Student Game Developers

Global Game Jam

2012-01-27T14:10:00.001-05:00

Global Game Jam kicks off tonight, and for the first time the Student Game Developers are organizing a site! We'll be sure to post pictures from the event.

Spring Pitch Meeting Scheduled

2012-01-21T15:29:00.002-05:00

SGD's Spring Pitch Meeting has been scheduled for 5pm in Olsson 005. We'll have an SGD-Record seven projects this semester, and they look very diverse and fun. If you're interested in being on a team, come to the pitch meeting!

Kinect Pong Uploaded

2012-01-02T16:54:00.005-05:00

SGD is back to uploading completed games, and we have uploaded Kinect Pong for anyone with a Kinect who is interested in playing! Our team was smaller than SGD's standards, but the project turned out to be a great success. We had really dedicated members, and ended up with a fully playable game with three levels of AI.

You can download the game here.

ESE and Karts for Kids: Success!

2011-12-11T15:00:00.001-05:00

The End of Semester Expo and Karts for Kids were both highly successful, thanks to everyone who came out! Stay tuned for some info about the games that we made this semester...

ESE and Karts for Kids

2011-12-08T14:26:00.005-05:00

Need a study break? Join the SGD on Sunday for our end of semester expo! Come play four games created by students over the last semester, and while your at it, prove you worth by out racing everyone in a SGD and ACM sponsored Mario Kart Tournament. Entrance to the tournament is just $10, and all proceeds go towards benefiting Child's Play!

The event will be held:
Sunday, December 11th from 11am-2pm
in Thornton D221

If you want to donate using a credit card you can do so using the widget below. All money collected here will be sent directly to Child's Play without going through us. All we will see is the name you enter so that we let you in to the tournament. In order to enter you will need to donate at least $10.

Mid Semester Update

2011-11-13T11:06:00.005-05:00

It's (more than) half way through the fall semester, and that means projects are starting to get playable and move towards their final state for the ESE. We had our mid-semester expo a couple of weeks ago, so I thought I'd give an update on where the projects stand so far.

- Kinect Pong has made good progress, and are now reading in a moving skeleton from the Kinect and letting you bounce a ball back and forth off a wall.

- Sequence has a test level going where you can match and extend the pattern that the game gives you.

- Marblematic has a working 3D scene using the Ogre3D graphics engine, with some great lighting and shadows. Next up will come physics and track building mechanics.

- Beat Descent has beat detection working and lets you fly around a test dungeon while playing random tracks off of your computer.

- Node Defense has a working tile engine and some basic tower mechanics set up.

Mid-Semester Expo

2011-10-14T11:13:00.000-04:00

The Mid-Semester Expo has been scheduled for Wednesday, October 19th at 6pm in Olsson 120. Come to see the progress of the 5 cool projects!

XNA Crash Course

2011-09-09T09:59:00.002-04:00

On Tuesday we hosted a tutorial session for Microsoft's XNA Game studio.

You can download a recording of the session here, and the code sample from the presentation here.

To use XNA you will need the following, which are both free/free for students:

Pitch Meeting Scheduled!

2011-08-28T13:25:00.001-04:00

The pitch meeting for the Fall Semester has been scheduled for Tuesday, August 30th at 7:00pm in Olsson 009. Come out and see what we're going to work on this semester, we have 5 great projects in store for you!

iPhone App Development

2011-04-14T18:35:00.002-04:00

Games for the iPhone and iPad have been very popular in the last few years, so for those looking into developing a game for an iOS platform, here are some concepts to think about.

-The language used in iOS development is Objective-C with Cocoa. Whether or not you like this language, there are quickly increasing number of tutorials of how it works.

- In order to develop iOS games, you'll need a Mac (sorry PC-users) and Xcode, the IDE for creating iPhone, iPad, and Mac applications. Xcode is a great IDE that comes with an interface builder and one of the best developer documentations around. You can either buy it from the Mac App store (about 5 bucks at time of writing) or you can download it for free if you are a member of the iOS or Mac Developer Program (which is $99 a year and allows you to distribute the game through the store).

- iPhone App and Game Development relies heavily on the Model-View-Controller software architecture, which divides programs into three parts:

-- Models- These are abstractions of data or data structures. For games, some examples of this would include characters, items, enemies, and levels.
--Views- These are the physical representation that the user sees. The art and animations of what was listed above are good examples of views as well as the menus and help screens.
-- Controllers- These link the actions of the user to the program. The models and views can be changed based on what the controllers detect from the users.

The controllers is probably the hardest part to grasp for a new iOS developer. It is a lot more than writing code for when a player presses a button. Everything on the screen inherits from the UIView class, and each of these can have a ViewController. If the player rotates the device, a ViewController is responsible for managing how the screen flips or adjusts. If the player presses on an enemy, the enemy's ViewController reads this and alters the enemy accordingly.

This should be enough for a good start in developing for iOS.

T-Cubed Update

2011-03-02T02:32:00.004-05:00

T-Cubed for Xbox Live Indie Games is coming along pretty nicely. So far we've added a number of new minigames, a scoring system, and support for avatars. We've also ported the game to the Xbox 360 (although this video is for the PC). From here we'll continue adding minigames, as well as improve the overall polish and balance.

The Onion Development Model

2011-02-19T19:07:00.003-05:00

Everyone who's been in SGD for more than a year has seen or been on a failed project, and most every repeat director has had at least one dud in their history. There are a number of different reasons for this:

Director is lazy or distracted
The development environment sucks
The project idea fails to motivate people to work hard
The project is reliant on a single feature or person
Project has too large of a scope

When preparing to compete at the 2011 Rosetta Stone Game Jam, we started thinking about ways to mitigate these problems on a 36 hour scale. Frankly, an SGD project also condenses into about that scale over the course of the semester. We felt we had pretty good methods of dealing with the first four issues. So, we looked for a way to ensure success despite the 5th one.

We say despite, because in our experience there is no such thing as a project with a perfect scope. The onion model accounts for that, and allows the project to succeed regardless. Basically, you start with the smallest possible vision of your game that would still be playable, fun, and still "your game". So if you were making a space shooter, you would say that your onion was flying around, firing and destroying enemies.

With the onion, you don't spend any time on any aspect of the game that does not fall into the core of the onion until those parts are complete. For example, you wouldn't work on enemies shooting back at you, or multiple types of AI, until all those basics were in.

After the core of the onion is complete, you designate a set of features as the next layer and repeat the process. This guarantees two important things. First, if your project is cut off (such as at the End of Semester Expo), you are sure to have a fun and playable game. Secondly, you ensure that the features most important to your game receive the most testing, polish, and attention.

If there's a small problem with your firing code that causes the game to crash 1% of the time, if it's added at the end, you may never see the bug. But if it's added first, you'll be sure it gets the testing it needs.

The Onion model may or may not make sense for larger project, because the engine needs to be ready to accommodate the small features from the beginning. However, we think that for SGD it is a great way to secure a good showing by the end of the semester.

Galaxy Raider Spring Semester 2011 Update #1

2011-02-09T21:21:00.006-05:00

Galaxy Raider, SGD's epic 3D air/space fighter game, is off to an exciting start this semester. During the last semester, many of the core mechanics were implemented and now the team is working hard to improve and add to the existing content and codebase.

Started as a year-long project, the Galaxy Raider team is still going strong after a rough first semester, with some returning and even more new members, we can expect great things from Galaxy Raider this year. Initially using a previously programmed 3D graphics engine and terrain editor as a framework, the Galaxy Raider team began the work of building a complete game last semester.

Previous Content:
-Physics and player movement
-First weapon and damage system
-Player Ship model
-Original Music
-Original Storyline

Over winter break and during the last few weeks, Galaxy Raider has continued to progress and add new features, some of which are listed below.

New Feature List:
-Auto-targeting laser weapon
-Early stages of a particle engine
-Some basic AI
-Main menu system
-Optimized game engine

Even more features are yet to be added, stay tuned for future updates from Galaxy Raider and the rest of the SGD projects.

The Flat Red Ball game engine

2011-02-06T14:11:00.000-05:00

Flat Red Ball is a game engine for games developed in XNA. Currently 2 SGD projects – Moves and Virtuoso - are using the engine in their projects, and one other – Colors – used it last semester. It has also been used for projects such as the Android version of Steambirds, a popular game originally developed in Flash.

One of the biggest advantages to FRB is the automatic inclusion of input methods and collision detection. Normally it is fairly difficult to handle input and collisions (especially collisions) in XNA. Flat Red Ball makes it much easier to process input from numerous methods (such as the keyboard and Xbox gamepad), as well as not only detecting collisions, but reacting to them. This makes it much easier to set up the basics of a game and getting into the meat of the development.

Another big advantage to Flat Red Ball is the amount of tools for content creation. FRB has numerous tools to create sprites, animations, tiles, and levels. This makes it much easier to integrate this content into the game – creating a level in the level editor makes an XML file with all the data, which is then read into the game.

