of Computer Machinery (ACM) are coscheduling the Fall 2009 "Smash For Cash". The event, which is scheduled for December 5 in the basement of Olsson Hall, is a fundraiser for the Child's Play charity, and is comprised of a tournament in the blockbuster Wii video game "Super Smash Bros. Brawl". The tournament requires a $10 entry, of which all proceeds go towards Child's Play. Prizes will be awarded to top finishers!