Games and Grog, once a month

Our December Post Mortem meeting will be held on Tuesday, December 8th at 7pm at The Skellig in Waltham. In addition to our usual year-in-review (or Post Mortem Post Mortem), we’re honored to announce that IGDA Executive Director Joshua Caulfield is our special guest speaker! He’ll be providing an update on the IGDA in general, what to expect for the coming year, and will be taking any IGDA-related questions you might have.

Logistics:
Tuesday, December 8th
7pm @ The Skellig, Waltham

So please show up with your best questions and comments about the IGDA or about the Boston Post Mortem.

The Video Game Orchestra will be performing again at the Berklee Performance Center on December 5th, 2009. I’m not even a huge fan of video game soundtracks, but I went to their last full orchestra concert in March and it was an amazing experience and one that I highly recommend. You can view the poster for the concert here, and you can watch video of previous VGO performances here. The ones labeled 3/5/2009 feature the full orchestra. My favorite piece from last year’s concert was their rendition of "Time’s Scar" from Chrono Cross.

Boston, Massachusetts – October 12th, 2009 – Video Game Orchestra (VGO) will hit the Berklee Performance Center (BPC) stage again on December 5th, 2009 at 7:30 pm, nine months after its previous premium sold out success at the venue.

Nearly a hundred musicians will be presenting new arrangements of the classic such as Super Mario and Final Fantasy, as well as music from newer games such as God of War, Silent Hill, and Metal Gear Solid. Featured guests include Wataru Hokoyama, an accomplished film/video game composer. His score for the SONY Playstation3 game “Afrika” has won him both critical acclaims and industry awards. (http://hokoyama.com)  He will be guest conducting an orchestral suite of Afrika.

“This concert ~Awakening~ is going to feature the full VGO, as it is waking up from a long 9 months of sleep,” said Shota Nakama, the founder and director of VGO.  “We will be representing diverse styles of music and our renowned symphonic rock style with even better, impressive performance quality. We WILL surprise you.”

The concert is $10 for students or 18 under, and $15 for the general public ($5+ on the day of). Purchase can be made at either ticketmaster.com or Berklee Performance Center, located at 136 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston. (visit berkleebpc.com or call 617-747-2261 for more information.)

A pioneer in raising awareness of video game music repertoire, VGO makes its tribute by performing non-stop at different venues and video game related events. The show this early May in front of about 5000 people earned VGO praise for its outstanding performance and contribution to the video game industry. As what Boston Local media described, VGO “is the new sound for the new generation.”

About the VGO

VGO is a contemporary orchestra that performs orchestral arrangements of video game music. Founded in May 2008, VGO is the first and only student-run orchestra that showcase these interactive media compositions. It comprises of a 45-piece symphony, a 40-piece choir, and a 5-piece rock band. The regional and international award-winning musicians come from over 20 countries. This multi-cultural diversity contributes to the source of VGO’s unique signature.

Contact info:

Shota Nakama
Creator/Artistic Director/Arranger
253-468-8196
shotanakama@gmail.com

Po-Ya Chang
Production Manager
poya.chang@gmail.com"

This month’s Boston Post-Mortem is fast approaching! We’re meeting on Wednesday, November 18 at 7pm at The Skellig in Waltham. We’re featuring an exciting panel of experienced game artificial intelligence experts!

The panel will be answering your game AI related questions that are sent in advance as well as a few asked at the meeting itself.  If you have any game AI related questions that you would in particular like the panel to address at Post-Mortem, please e-mail them to bostongameai@gmail.com ASAP.  (Any questions received after the 14th will be unlikely to have prepared answers.)

The panel consists of the people behind the AI systems of such renowned titles as Halo 2 and 3, F.E.A.R., and Bioshock. Feel free to send in questions that may pertain to the AI systems from these or any of the other games the panel has worked on in the past!  In addition to answering your game AI questions, the panel will also address some current issues in the past, present, and future of game AI.  The panel will discuss some of the pressing issues of the moment and where game AI needs to go to address these issues.