From a programming standpoint, FRB provides two main structures, Entities and Screens, to manage all the parts of the game, as well as a way to organize these structures, known as Glue. Entities are basically FRB’s definition of an object; if there is logic for an in game object, it is an entity. The biggest difference is the inclusion of a manager, an automatically created object that handles all of the entities added to it. Screens are exactly what they sound like – objects to hold all the data in any given “screen” in your game (such as the menu, level, etc). You use screens to add all the objects and entities to the game, as well as manage some of the logic necessary for the objects in the screen to interact. Glue is an IDE much like Visual Studio, but designed specifically for FRB. It makes adding and editing entities and screens much simpler than just doing it straight from FRB, though it is not necessary to use the engine.

All of these extra tools, however, come at a cost. While entities and screens are quite useful, it definitely makes the learning curve for FRB very steep. In addition, all the extra tools are completely separate applications, not one big one. Each of these applications works differently, and each one is integrated into the game in a different way. The result is a fairly clunky combination of tools that are fairly difficult to use all at once, even if they simplify the individual components greatly.

To download the FRB engine, or to get more information on what FRB can do and tutorials on how to do it, check out their website at http://www.flatredball.com/frb/blog/.

Internship Opportunity -- TeeGee

2011-02-04T00:10:00.008-05:00

Last night Tom Giedgowd, a student at the Darden School, came by to pitch some internship opportunities for his startup company developing customizable teddy bears.

Check out the presentation for more info on the opportunities, and send any questions or applications to GiedgowdT12@darden.virginia.edu.

Spring 2011 Pitch Meeting

2011-01-25T01:22:00.007-05:00

Join us for the first meeting of the semester. The Spring 2011 Pitch Meeting will be held on Thursday, January 27th at 5 pm in Olsson 009. Experienced members of the club will pitch five new projects with positions available for programmers, artists, designers, and musicians. If you're not currently a member of the club, this is a great opportunity to see what we're about and get involved in making games. If you're already a member, make sure to try to make it as well, because this is you're best chance to see what projects we'll be working on and to get in on a team.

SGD Team Places at Rosetta Stone Game Jam 2011

2011-01-18T15:17:00.022-05:00

This winter break, a team from the Student Game Developers attended the 2011 Rosetta Stone Winter Game Jam and took 2nd place in the student division for their game Doodle Defender.

The three students were each awarded a MacBook Air and a 1-year subscription to Rosetta Stone TOTALe. Their team, Cornflower Blue, consisted of third year Computer Science majors Nicholas Loffredo, Andrew Gaubatz, and Daniel Epstein. You can check out a video of the game in action below:

The challenge was to develop a game themed around "exploration", "layers", and "ink" in 36 hours. 11 teams in all participated with 6 teams in the professional division and 5 in the student division.

For more information on the competition and the other winners, check out the official press release.

Mid-Semester Expo: Success!

2010-10-14T19:07:00.003-04:00

This year's Mid-Semester Expo was a raging success!

SC2: Currently have finished our Micro Map, called "The Last Remnants of Char". To find it on Battle.net, search for just "Remnant" as if you add "Char" other maps show up. Also, it was baller.

Galaxy Raider: Galaxy Raider currently has a nearly (80-90%) complete map editor, and a core game engine, which so far supports a player and movement. (barrel rolls!)

Monolithic: has a lot of disjoint pieces that need to be integrated. We have cool art assets, some cards in the database, and lots of graphical elements.

Colors - The game is coming along. Not much has happened on the surface since the Microsoft meeting, but lots of content is ready to be loaded. The game should definitely be ready by the end of semester. Thankfully it was still playable even know the team suffered some build problems right before the meeting. The team seems enthusiastic and the game should be fun to play when it is done.

All in all, it was pretty baller.

This Friday - The Industry Comes to US

2010-09-09T19:46:00.000-04:00

So the subject of this post may be a little dramatic, however it rings true - this Friday at 6pm you will have an opportunity to meet and shmooz with Tyler Carbone, one of the founding members of SRRN Games, a local startup here in Charlottesville! Tyler will be here to talk about SRRN's progress ( a few of us from SGD have been working with them this summer), and to present some opportunities for internships during the semester. If you want more information about SRRN you can check out their website at www.srrngames.com.

For those of you who are interested in potentially doing some part-time work on the side this semester, or for those just curious about how a game company gets started and moves forward, I recommend you swing on by and check it out.

Where: Olsson 005

When: Friday, Sept. 10th 6pm

What: SRRN Games Talk

I'm looking forward to seeing you all there.

Pitch Meeting, Fall 2010

2010-08-24T01:28:00.002-04:00

For those who just met us at the Engineering Expo and Activities Fair, welcome to the Gamedevs Website! Here we'll be announcing all of our upcoming events, such as speakers, expos, and career related talks. But for now, we're announcing the SGD Fall Pitch Meeting!

The Pitch Meeting generally serves as our first ever meeting of the semester, and at this pitch meeting all of those previously mentioned aspiring Directors proceed to pitch their game concepts and ideas to the club in a presentation-style format. After all of the pitches have been completed (10-15 minutes each), everyone in the club fills out a form indicating which games they'd like to work on and what positions on those games they would like to fill, and then everyone is matched best according to their wishes combined with the needs of each team. Of course if you have any questions during the meeting about how we work or anything like that, feel free to ask, or e-mail me back directly with your query.

Our pitch meeting this semester is:

When: Thursday, September 2nd 7:30PM

Where: Olsson Hall 005

Please swing on by if you are interested in joining us in our endeavors to make cool games! IIf any of the games being pitched appeal to you, then all you'll have to do is indicate on a little form we hand out that you are interested in working on that game and you and the Director and all of your new teammates will hook up and spend the rest of the Semester making awesome games! If you can't make it to the meeting then don't worry! A post will be posted here detailing all of the pitches and positions and how to apply as if you had been there anyway! More details about speakers, workshops and expos will be coming soon!

I'm looking forward to seeing you all soon.

~Dan Magnusson

End of Semester Expo

2010-04-30T12:41:00.002-04:00

The end of the Semester is upon us! The time has come for the Student Game Developers' annual End of Semester Expo, where all the games we've worked on throught the semester will be on showcase. Come for the games, come for the (free) snacks, this Saturday (5/1) in Thn E303.

There will be 4 SGD games on showcase, along with several games from the Game Design class (CS 4501).

Games:

-Dual

-Impact

-Laser Lockdown

-Recursion

SGD Featured in Cavalier Daily

2010-04-29T17:40:00.004-04:00

We are featured today in the Cavalier Daily, UVA's student newspaper. The article discusses iPhone development and the opportunities many of us have had with SRRN Games.

From the article:
Clearly, he added, when Carbone and Abadi offered jobs to members of SGD, the mutual benefits were readily apparent.

“Things have worked out great for us because SGD works really hard to get opportunities for its members, but it’s also been great for SRRN because they have access to really talented people who are passionate about making video games,”

You can read the full article here: http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2010/04/29/app-madness/

Recursion update

2010-04-19T14:16:00.005-04:00

Recursion has been moving along slowly this semester, but we new art, levels, and a new powerup to show for it. The art style is now significantly more "electronic", with the main character now being a blue computer. The terrain for some of the earlier levels has also been updated to match these changes, which result in the screenshots attached.

The powerup that we added this semester was the parachute, which slows your rate of falling after a jump. This allows you to reach new areas and make jumps that wouldn't be possible before. We've been working on adding some more difficult levels, and we have now removed all RGBDS levels because we have enough to merit a complete game.

Laser Lockdown Project Update

2010-04-14T15:02:00.021-04:00

The vision of Laser Lockdown was to create a laser tag simulation in the UDK. I'm proud to say that we're most of the way there.

As you can see from the screenshots, Andrew put together a new model for the laser gun that looks sweet. The screenshots were taken in the old level from the mid-semester expo; Michael and Andrew have both been working hard on getting a new one put together. It's looking great so far; it'll be done in time for the end-of-semester expo in two weeks.

The game mechanics have been implemented for the most part. Most laser tag games "stun" a person when they've been shot for a few seconds; this is one of the mechanics that we've added to Laser Lockdown. This stun time gives the player a chance to react to being shot and also discourages focusing on one target alone. We're also working on the scoring system which will decrease the points per tag when the same target is hit in succession.

If you're going to be in Charlottesville in the next few weeks, make sure to come out to the end of semester expo! It'll be your only chance to play a Wiimote version (with headtracking) version of Laser Lockdown!

2010 Election Results

2010-03-05T15:30:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to the following SGD members who were elected as officers for the 2010-11 academic year at last night's Mid-Semester Expo:

President - Dan Magnusson
Vice President - Dan Epstein
Treasurer - Andrew Gaubatz
Asset Administrator - John Carr
External Relations - Hunter Williams

Mid-Semester Expo Details

2010-02-26T13:59:00.004-05:00

The mid-semester expo will be held on Thursday, March 4th at 7:30 PM in OLS 120. This is a change from the previously scheduled time and venue of 7:00 PM in OLS011, so take note. The event will take commence effectively upon the conclusion of the Zynga presentation scheduled for the same day, so make plans to attend that too. Furthermore, Logan Margulies of Riot Games will be talk about how he broke into the industry. Additionally, Bryan Larson from Zynga will hang around for the expo as well.

After the game presentations are over, SGD will hold officer elections for the 2010/11 academic year. Positions up for grabs this year include: President, Vice President, Treasurer, Asset Administrator, and External Relations. If you wish to run for a position, please email the current officers ASAP.

Further, the club will also be voting on recently-proposed additions and changes to the SGD constitution. Changes and additions essentially are related to the CIO's interaction with 3rd parties wishing to interact with the club. For information on the proposed changes, you may again email the current officers (use the link above).

Zynga Presentation on 3/4

2010-02-26T13:55:00.002-05:00

The presentation by Bryan Larson of Zynga Game Network originally scheduled for February 11 has been rescheduled for Thursday, March 4, at 6 PM in OLS011. Again, the company is actively seeking candidates for full-time positions and summer internships this summer so be sure to bring your resumes! In addition, food will be provided and there will be a Netbook raffle.

Zynga was founded in 2007 by Mark Pincus and is one of the leading developers of social video games, among which they have developed include Mafia Wars and Farmville.

Mid-semester Expo [Spring 2010] Keynote Speaker Confirmed!

2010-02-25T14:37:00.006-05:00

The Spring 2010 Mid-semester Expo [Thursday, March 4th, 2010 @ 7PM in OLS005] is upon us! In addition to checking out all the other teams' games, come listen to Logan Margulies of Riot Games tell his story of how he broke into the industry.

According to Logan, his story is "a little unconventional." After relating his history to us, he will be talking about the status of the industry from the viewpoint of an indie dev/publisher, and the shift going on in the industry right now, especially with respect to Riot Games.

Riot Games' website

Archive: T-Cubed

2010-02-24T21:52:00.001-05:00

T-Cubed combines classic Tetris gameplay with fast paced microgames, challenging the player to complete these games in order to buy powerups and destroy rows. Players must juggle between the two types of gameplay as the speed constantly increases. T-Cubed was developed by Andrew Gaubatz (Director), Nick Wasilewski (Technical Director), Zack Reilly, Eric Walden (Programming), Momin Khan and Jeremy Liu (Design).

You can download T-Cubed by clicking here.

Archive: Gravity

2010-02-24T20:22:00.002-05:00

Gravity is a 2.5-dimensional game where the player can adjust the gravity to help them traverse platforming puzzles. Gravity was developed from scratch in C++ from Fall 2007 to Spring 2008 by Brice Morrison (director), Scott Geiser (technical director), Chris Dodge, Dan Andrino, Dan Magnusson, Kevin Chang, Avik Dayal, Wolf Richter, Steve Johnson, Aaron Liu, Jason Crowder, David Horres, James Ro, Ryan Mahony, Jeff Gaither, Alex King, and Eddie Verrilli.

You can download Gravity by clicking here.

Video Game Prototyping Presentation 3/1

2010-02-22T23:54:00.004-05:00

Tom Carbone of the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy will be hosting a presentation concerning video game prototyping and game design graduate education opportunities on Monday, March 1. The presentation will commence at 6:30 PM at OLS 009.

You can download a flyer for the presentation, which contains more detailed information regarding it, by clicking here.

Zynga Presentation on 2/11

2010-02-06T09:34:00.004-05:00

Bryan Larson of Zynga Game Network will be giving a presentation about the company on Thursday, February 11, at 6 PM in OLS011. The company is actively seeking candidates for full-time positions and summer internships this summer so be sure to bring your resumes! In addition, food will be provided and there will be a Netbook raffle.

Zynga was founded in 2007 by Mark Pincus and is one of the leading developers of social video games, among which they have developed include Mafia Wars and Farmville.

Archive: The Yggdrasil Engine

2010-02-04T01:28:00.004-05:00

The Yggdrasil Engine is a massively multiplayer online game engine designed to handle the networking infrastructure of an MMO game. In and of itself, Yggdrasil is not a game; rather it is designed to have games built on top of it.

The project was started in SGD in the Fall 2009 semester and work is still ongoing, and as such it has not officially been released. That said, you can send email to its directors, Dan Magnusson and John Will, to request a personal release of the current build of the engine. Further information about Yggdrasil can be found at The End Of The Internet.

2 New Internships: Nomuda Games

2010-02-03T01:43:00.006-05:00

While Joe Chard isn't actually considering hiring Oscar Wilde, as this candid image might suggest, his company, Nomuda Games, is currently accepting applications for not 1 but 2 paid internships for summer 2010!

Some more information:

Company: Nomuda Games
Location: Charlottesville, VA
Position: Intern (Programming)
Compensation: $2000 - $2500 stipend
Commitment: ~40 hrs/wk for 11 - 12 weeks (flexible)

Description: Nomuda Games is seeking developers and graphic artists for internships in the summer of 2010. You will work on a small team to develop our pilot mobile title, to be released for beta testing at the end of the summer. This is an opportunity to use all your skills, all your creativity, to make a meaningful impact on the next wave of mobile gaming.

Working either in Java targeting Android phones or in Objective C targeting iPhones and iPod Touches, work as part of a small team (~3 incl. a dedicated artist) to create a story-driven game that is delivered in installments. Some design work has been completed for this game, but applicants should be comfortable discussing design aspects of the project, as this is a collective effort (and a good chance to contribute meaningfully to a commercial project). Applicants need to be driven, entrepreneurial individuals and will need to be comfortable working in an agile, dynamic environment as a functional member of this new studio.

Job Requirements:

Fluent in C++ and Java, willing to explore Cocoa Touch before summer; interest in web development is a plus
Pursuing a BS or Masters degree in Computer Science
Strong desire to work in the video game industry
Must have developed at least one complete video game (via a class project, club project, workshop, etc.)
Self-motivated, willing to do whatever it takes to meet deadlines
Entrepreneurial mindset, capable of dealing with ambiguity, tackling challenges, and taking on a great deal of responsibility as a key member of a growing company

Benefits:

Paid stipend for the summer
Free lunch Wednesday (and some other days too)
High degree of responsibility for building a commercially released game
Exposure to veteran entrepreneurs
Share of game profits
Inside track on full-time employment (with rapid promotion) in the future

Submission Details: Resumes are good; portfolios are better! A formal interview will be required of all applicants.

To apply or get more information: contact Joe Chard at ChardJ11@darden.virginia.edu

Project Pitch: RecursiO(n)^2

2010-02-03T00:23:00.005-05:00

The second of two projects being continued from last semester, RecursiO(n)^2 is a Nintendo DS puzzle game directed by Daniel Epstein. Again, the game is a puzzle game which requires that players think recursively to win. Players will utilize and manipulate several instances of their character through time to solve puzzles, defuse traps, and find a way out.

Click here to view the original pitch for RecursiO(n)^2.

Project Pitch: Laser Lockdown

2010-02-03T00:12:00.003-05:00

Continuing a project started last semester, Laser Lockdown is a 3D multiplayer game of laser tag. The development team from last semester, led by Chris Dodge, is still largely intact. Scrapping the Ox Engine, the project now leverages the Unreal engine and will still implement a WiiMote motion control scheme.

Click here to view the original project pitch for Laser Lockdown.

Project Pitch: Impact!

2010-02-03T00:01:00.000-05:00

The first attempt to build a game using the previously-developed Yggdrasil Engine, Impact! is a massively-multiplayer online game directed by Dan Magnusson and John Will. The game premise is simple and effective: you control a tank, explore the vast world, and engage in explosive battles against the tanks of other players. Think of it as a giant brawl on a global battlefield where the winner takes all.

Click here to download the Powerpoint presentation for Impact!.

Project Pitch: Dual

2010-02-03T00:00:00.001-05:00

Dual, an XNA dual-analog stick shooter led by Andrew Gaubatz, takes traditional cooperative gaming and spins it on its head. Two players work together in a 2D environment to complete numerous tasks, but while doing so each the two players must work against each other to achieve competitive secondary goals before his partner does.

Click here to download the PowerPoint presentation for Dual.

SGD Spring 2010 Pitch Meeting Highlights

2010-02-01T02:09:00.002-05:00

The Student Game Developers held their Spring 2010 pitch meeting tonight at 6 PM in Olsson Hall, where directors introduced their respective projects they will each pursue this semester. In case you couldn't attend, we are working on uploading a video recording of each project pitch to Youtube, with which you can watch each pitch and apply to work on each project that strikes your fancy.

The four projects being pitched this semester are:

Dual (dir: Andrew Gaubatz)
Impact! (dirs: Dan Magnusson / John Will)
Laser Lockdown (dir: Chris Dodge)
RecursiO(n^2) (dir: Dan Epstein)

Remember that you must be a student of The University of Virginia to work on a project with the Student Game Developers.