The panel will consist of:

Christian Baekkelund (moderator)
Christian Baekkelund has worked games-related jobs in the areas of design, programming, and QA, at Electronic Arts, for the British school system, briefly at Harmonix, and most recently at 38 Studios.  Between various jobs, he attended MIT, studying computer science and Comparative Media Studies, focusing on games and AI.  Christian has also spoken at the Game Developers Conference and written in the AI Programming Wisdom series of books about AI, learning methods, and game design.

John Abercrombie (panelist)
John Abercrombie was the AI Lead on BIOSHOCK and SWAT 4 and is now the Lead Programmer on 2K Boston’s unannounced title. He graduated from Brandeis University with a degree in Computer Science in 2000, and has worked at Irrational Games / 2K Boston ever since.

Damián Isla (panelist)
Damián Isla has been working on and writing about game technology for almost a decade.  Recently, he helped found Moonshot Games, a studio dedicated to the creation of downloadable games with triple-A production values and technology.  Before Moonshot, Damián was AI and Gameplay engineering lead at Bungie Studios, where he was responsible for the AI for the mega-hit first-person shooters Halo 2 and Halo 3.

An expert in the field of Artificial Intelligence for Games, Damián has spoken on games, AI and character technology at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), at the AI and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference (AIIDE), and at Siggraph, and is a frequent speaker at the Game Developers Conference (GDC).

Before joining the industry, Damián earned a Masters Degree at the M.I.T. Media Lab, where he did research on learning and behavior for synthetic characters. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science, also from M.I.T. 

Jeff Orkin (panelist)
Jeff Orkin is a PhD candidate in the Cognitive Machines Group at the MIT Media Lab. Jeff’s research focuses on Artificial Intelligence for characters that learn to communicate and collaborate by observing humans playing online multiplayer games. 

Prior to enrolling at the Media Lab, Jeff developed several generations of AI systems in the game industry. As a Senior Engineer at Monolith Productions, Jeff focused on goal-oriented autonomous character behavior and planning, while developing AI systems for the award winning titles No One Lives Forever 2 and F.E.A.R. 

Jeff is a Contributing Author and Section Editor of the AI Game Programming Wisdom book series, has presented at the Game Developer’s Conference, the AI and Interactive Digital Entertainment conference (AIIDE), and the Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Sytems (AAMAS) conference, and holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Washington and Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Tufts University with a minor in Studio Art.

Logistics:
Wednesday, November 18 @7pm
The Skellig, Waltham (directions)

Here’s a message from WPI’s Rob Lindeman about an upcoming conference of interest:

The annual IEEE Virtual Reality conference is coming to Waltham in March 2010, just prior to PAX East. A major theme this year at the conference is how to get the gaming and VR communities to come together more. To this end, we are soliciting submission for PANEL, TUTORIAL, and WORKSHOP proposals from the gaming community for inclusion at the conference. The deadlines are approaching (but are somewhat flexible), so please see the IEEE VR 2010 Website for more info:

http://conferences.computer.org/vr/2010/

 

Since Boston is well known for MMO work, and this relates very well to VR, it would be great if this topic could be explored.

 

I hope to see you at the conference!

 

-Rob Lindeman

 

Congrats to Harmonix, who are listed as #3 in the Boston Globe’s Top 10 Places to Work! (Also congrats to Post Mortem regular Ike Adams for the mug shot.)

The official meeting announcement will go out a week ahead of time with more details, including the exact roster of speakers, but for now I’m sending this email so you can send any questions for the panelists ASAP! 

The Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab has two excellent talks coming up this week, featuring Clint Hocking of Ubisoft Montreal and Richard Rouse of THQ/Kaos.