Archive: Chief Watzon

2010-01-31T22:30:00.002-05:00

Chief Watzon is a Nintendo DS platforming game developed using PAlib in the Spring of 2008 by Jeffrey Gaither (director), Nick Parisi, and Akshay Joshi. In Chief Watzon, you control a player who has a projectile that can only be shot straight up and must use his or her platforming abilities to traverse the level, pick up bonus points, avoid enemies, and defeat bosses.

To play Chief Watzon, you must have either a Nintendo DS emulator or a Nintendo DS flash memory cartridge.

You can download Chief Watzon by clicking here.

Archive: Urban Legends

2010-01-21T17:07:00.006-05:00

Urban Legends is a 2D top-down RPG set in a primarily industrial and urban environment. The game was developed during the Spring 2008 semester by Jason Mondesier (director / game concept), Jon Faulkner (quest design, playtesting), John Will (level design, art, playtesting), and Dai Yang (NPC design, playtesting). The player takes on the role of a customizable character in the expansive environment, and is presented with a completely open multiplayer online experience. The player can chat with other players, act cooperatively or individually on quests and missions, and improve personal stats through battles with enemies that roam the streets, both human and otherwise. There are a wide variety of locations to explore and NPCs to interact with, as well as unique items and character customizations scattered across the environment.

You can download Urban Legends by clicking here.

Game description and image taken from the game's dedicated page at The End Of The Internet. More details about Urban Legends can be found there.

Pitch Process: Spring 2010 Meeting Scheduled

2010-01-20T17:23:00.002-05:00

Greetings to all, I hope you had a relaxing holiday.

The Student Game Developers will meet next Tuesday, January 26, for the formal pitch proposal meeting for the Spring 2010 semester. The meeting will take place in OLS005 at 6:00 PM. If you plan on pitching a project for this semester, you are expected to present your proposal to the SGD body proper at this meeting. In addition, you need to submit a formal design document to our officers regarding your proposal prior to that date; information on the design doc format and pitch process can once again be found by clicking here.

Announcement: Skies of Fury development resumes

2010-01-01T00:00:00.006-05:00

Foremost, Happy New Year compliments of Student Game Developers! We hope you are having a safe and fun holiday.

With that, the Student Game Developers have an exciting announcement to kick off 2010: development of Skies of Fury, one of the clubs many successful projects from the Spring 2009 semester, is resuming! Teaming up with local video game development company SRRN Games, SGD members and previous SoF development team members Charles Gibson, Chris Hooe, Nick Wasilewski, and John Will will work to expand the game in every regard: there will be more levels to play, more enemies to fight, more weapons at your disposal, more bosses to take down, and more ways to play the game.

Work has already commenced on the project, which is expected to be completed by the end of the Spring 2010 semester. Once complete, the team plans to release the game to XBOX Live Arcade.

As a bonus to go along with this exciting announcement, you can find work-in-progress screenshots of the new Skies of Fury by clicking here, here, and here. Screens captued on December 17, 2009.

Archive: Recursion

2009-12-30T16:36:00.002-05:00

Recursion is a 2D platforming, puzzle game playable on the Nintendo DS. In Recursion, the player is allowed to travel through a level multiple times, triggering buttons to open gates and utilizing powerups along the way. At any point, the player may choose to end their current player and start a new one. However, the previous player still traverses through the level as they did before. If you push down a button with your first player, your second player will later be able to pass through the gate that the first player opened. Recursion was developed by Daniel Epstein (Director), Dan Andrino, Andrew Wilkes, and Sam Wilson (Programming), Matt Yu, Zhiyang Yu, Perri Gillon, and Tim Zhu (Design), and Christopher Hsing and Xu Weishun (Art).

You can download Recursion by clicking here.

End of Semester Report: Recursion

2009-12-30T16:17:00.002-05:00

Recently, the Recursion Development team has been hard at work enjoying the holiday season and not thinking about a certain 6-letter word starting with "SCH", but at one point there was a lot of work being done. Hard to believe, I know... Here is where we're at after our first semester on the job:

There are a lot of improvements still left to be made, which will become our first goals when we resume work in the spring. Most noticeably: the logo is still from RGB-DS, it is impossible to tell the difference between recursions and your current player, and new sprites need to be included. You can download our progress so far here, and check back for our progress next semester!

Expo Recap

2009-12-08T19:17:00.003-05:00

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

2009-12-02T20:36:00.003-05:00

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

2009-11-21T02:40:00.004-05:00

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

2009-11-08T19:07:00.004-05:00

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

2009-11-06T15:38:00.005-05:00

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

2009-11-06T03:15:00.003-05:00

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

2009-11-05T17:13:00.003-05:00

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!

Laser Lockdown Update

2009-11-01T01:44:00.003-04:00

The Laser Lockdown team has been hard at work over the last few weeks attemping to bend the Ox Engine to our will. I shot a short video of what we presented at the Mid Semester Expo this week; it should give you a good picture of where we're at now in development!

SRRN Games Presentation Recap

2009-10-23T03:51:00.003-04:00

SRRN Games is a fledgling game development corporation, founded in Spring 2009 by Tyler Carbone and Aujang Abadi, both of whom are students at the Darden School of Business at The University of Virginia, as well as Nathaniel Givens. Carbone and Abadi made a formal presentation to the SGD body on Thursday offering a partnership between the company and the club. Below is a summary of the information presented.

SRRN approaches video game design as an art form; they aspire to "change everything" about the the industry. They aspire to make games that, while not necessarily the flashiest, or the most technically advanced, or the prettiest, are at their core the most original, most inventive, and most fun available.

SRRN has a few games of their own in development. Among them is a classic 2D RPG for the iPhone titled "Ash", as well as an iPhone mad-libs game. The company also has a few other projects waiting on the backburner, and is currently staffed by around 13 employees, focused mainly in the game design and content generation disciplines.

What SRRN is offering to The Student Game Developers is opportunity. SRRN desires to work directly with SGD members in any way possible to help get the company's first few projects off of the ground, and in turn the company provides experience within and a foot in the door into a video games industry career, whether that be at SRRN or otherwise. Opportunities the company is interested in exploring include: adapting and expanding previously-completed SGD games into full-featured and viable commercial titles to be published under the SRRN label; fleshing out game ideas for future projects, SRRN-related or otherwise; and finally working experience under SRRN on one of their project ideas. While no formal internship positions are being offered at this time, the opportunity to work so closely with a video game publisher is one that certainly can boost a resumé and provide live and applicable experience in the video games development field.

SRRN is open to contact from essentially anyone with some sort of game development-related inquiry, whether it be a game proposal, offer to help the company, or otherwise. For more information on SRRN Games, please visit the company's website by clicking here.

SRRN Games Talk

2009-10-21T02:13:00.003-04:00

On Thursday, October 22 at 6 PM in OLS 005, SGD will be hosting a presentation by SRRN Games. SRRN Games was founded by two Darden school students, Aujang Abadi and Tyler Carbone. They'll be talking about who they are, their current projects, and a potential collaboration in the Spring. Make sure you come on out to hear them this Thursday!

SGD Resumé Panel Recap

2009-10-18T22:37:00.004-04:00

This past Thursday, the Student Game Developers hosted a resumé workshop to aid SGD members in the creation and editing of their respective resumés. Panel members included SGD President Chris Dodge, senior computer science and economics double major Steven Mond, and University of Virginia computer science professor Aaron Bloomfield.

Following is a list of important points that came out of the discussion regarding resumé construction:

Items that are useful to include in your resumé are: your experience in the field; technical skills and qualifications; examples of projects you have completed, through academic pursuits or otherwise; what specifically differentiates you from other potential job candidates (i.e. "how are you special?"; and finally your education (referring only to your college education).
The first line of the body text of the resumé is by far the most important. In addition, place your most pertinent achievements close to the top of the document.
Place key terms on the left side of the document; typically resumé screeners will quickly scan the document for key terms, and putting pertinent keywords with regard to your qualifications on the left side are more likely to be seen.
Avoid poor grammar and spelling errors at all costs. In addition, do not construct a resumé that is longer than one page, and try not to be overly verbose or flowery with your writing.
Use action verbs. NEVER use passive voice.
Do embellish your qualifications a bit; however, don't go too far as you can be held accountable for anything you list on your resumé during an interview.

With regard to cover letters:

When writing the cover letter, keep in mind that the point of the letter is to interest the screener to read your resumé.
Sell yourself! Explain why you want the job and what you offer to the company you are applying to.
Be sincere in your cover letter, but sell yourself. Again, however, keep in mind that you will be responsible for anything you write down in the cover letter in an interview setting.
Use jargon from the field, and, again, avoid passive voice.
The cover letter should be all about you, all the time.

Finally, two useful websites were introduced:

http://gamedevmap.com ; this is a map of all game development companies world-wide, with links to each company's website provided
http://www.igda.org ; the International Game Developers Assocation

SGD Resumé Panel

2009-09-26T14:37:00.008-04:00

On Thursday, October 15th at 6pm in Olsson 001, SGD will be holding it's first Resumé Panel. This will be a panel of SGDers who all have had some form of experience tailoring their resumé's for the games industry, ready to answer questions you have for them about the best way to format your letters, stuff about cover letters, and how to make yourself stand out. This panel will be held exactly one week before the SRRN Games Talk, so if you want to make sure your resumé is top-notch so you can ever-so-casually hand it to them the week after, this is the perfect opportunity!

Of course, before we can hold this panel, we need some members to be ON the panel! Therefore, SGD, it is up to you all to nominate the panel members. If you have a nomination in mind, write back to me at dnm5z@virginia.edu (with [Nomination] as the first thing in the subject line, followed by the nominee's name) and tell me why your nomination is fit to be on this panel.

You can nominate yourself too, I guess, but that would kind of be a dick move.

I look forward to hearing your nominations, and we will announce the panel at LEAST by a week before-hand.

Laser Lockdown Engine Demo

2009-09-26T00:53:00.005-04:00

The Laser Lockdown team has done some groundwork towards exploring the basic capabilities of the Ox Engine. Below is a video of a very simple level that the design team put together. I've also added a script to one of the models. While this isn't anything earthshattering, the impressive thing here is that we're integrating content between the design team and the programming team in the first week of development, which has never been done before in the club as far as I know.

Microsoft career talk

2009-09-24T02:10:00.002-04:00

Microsoft will be hosting a talk on Wednesday, September 30 2009 detailing career opportunities within and information about the company. The talk starts at 5:00 PM, will run until 6:00 PM, and will be held in Room 223 of Rouss and Robertson Halls at the McIntyre School of Commerce. Food will be served and raffle prizes will be awards.

Empyreal: Progress Report

2009-09-24T00:56:00.001-04:00

The Empyreal project has made significant progress since the engine proof-of-concept demonstration two weeks ago.

Evident additions in this video include:

new player ship model (another placeholder as our artists are producing multiple ideas to work from)
working radar (in the upper-right-hand corner; critical enemies show as red dots, NPCs to protect show up as blue dots, and non-critical enemies show up as white dots)
working collision detection (notice when the in-game cubes flash red as the player intersects each of them)

Improvements not evident in this video:

radar resolution is mutable (i.e. it can zoom in / out)
front-end UI is present
game can be paused, resumed, restarted, aborted to front-end UI
game has a start-up screen sequence
work on level editor is underway

In addition, a number of under-the-hood classes for entities such as weapons, projectiles, and environmental props are in development.

Notable topics to be addressed in the near future regarding the engine include weapons, enemy AI routines, and level success and fail conditions checking. Similarly, notable topics to be addressed in the near future on the development timeline regarding the game design are the final player model, the artistic theme for enemies, environment design, and weapons ideas, and the beginnings of implementing these ideas.

The development of Empyreal is on-schedule and the game is due for release in December 2009.

SRRN Games Information Session

2009-09-19T11:00:00.001-04:00

Local upstart video game company SRRN Games will be conducting a presentation hosted by SGD on Thursday, October 22. This presentation will be at 6 PM in OLS005. Topics of the presentation will include job and internship opportunities within SRRN Games during both the academic year and the summer and the potential commercialization of SGD projects.

SRRN Games is located in Charlottesville, VA and was founded by Aujang Abadi and Tyler Carbone, both of whom are presently graduate students at the Darden School of Business at The University of Virginia.

Gladiators Engine Test Video

2009-09-13T17:20:00.003-04:00

Gladiators director Justin Holmes has posted the following demonstration of the work-in-progress engine that project will employ. The engine was originally to be displayed at one of the pitch meetings but due to technical difficulties with the projector this portion of the presentation was hindered.

The engine features support for two 2D sprite-based animated characters, melee attacks, projectile attacks, collision detection and resolution via hitboxes, and a working concept of player health. The video also demonstrates the WhiteCap visualizer effect, which is planned to be integrated into the game.

Check back soon for more information on Gladiators.

Empyreal: A Closer Look

2009-09-12T21:00:00.001-04:00

Hi there gamedevs, I'm Chris Hooe, fourth-year BACS major and director of Empyreal. I'd like to take a moment to more thoroughly introduce the motivation for and goals of the project.

The goal of the Empyreal team is to take the game's spiritual predecessor, Skies of Fury, and expand on it in every way possible. The most evident expansions to the player to begin with will be the shift from 2D sprite-based graphics to 3D rendered graphics, and the freedom to roam this world on a 2D scale (in Skies, the player was locked to constant forward progression). Many changes are planned for the game mechanics as well; rather than extreme arcade-style gameplay, Empyreal will provide a more tactical slant of air combat, as players will have multiple choices of aircraft with clear strengths and weaknesses, choice of weapons loadouts (with great differentiation between available weapons), and enemies who (you guessed it) have their own strengths, weaknesses, and AI routines.

Another game mechanic to push towards this goal is the introduction of missions. Missions will consist of multiple pass/fail objectives that the player must complete to pass a particular level. Mission scenarios might potentially include: standard sorties, where either a specific group of targets or all in-range hostiles must be neutralized; escort missions, where the player must protect an NPC from being destroyed by hostiles as it navigates through a series of waypoints; base defense missions, where the player must defend a stationary target for a slew of enemies; and finally, assaults, where the player must take out a heavily-defended stationary enemy base. Ideally, several missions could be played in sequence for a campaign mode, and icing on the cake would be a story loosely tying all the missions together.

As one can probably tell, game options and variance is of utmost importance to this project; if this goal of clear differentiation and strategy beyond what was establised in Skies is not met, then this project cannot in my mind be considered a success. As such, making sure all gameplay additions add a clear, concise, and unique function to the gameplay will be mission-critical and emphasized through the development of the project.

There has to this point been significant work done on the base engine, and a preview video is embedded below:

Features showcased in this video include:

3D environment generated from a heightmap, texture applied to generated mesh
3D player character (the green cube) flies around the environment; player can turn, and player character model rolls to the side a bit during a turn
non-player characters (the larger two cubes) are present; currently they have no distinguishing features. Non-player characters can include enemies, NPC allies, NPC characters to be escorted by the player, and environmental props.
Culling of 3D game entities that are outside of the player's view screen; the camera is intentionally zoomed out too far to show this effect
Spritefont messages can be drawn on top of the 3D gameplay screen

Be sure to check back for updates on the development of Empyreal soon!

Mid-Semester Expo Scheduled, Rosetta Stone Game Jam Info

2009-09-10T22:25:00.007-04:00

Thanks to everyone that came out to the SGD Project Pitch meetings and signed up for SGD projects! We look forward to seeing what the end result of your collective work is at the end of this semester.

In the meantime, the SGD Fall 2009 Mid-Semester Expo has been scheduled for October 29th. Location and time will be announced when that information is available. Progress of all SGD projects will be displayed (or at least explained and elaborated upon at worst) at this event.

In addition, SGD is looking for members who would be interested in participating on an official SGD team in the Rosetta Stone Game Jam competition. The Rosetta Stone Game Jam is a competition between individuals and teams to produce a working video game with an educational component in 48 hours or less. The competition is scheduled for January 8, 2010 through January 10, 2010 and will be held in Harrisonburg, VA at Rosetta Stone's location in that city. For further information, please visit the Rosetta Stone Game Jam website by clicking here. If you are interested in signing up to participate in this project, let the SGD directors know by emailing us; the team signup deadline is November 16, so please let us know as soon as possible if you wish to participate.

Project Pitch: RecursiO(n^2)

2009-09-10T19:00:00.011-04:00

A reimagination of the prior SGD project Recursion (which might appear in the archives eventually), RecursiO(n^2) is a puzzle game which requires that players think recursively to win. Players will utilize and manipulate several instances of their character through time to solve puzzles, defuse traps, and find a way out.

The project is to be completed over the course of one semester using C++ on the Nintendo DS platform. At least five and up to ten positions are available, focusing in the game design and programming facets of the project. RecursiO(n^2) is directed by second-year CS major Dan Epstein.

Click here to download the Powerpoint presentation for RecursiO(n^2) (which contains more information and a gameplay mock-up).

Project Pitch: Gladiators

2009-09-10T19:00:00.010-04:00

Taking a step off of the tried-and-true path, Gladiators is a 2D fighting game with a twist: rather than placing the emphasis on close-quarters hand-to-hand combat, the game focuses instead on the unique supernatural abilities of its characters, with each engaging his respective opponent with spells, chants, and magic instead. The abilities players use will have a noticeable effect on the fight beyond inflicting damage, as each ability has a unique effect on the game's music and produces its own special effects.

The project is to be completed over the course of one year using the XNA platform. Up to five positions are available, focusing in the gameplay design / programming and content generation areas. Gladiators is directed by third-year CS major Justin Holmes.