The Territory is Not the Map: Hyper Realism and the New Immersion Paradigm

Clint Hocking, Ubisoft Montreal

Wednesday October 28, 2009
4-5 PM | Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab | 5 Cambridge Center, 3rd Floor

The games of today unsurprisingly strive to mimic the linear, authored structures of previous generations of media largely because gamers and game developers have grown up in a world where those media are culturally dominant. That is changing. As our media become more richly interactive and as our experience of the world becomes increasingly fragmented and parallelized, a new media culture is disintegrating the old. Games of the future will reflect this cultural shift by themselves becoming more fragmentary, more parallelized, and less focused on rich simulation and traditional notions of immersion.

This talk examines the potential long-term future of gaming by looking at the accelerating convergence between rising technologies and competing media from the internet, games, music and narrative media to augmented reality and the prominence of portable wireless devices.

This talk is free to the the MIT community and the public. If you are planning on attending, please email gambit-request@mit.edu so we can ensure enough seating for everybody. The location of the talk may change; please check updates on the GAMBIT blog athttp://gambit.mit.edu/updates/.

CMS Colloquium – Cinematic Games
Richard Rouse III, Kaos Studios

Thursday October 29, 2009
5-7 PM | MIT Room 4-231 | 182 Memorial Drive, 2nd Floor

Many people talk about "cinematic" games, but what does this really mean? Over their century of existence, films have been using a range of techniques to create specific emotional responses in their audience. Instead of simply using more cut-scenes, better script writers, or making more heavily scripted game experiences, game designers can look to film techniques as an inspiration for new techniques that accentuate what games do well. 

This lecture will present film clips from a number of classic movies, analyze how they work from a cinematic standpoint, and then suggest ways these techniques can be used in gameplay to create even more stimulating experiences for gamers, including examples from games that have successfully bridged the gap.

The CMS colloquium series is intended to provide an intimate and informal exchange between a visiting speaker and CMS faculty, students, visiting scholars and friends. Each week during the term, we host a figure from academia, industry, or the art world to speak about their work and its relation to our studies. These sessions are free, open to the public, and serve as an excellent introduction to our program. We also record these and broadcast them to the world-at-large via our podcast series at http://cms.mit.edu/news/podcast.

About the Speakers

Clint Hocking has been working at Ubisoft Montreal since July of 2001, when he began his career in the game industry as a Level Designer on the original Splinter Cell. During development he also took on the roles of Game Designer and Scriptwriter. Splinter Cell was nominated for seven Game Developer’s Choice Awards (including nominations for Excellence in Level Design, Game Design and Scriptwriting). Along with writer JT Petty, Clint was honoured for his writing work on the title with the first-ever Game Developer’s Choice Award for Excellence in Scriptwriting. 

Clint continued to develop the Splinter Cell franchise as Lead Level Designer, Scriptwriter, and Creative Director on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - the highest rated Splinter Cell to date with an aggregate review score of 94%. Clint next took on the role of Creative Director on Far Cry 2, a controversial title that took players into the ‘Heart of Darkness’ of a fully realized African state torn apart by civil war. Both innovative and acclaimed, Far Cry 2 was another hit for Ubisoft.

In addition to working as a game developer, Clint is also active in the game development community, and is a vocal proponent of games as an emerging medium and art form. Clint is on the Advisory Board of the Montreal IGDA Chapter, and is a frequent speaker at the Game Developers Conference and other conferences around the world. He maintains a blog at www.clicknothing.com.

Richard Rouse III is a game designer and writer who has worked in computer and video game development for 15 years.  He is currently Lead Single Player Designer on the story-driven FPS Homefront at Kaos Studios in New York City.  He was Creative Director and Writer on the hit action/horror title The Suffering and its sequel, The Suffering: Ties That Bind.  Rouse has led the design on a number of other games, including Centipede 3D, Damage Incorporated, and Odyssey: The Legend of Nemesis, as well as contributing to the design on Drakan:  The Ancients’ Gates.  