Click here to download the Powerpoint presentation for Gladiators.

Project Pitch: The Yggdrasil Engine

2009-09-10T19:00:00.009-04:00

One of the more ambitious projects the Student Game Developers has attempted to this point in its short existence, The Yggdrasil Engine is a portable engine intended for massively multiplayer online games. While no physical game will come out of the project this semester, this project will lay the foundation for future projects in subsequent semesters.

The project is to be completed over the course of one semester using the Ogre 3D graphics engine, the Raknet networking engine, the Boost libraries for multithreading support, and C++. The project is co-directed by fourth-year CS major John Will and third-year CS major Dan Magnusson.

Click here to download the Powerpoint presentation for The Yggdrasil Engine.

Project Pitch: Empyreal

2009-09-10T19:00:00.001-04:00

The spiritual successor to last semester's Skies of Fury, Empyreal is a top-down view 3D shooter which returns the player to the fight for control of the heavens in an advanced tactical fighter. This time around, however, the player is free to roam the gameplay environment as he pleases, and he will engage in a variety of tactical gameplay challenges through various mission types, ranging from simple “kill everything” sorties, escort missions, base defense missions, and enemy base assaults.

The project is to be completed over the course of one semester using the XNA platform. At least three and up to six positions are available, focusing in the game design, programming, and 3D asset modeling facets of the project. Empyreal is directed by fourth-year CS major Christopher Hooe.

Click here to download the Powerpoint presentation for Empyreal.

Reminder: Pitch Meeting II on Thursday

2009-09-08T10:00:00.005-04:00

The second of two project pitch meetings is this Thursday, September 10, in OLS005 at 6:00 PM. Projects to be pitched at this meeting include Dan Epstein's RecursiO(n^2), a time-bending 2D puzzle game for the Nintendo DS, Justin Holmes' Gladiators, a 2D spell-based fighting game, Christopher Hooe's Empyreal, a 3D top-down shooter, and John Will's and Dan Magnusson's Yggdrasil, a game engine which will be utilized in a subsequent semester to produce an massively multiplayer online game. Detailed information on all of these projects will be posted to the website at 7:00 PM EDT after the meeting.

If you wish to participate in SGD this semester, you must apply to work on a project (or projects) of your choice at one of the two pitch meetings; i.e. attending this meeting is your last chance to sign up for the SGD project of your choice this semester. Team rosters are initially at the discretion of the projects' respective directors, though members wishing to participate in projects who either A) missed both pitch meetings, or B) were not initially accepted onto a project will be added to projects by club officers on a per-project need basis. If you fall into either of these categories, please email us notifying us of your desire to contribute to an SGD project, along with the top three projects you are interested in, and you will be placed onto the team most in need by an SGD officer.

Finally, if you are a current SGD member and have yet to pay yearly dues, you may do so during Thursday's meeting. Dues are $10 and should be paid in person directly to our Treasurer, Dan Epstein

Project Pitch: Laser Lockdown

2009-09-05T02:10:00.004-04:00

The second of several projects the Student Game Developers will pursue this semester, Laser Lockdown is a player-vs-player first-person shooter centered around a game of laser tag. Unique to this project is the use of Nintendo's Wiimote to create a head-tracking control scheme.

The project is to be completed over the course of two semesters using the Ox Engine in the XNA platform. At least three and up to seven positions are available, including Wiimote specialists, 3D artists, gameplay designers / programmers, and audio specialists. Laser Lockdown is directed by fourth-year CS major Chris Dodge.

Click here to download the Powerpoint presentation for Laser Lockdown.

Project Pitch: T-Cubed

2009-09-03T20:14:00.007-04:00

Beginning...well, now, information about projects the Student Game Developers will pursue during the Fall 2009 semester will appear on the website. SGD intends to develop at least five games this semester, and by the end of next week overview information regarding all of these projects will be posted. The foremost project we are formally announcing is T-Cubed.

T-Cubed is a multilayered puzzle game based upon one of the most popular video games of all time, Tetris. Players will have to combine their reflexes and joystick jockeying skills with their quick-thinking Tetris skills, as players must compete in a variety of mini-games to earn money which can be used to blow up completed rows and purchase other useful power-ups to score higher and continue the Tetris game.

The project is to be completed over the course of one semester using the XNA platform. At least two and up to six positions are available, focusing in the game design and programming facets of the project. The T-Cubed project is directed by second-year CS major Andrew Gaubatz.

Click here to download the Powerpoint presentation for T-Cubed (which contains more information and a gameplay mock-up).

Reminder: Pitch Meeting I on Thursday

2009-09-01T01:28:00.007-04:00

The first of two project pitch meetings is this Thursday, September 3, in OLS005 at 6:00 PM. Projects to be pitched at this meeting include Chris Dodge's Laser Lockdown, a 3D Wiimote-controlled laser tag game, and Andrew Gaubatz's T-Cubed, a 3D puzzle game project. Detailed information on both will be posted in a future post following the formal pitch presentations to the SGD club proper at this meeting.

If you wish to participate in SGD this semester, you must apply to work on a project (or projects) of your choice at one of the two pitch meetings. Team rosters are initially at the discretion of the projects' respective directors, though members wishing to participate in projects who either A) missed both pitch meetings, or B) were not initially accepted onto a project will be added to projects by club officers on a per-project need basis.

2 Tips for SGD Members Looking to Get a Games Job

2009-08-30T20:43:00.007-04:00

Getting into the games industry is more difficult than ever during this economic crisis. But there are a few things that aspiring developers can do to greatly increase their chances of getting a job offer one day.

The following two tips are taken from the BreakIntoGamesCareer.com article, "The Top 10 Things You Can Do to Increase Your Chances of Becoming a Game Developer"

1) Work on independent game projects.

One of the most important aspects of an application that game company recruiters look for in applicants is their experience. If they can’t make a small game on their own, how are they going to work with a team to make a multi-million dollar title? Team up with some friends and work on a game. It doesn’t have to be a full featured console title, just make sure you finish it. Unfinished projects don’t count. This is something that puts all SGD members way ahead of the curve.

2) Narrow your field of expertise.

While it’s good to be able to do many things at a small company or small project, larger more established companies will be looking for the best people in a given specialty. If you’re an artist, pick characters or environments and focus on that. If you’re an engineer, focus on artificial intelligence, graphics, or whatever your passion is. Decide what you’re going to do and become an expert.

If you focus on the core aspects of an applicant that recruiters are going to be looking for, then you'll have a great shot at nailing that job offer.

For more tips, resources, articles, and other information pertaining to getting into the video game industry, be sure to visit BreakIntoGamesCareer.com

Best of luck everyone, and have a great semester!

SGD XNA Library Information

2009-08-29T19:48:00.002-04:00

To all directors whose projects will be developed in XNA Game Studio 3.0 or later, I have compiled (and I am continuously adding to) a code library for SGD specifically targeted for the XNA development environment. If you wish to use this, please email me for instructions as to how to obtain it.

Here's what the code library currently contains:

Keyboard management class; useful for reading input off the keyboard. Can test for presses of a single key, whether a key is being held down, and also for a series of keystrokes (useful for programming cheat codes, for example).
Controller management class; useful for reading input off of up to four XBOX360 gamepads.
Mouse management class; useful for reading input off of the mouse.
Resource pool class; useful for initializing a set amount of objects that will be used repeatedly, such a projectiles from weapons; correct implementation saves time and memory.
XML reading and writing capability with any user-defined class
Sound effect management class; useful for managing and playing sound effects.
Game state management classes; useful for (obviously) game state management.

Planned for future implementations:

A simple menu system implementation.
A class to create a textured 3D mesh from a 2D image (i.e. a height map)

Any feature suggestions and code submissions are welcome as well; just drop me an email. If you submit code, you will obviously be credited for your work.

8/27 Meeting Wrap-Up

2009-08-27T23:33:00.007-04:00

For those of you who missed today's Introductory Meeting, the Powerpoint presentation shown at the meeting, which includes background information about the club and a rundown of club protocol and expectations, can be downloaded by clicking here.

Highlights of discussion at the meeting:

Pitch Meetings are Thursday, September 3 and September 10; the projects which SGD will pursue this semester will be detailed at these two meetings by each project's respective director. If you wish to work on a project with SGD during the Fall 2009 semester, you should attend both of these meetings, which will be in OLS005 at 6:00 PM on both dates.
Yearly dues for SGD are $10; if you do not pay, you are not eligible to participate in SGD events after Pitch Meetings have concluded until you do so. Dues should be paid directly to SGD Treasurer Dan Epstein.
For returning SGD members: t-shirts promised at the end of last year should arrive sometime next week.

Pitch Process: Pitch Meetings Scheduled

2009-08-26T13:57:00.005-04:00

In addition to the previously-announced club meeting this Thursday, the Student Game Developers will meet the following two Thursdays (September 3 2009 and September 10 2009) in OLS 005 at 6:00 PM for the formal pitch proposal meetings for the semester. If you plan on pitching a project for this semester, you are expected to present your proposal to the SGD body proper at one of these two meetings.

Pitch Process: Fall 09 Deadline

2009-08-25T10:19:00.002-04:00

To add to the general project pitch process guidelines seen here, all pitch proposals are due to SGD officers no later than Tuesday, September 1 2009. You can submit a proposal by following the guidelines at the link above and sending the required design document at that link to the contact email address provided at the top of our home page (all email to this address gets forwarded to all SGD officers).

Finally, if you plan on pitching a project, you should attend the first director's meeting of the semester, which will occur on Thursday, August 27 2009, in MEC 216. This meeting will commence immediately following the more general SGD club meeting announced previously on the same day at 5 PM.

Fall 2009 First Meeting

2009-08-22T18:16:00.005-04:00

Hey gamedevs! I hope all of you had a great summer.

The Student Game Developers at The University of Virginia are holding our opening meeting for the 2009-10 academic year on Thursday, August 27 from 5-6 PM in MEC 216. Please stop by if you're interested! Also, feel free to check out our booths at the Student Activities Fair this upcoming week.

Archive Index

2009-08-22T18:10:00.017-04:00

This blog entry serves as an index page for all projects that the Student Game Developers have completed. This page will be updated at the conclusion of each semester as projects are completed.

Date of last archives update: January 2, 2012

Fall 2011

We had four SGD projects in Fall 2011. Currently one of them is available for download--Kinect Pong. This will only work if you have XNA installed and a Kinect plugged in via USB.

Spring 2010

Spring 2010 was a good semester for the student game developers, featuring four total projects, including Impact!, RecursiO(n^2), Dual and Laser Lockdown. Three of these projects are currently available for download right here!

Laser Lockdown

FALL 2009

The Fall 2009 semester saw the development of six projects, three of which will be continued into next semester. Projects were once again developed for the PC and Nintendo DS platform and implemented using various tools and different programming languages. Below is a list of projects available to download from this semester (click the banners to navigate to view information about a project).

SPRING 2009

Six projects were completed by The Student Game Developers at The University of Virginia during the spring 2009 semester. Projects were developed mainly for the PC platform, but were implemented using various different tools and programming languages. Below is the complete list of these projects (click the banners to navigate to view information about a project).

SPRING 2008

FALL 2007

Archive: The Imperium Project

2009-08-22T17:50:00.003-04:00

The Imperium Project is a 2D isometric strategy RPG developed in Python for the PC. The game was designed by Dai Yang (director) (additional credits unavailable). Players take control of a party of unique characters, which can be developed over time to the player's liking, and take on a variety of enemies in an attempt to save the world.

You can download The Imperium Project by clicking here.

Archive: Skies of Fury

2009-08-22T17:42:00.002-04:00

Skies of Fury is a 2D top-down arcade-throwback plane shooter developed using the Microsoft XNA Framework 3.0 and is intended for the PC only. The game was completed by John Will (director, programming), Matt Beattie (testing), Charles Gibson (art, programming), Chris Hooe (art, programming, music/sfx, level design), Steven Mond (programming), Nick Wasilewski (programming, level design), and Matt Yu (programming, programming [intentionally redundant]). Players take control of an advanced fighter pilot looking to take back control of the skies from a plethora of enemy aircraft who are occupying them. The player has two weapons available, and one is continuously upgraded as the player increases his score. This game employs the Mercury Particle Engine for 2D particle effects.

You can download Skies of Fury by clicking here.

Archive: Shark Attack

2009-08-22T17:40:00.003-04:00

Shark Attack: World Tour is a 2D side-scrolling time trial game developed using the Microsoft XNA Framework 3.0 and is intended for the PC only. The game was completed by Dan Magnusson (director), Brian Stascavage, and Andrew Gaubatz. Shark Attack places the player in the role of a shark with the goal of eating as much as possible within a two-minute time limit. The player is limited in what he can eat by his size (he can only eat things smaller than his shark character) and his shark grows as he eats more. Players can also search for edible items inside of destructible objects at the ocean floor. Two playable venues are available.

You can download Shark Attack: World Tour by clicking here.

Archive: Robot Thesis

2009-08-22T17:37:00.003-04:00

Robot Thesis is a 2D side-scrolling beat-em-up game developed using the Microsoft XNA Framework 3.0 and is intended for the PC only. The game was completed by Chris Dodge (director), Jordan Allen (programming), Perry Gillon (programming), and John Carr (programming). Players travel through various worlds, attacking waves of various enemies using two different attacks. This project features the artwork of a 7th grade class taught by Ms. Kathy Gust at an Arlington area high school.

You can download Robot Thesis by clicking here.

Archive: Robot Invasion

2009-08-22T17:32:00.003-04:00

Robot Invasion is a 2D tower defense game developed using the Game Maker PC game design suite offered by YoYo Games. The game was designed by Dan Epstein (director, programming), Andrew Wilkes (programming), Dan Stalcup (programming), and Keaton Monger (art). Players must completely vanquish increasingly more challenging waves of enemies using towers which the player places on the game map. Power-ups are available to the player as he scores more points, including rapid fire, higher damage, faster projectiles, and homing projectiles.

You can download Robot Invasion by clicking here.

Archive: RGB-DS

2009-08-22T17:27:00.003-04:00

RGB-DS is an inventive 2D puzzle platformer intended for the Nintendo DS console. The game was developed by Jeffrey Gaither (director, game concept, programming), Nick Parisi (programming), Dan Andrino (programming), Akshay Joshi (programming), Matt Yu (level design), and Steven Mond (programming, level design). RGB-DS takes advantage of the DS' unique dual-screen feature by placing two connected worlds on either screen, with gravity reversed in either world. Players must take advantage of this reverse gravity concept, conservation of momentum, and various other power-ups to navigate the puzzles each connected set of worlds offers.

You can download RGB-DS by clicking here.

Shark Attack: World Tour Promo Video

2009-08-18T15:15:00.001-04:00

The promo video for Shark Attack: World Tour is now available. Link after the jump.

The video is embedded below. You can also use the direct link.

Skies of Fury Promo Video

2009-08-17T22:31:00.001-04:00

The promo video for Skies of Fury is now available. Link after the jump.

The video is embedded below. You can also use the direct link.

Robot Invasion Promo Video

2009-07-06T00:33:00.002-04:00

The promo video for Robot Invasion is now available. Link after the jump.

The video is embedded below. You can also use the direct link.

RGBDS Trailer Available

2009-07-01T02:29:00.003-04:00

The trailers for RGBDS is now available. Link after the jump.

The trailer is embedded below. You can also use the direct link.

Useful XNA Resources

2009-06-17T15:41:00.004-04:00

Below are some useful resources to reference for developing projects in Microsoft XNA Game Studio, one of several platforms used by Student Game Developers to develop projects (by no means the only platform, however). I personally have used all of the resources listed below and have found them all to be helpful in some form or another.

Note that all resources listed (particularly the books) assume a functional understanding of programming concepts, particularly with regard to C#, but in my experience if you are comfortable with C++ and Java you should have no problem picking up C#.

Full list after the jump.

BOOKS

Microsoft XNA Unleashed by Chad Carter
Focuses on how to do lower-level tasks, such as shading, controller input, sprite and 3D model drawing, etc.

Microsoft XNA Game Studio Creator's Guide, 2nd Edition by Stephen Cawood and Pat McGee
Like XNA Unleashed, but also provides overview of mathstuffs pertinent in computer graphics concepts such as vectors, matrices, etc. and how to use them in the context of XNA

Professional XNA Programming: Building Games for Xbox 360 and Windows with XNA Game Studio 2.0 by Benjamin Nitschke
A higher-level overview of XNA, featuring tutorials that have the reader implementing complete games such as Pong, Breakout, and Rocket Commander.
(note: written for XNA Game Studio 2.0, and code samples are out-of-date)

INTERNETS

GameDev.net
A general-purpose game programming help website; doesn't necessarily focus on XNA, but lots of useful stuff all over the website and forum.

Ziggyware
Like GameDev.net, but more focused on XNA. Features XNA tutorials, help forum, and a 3D model database.

XNA Creators Club Online
Official website for XNA Game Studio; features games developed in XNA, programmer blogs, tutorials, and help forum.

Matthew Yu receives 2009 SGD Exemplary Contribution Award

2009-05-26T00:38:00.004-04:00

Student Game Developers' member Matthew Yu was awarded with a Jefferson Cup for his work with Student Game Developers during the 2008-09 school year. Matt put a great deal of his personal time into the success of many projects developed over the course of the year, including Recursion (developed in Fall 2008), RGB-DS (developed in Spring 2009), and Skies of Fury (also developed in Spring 2009). Matt is currently enrolled in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at The University of Virginia.