During a stint as Director of Game Design at Midway Games he consulted on a wide range of next-generation titles, including Stranglehold, Wheelman, and This is Vegas.  He has written about game design for publications including Game Developer, SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics, Develop, Gamasutra, and Inside Mac Games, and has lectured on game design at numerous conferences, including the Game Developer’s Conference and the Electronic Entertainment Expo.  

Rouse’s popular and sizable book about game design and development titled Game Design: Theory & Practice was released in an expanded second edition in 2004.  More information can be found at his website, www.paranoidproductions.com.

On Wednesday, October 21st Great Eastern Technology is sponsoring 

On Tue 10/20, the New England Games SIG is hosting an event about the state of the game industry in Massachusetts. Should be an event worth attending if you’re at all interested in the future of our local industry and community!

WHEN:           
October 20, 20096:00pm – 9:00pm

WHERE:         

Microsoft New England Research & Development Center
One Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA

WHAT:

Massachusetts is one of the major game development hubs in the U.S. From developers like Turbine, 2K Boston, Harmonix, Worldwinner, Blue Fang, and Tilted Mill to game community portal gamerDNA.com and game industry technology providers like Vivox, numerous game companies call Massachusetts their home.  To celebrate our local industry’s successes and kick off the ’09/ ’10 New England Games SIG season, join us for an evening of networking and discussion with Jason Schupbach, the state’s Creative Economy Industry Director, and Terrence Masson, Northeastern University’s Director of Game Design.  

During brief presentations, Jason Schupbach will share some of the latest statistics about our industry and discuss a new grant issued to study our local industry. He’ll also discuss tax break initiatives for game companies and what companies can do to help push the industry forward, among other topics. Terrence Masson will also share his perspective on game education in our state and how his 20 years of production experience is driving the new games program at Northeastern University.

REGISTRATION and MORE INFORMATION:

Registration is required. Free admission for MIT Enterprise Forum members; $10 – $20 for non-members. To register and for more information, including directions, please visit http://negamessig.wordpress.com/upcoming-events/

ABOUT: 

As part of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge, The New England Games Special Interest Group (NE Games SIG) focuses on providing educational and networking opportunities to the interactive entertainment community as well as to drive awareness and support the growth of this industry in the Boston area. Executives from local game development companies as well as interactive entertainment entrepreneurs, investors, venture capitalists, publishers and service providers catering this industry, are encouraged to join and attend events hosted by the NE Games SIG.

 Our October Post Mortem is coming up at 7pm on Tuesday the 13th. Jeff Ward of Orbus Gameworks will be giving a talk called, "I Can Slack Off, My Code’s Compiling!" Note that the meeting is not at The Skellig. It’s at Microsoft New England R&D, in Cambridge.

Here’s the abstract of Jeff’s talk:

How much time do you legitimately lose to compile times each day, and how much of that can be avoided?  How often do your programmers spend hours building, just to fail a five minute test and have to start all over again?  How much time do your artists and designers lose from bad engine builds or bad tools builds? This talk looks at the variety of ways a bad build system or build pipeline can damage your productivity, and the possible ways to fix it.

I should mention that this is a practice run of the talk that he’ll be giving at the GameX Industry Summit in Philly 10/24-25. The Boston Post Mortem is co-presenting the event and you should all try to be there. There’ll be great talks by our own Chris Foster, Clint Hocking (Far Cry 2), and others from Red Storm, THQ, EA Mythic, and other studios. For more info you can check out the GameX Industry Summit website.

Logistics:
Tuesday, October 13th
7pm @ Microsoft Cambridge (Directions)

There will be free soft drinks, but no alcohol or food available at the venue. We’ll probably hit Cambridge Brewing Company afterwards for beers, though.

If you’re coming from out of town we highly recommend taking public transit to the event (park at Alewife and take the Red Line in). There is a parking garage at MS Cambridge, but be warned, it’s confusing to park there and easy to get lost!