The Student Game Developers Exemplary Contribution Award, fondly dubbed by some members of SGD as the "I Am A Beast" Award, was created by the presiding SGD officers during the Spring 2009 semester to acknowledge the contributions a non-director member who went beyond the call of duty for his or her team and also demostrated exceptional motivation towards the success of multiple projects developed by SGD members and ergo the success of SGD as a whole. The accolade is awarded on yearly and takes into account the contributions of the candidates to Student Game Developers over the course of the entire academic year.

Release: Shark Attack: World Tour

2009-05-24T23:08:00.006-04:00

Took us long enough, but we finally got it up! Shark Attack: World Tour is now available for download / installation. Play through Miami and Venice!

Shark Attack requires the Microsoft .NET Framework to be installed to play.

Link to the game included after the break.

http://www.student.virginia.edu/gamedev/games/SharkAttackWorldTour.zip

Release: Robot Invasion Director's cut!

2009-05-19T22:28:00.003-04:00

The director's cut of Robot Invasion has now been released! This release comes a ways ahead of schedule, but all of the requested changes were made and the game is now in a fun, accessible, and polished form. Link and description of changes after the jump.

The game can be found here. Here are the highlights of the changes that have been made:
*Resolution was changed to 640x640 to make the game accessible to people who don't have high-end PCs.
*The game limits where you can place towers. You can no longer place a tower on the path or on the menu frame. The build tower appears green when hovering over an acceptable location and red when hovering over an unacceptable one.
*A "score" feature was added as well as a high score table.
*You can now sell towers and individual powerups by right clicking on the tower or the boxes on the right side of the menu.
*The game caps out at 50 waves, at which point (if you make it that far) you enter a high score to the table. You can also enter a high score if you die before 50 waves.
A more complete list can be found in the readme file.

I hope you enjoy the game! I had a blast directing Robot Invasion, and I highly recommend pitching a project to anyone considering it in the future.

Release: Imperium

2009-05-17T23:28:00.004-04:00

Next in line is The Imperium Project. Imperium is a 2D tactics style RPG directed by Dai Yang. The project was developed in Python over the course of the entire year.

The game is available here.

Release: RGB DS

2009-05-13T16:18:00.002-04:00

RGB DS is now available for all to enjoy. Although it has been designed for the Nintendo DS, you can also play it on a PC with an emulator (which is provided).
Download link after the jump.

RGB DS was developed using PALib and C++ for the Nintendo DS. It's fairly simple to figure out, but hard to master - be sure to check out the readme if you need help setting up.
Download RGB DS here.

Release: Robot Thesis

2009-05-12T00:17:00.004-04:00

The third out of six to be released, Robot Thesis is now available for download. This version is a slightly modified from the one presented at the expo. Like Robot Invasion, I'm also planning some sort of Director's Cut version with some more polish and content.

Link after the jump.

Robot Thesis was developed using Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0 and is intended for use on Windows computers with the latest version of the Microsoft .NET Framework installed. This means that if you don't have the latest version of .NET installed on your computer, the game will not work.

Make sure you check out the readme, as it contains all the control information and other useful tidbits.

You can download it here.

Release: Robot Invasion

2009-05-10T10:24:00.004-04:00

Following the example of Skies of Fury, Robot Invasion is now released to the general public. The version currently available for download is the same version that appeared at the expo a few weeks ago. At some point during the summer a "director's cut", featuring additional content and various bugfixes, will be released.

This game was developed using the GameMaker 7.0 engine, available off YoYo Games here. The director of Robot Invasion has purchased a license, and thus is entitled to the free distribution of the game for non-commercial use. However, the game cannot be modified, disassembled, or altered in any way under penalty of violating GameMaker's EULA. All of the art, animations, music, code, and algorithms were designed by members of this project for the purpose of the game.

Sorry for all of the technical jargon-- you can download the game here.

Release: Skies of Fury

2009-05-10T02:29:00.009-04:00

After a bit of a delay caused by The University requiring us to partake in minor technicalities such as final exams, we now are rolling out the release builds of all six projects developed under SGD this past semester. Skies of Fury is the first such project from this past semester to be released.

Download link and more after the jump.

Skies of Fury is a top-down 2D shooter in which the player takes control of an advanced tactical fighter and takes on the continuing swarms of enemies that approach him. To take on the enemy, the player has two weapons: a standard laser, and a charge weapon which can attack multiple enemies at once. As the player scores more points, the primary weapon receives upgrades; these upgrades are necessary as the waves of enemies the player encounters become progressively more difficult.

Skies of Fury was developed using Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0 and is intended for use on Windows computers with the latest version of the Microsoft .NET Framework installed. Players can use either the keyboard or XBOX360 gamepad for input.

All games posted by Student Game Developers are provided "as is". Skies of Fury is being released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License unless otherwise noted; in the case of SoF, see the readme file for more details.

Without further adieu, you can download Skies of Fury by clicking here.

Skies of Fury: Post-mortem

2009-04-30T13:07:00.008-04:00

Skies of Fury was the first project I've worked on with Student Game Developers. While I can't speak for our director, John Will, I figure it'd be good to chronicle what I thought went well and what didn't with the project so that other could learn from our successes and failures.

WHAT IS SKIES OF FURY?

Skies of Fury (herein: "Skies" or "SoF") is a two-dimensional, top-down shooter that harkens back to the days of sprite animation and simple yet intense and addictive gameplay. The player assumes control of an advanced military fighter jet, taking on wave after wave of enemies, preparing for a challenging boss encounter at the end of each level. The goal simply is to make it through alive.

WHAT WENT WELL?

We finished the game. While very brief in length (more on that later), every feature we wanted to implement into the SoF game engine was implemented. We consistently hit our targets every week with few exceptions, and as such we were able to stay on or in rare cases ahead of schedule throughout the development process. We did have a bit of a crunch near the end of our dev cycle to get final tweaking and game balancing done, but this was expected.
Our team performed incredibly well. The most vital component to the completion and success of this project was the ability of the team to work together to get stuff done and meet weekly targets. Our team was comparatively large compared to other teams at the outset of the project, but effectively half the team dropped from the project over the course of the semester. The guys who did stay on (Matt Beattie, Charles Gibson, Steven Mond, Nick Wasilewski, Matthew Yu, and myself) in my opinion did an incredible job of communicating with John and each other about changes made to the game, upcoming targets, bug-squashing, and everything else that came about related to the game. Along the same lines, each person at some point took some initiative to implement some critical feature into the game. Such features that were originally added by the efforts and initiative of but a single person (and tweaked by the team from there) were: the backbone of the entire game engine, the entire first level, music and sound implementation, the boss fights, offscreen tracking arrows, and particle effects.
The game is fun! Thanks in part to being able to implement all of our features, the game turned out as good, if not better than we hoped for. Everyone who played it at the Expo yesterday gave us positive feedback with regard to the fun factor of the game (alongside some constructive criticism and/or whining about dying too often -:) ).

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER?

Testing. Throughout the design process, we struggled to get extensive feedback on our various builds of the game. Our team at the outset had three testers, but by the end of the development cycle the only one who had ever contributed any feedback whatsoever was Matt Beattie (who contributed much useful feedback himself, but one tester can only be expected to do and find so much). Many bugs in features were discovered weeks after the fact by our designers, who had to take up roles of testers as well to make up for the lack of feedback from two of our three listed testers.
The game isn't quite as long as we wanted. Our original plan was to have at least three levels in the game, each with five unique enemies and a boss. Time constraints due to engine development bugs, lack of testing, and the rigors of being full-time students on top of participating in this project quickly cut into our ability to meet this goal, however. The final game does have two levels with five shared basic enemies and two unique bosses. Adding more content would have made this game significantly better, in my opinion; that said, we knowingly traded off content amount for having a stable and good game engine underneath all the content, and I firmly believe that SoF benefitted from this trade-off.
Sloppy code and inconsistent documentation. This is more of a personal gripe of mine that no one else may notice (and probably everyone on the team is guilty of, myself included), but throughout the game, memory is constantly being allocated and deallocated during gametime. Given the fact that our game is a 2D shooter, this isn't a huge issue as any current hardware should handle our game no problem so long as we didn't try to do anything ridculous (like draw 500,000 particles at once), but this is still very poor practice; anything that we needed for a level should have been initialized in a single Initialize() call rather than in the main loop of the game. Another gripe of mine is inconsistently commented code, which sometimes made it difficult to tweak the game or squash bugs.
The game is sometimes too hard. My personal thanks to Nick (our lead level and boss designer), you are evil :)

OVERALL IMPRESSION

I personally would call Skies a successful project. Not only did we finish the game, but we made a fun enjoyable one. It's not without flaws, but for my first full-fledged game project with SGD, I personally am very happy with how the game turned out. The success of this project has me looking forward to working on a new project with the club (perhaps even some of the guys on this same team, should the chips fall that way) next semester.

Daily Progress covers SGD End-of-Semester Expo

2009-04-30T12:57:00.003-04:00

A representative of the Charlottesville Daily Progress was on-hand for our End-of-Semester Expo yesterday and wrote a recap article for that publication. You can view that article by clicking here.