Come see the most innovative, inspiring and cutting-edge computer animations of 2010!  You are invited to join the Boston Maya User’s Group meeting on August 25 at 6:30pm.  We will be screening the SIGGRAPH 2010 Electronic Theater Animations premiered in Los Angeles just last month.

Meeting  Info:

Date: August 25, 2010

Time:     6:30 – 7:30: Meet and greet (with munchies)

7:30 – 9:30 SIGGRAPH 2010 Electronic Theater Animation Screening

Location: MIT Campus, Building 32 room 123 (Stata Center)

Address:  32 Vassar Street
MIT Campus Map: http://whereis.mit.edu (type 32-123 on campus map field to see the building location)

The event is free of charge, but please RSVP for the meeting on the bMUG website - http://www.meetup.com/Boston-Maya-Users-Group.

The August meeting for the Boston Post Mortem will be on Tuesday, August 10th at 7pm, at the Skellig in Waltham. Our speaker will be Terrence Masson, who will be giving a SIGGRAPH roundup:

Terrence Masson, ACM SIGGRAPH 2010 Conference Chair and Director of Creative Industries at Northeastern University (Game Design & Interactive Media), will present a recap and overview of the 37th annual international Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. Held just last week in Los Angeles for over 22,000 attendees, the conference included many game related content such as ”Live Real Time Demo’s”, Game Papers, talks and panels, and the hands-on “Sandbox” area. Terrence will be showing videos, behind the scenes pics and be open to Q&A to share all the insider info you want to know about the worlds biggest CG Conference!

Mark your calendars:

Logistics

Tuesday, August 10th
7pm @ The Skellig, Waltham
Directions

We received the following request from a Boston Post Mortem community member seeking folks who might be able to contribute to one of two Worldcon panels.

I’m a voiceover artist with enough speculative fiction (Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, …) experience to be a panelist at the World Science Fiction Convention in Melbourne, Australia in September (AussieCon 4). I am on the 2 panels described at the end of this email, relevant to game developers. Now the audience is pretty much hand-picked thought leaders in spec. fic. gaming and I was wondering if any of the Boston Post Mortem community have either things to say or examples about either of the panels below, or would like to send materials for me to hand out at either panel. If anyone is particularly interested, I’m happy to talk on the phone or meet in person to discuss the topics.

I can be contacted either via the contact form on my website, or email to bob@bkvoice.com.

Thank you!

Bob Kuhn

The descriptions of the 2 panels are:

Pop Culture Stream
“RPGs, STORYTELLING AND AUTHORSHIP”
We know Dungeons and Dragons is a game, but is it art? An examination of the storytelling process behind role-playing games – part creative writing, part performance, and almost entirely disregarded as an artistic work. If it is some kind of cross between the written and performing arts, what can GMs and players learn from those disciplines to make their games even stronger?

Young Adult Stream
Games in YA Spec Fic, their influence and importance.

The Boston Globe reports that 38 Studios is moving to Providence:

Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling is moving his videogame company 38 Studios, based in Maynard, from Massachusetts to Rhode Island. The deal will bring Schilling’s company a $75 million loan guarantee backed by that state.

“I’ve invested a significant amount of my life’s earnings in 38 Studios,” said Schilling, “and I will protect the loan guarantee that’s been given by the state with the same passion and interest that I’m protecting my own investment in this company.”

Rhode Island’s Economic Development Corporation today approved a $75 million loan guarantee to Schilling’s company.

The EDC board approved the offer after concluding that the company offered growth opportunity and could help drive the state’s economy.

The offer represents 60 percent of the maximum $125 million loan guarantee allowed under state law.

We’ve been informed that the ZORK playthrough we posted a few days ago has changed its room. It is still at MIT, but is now in Building 1 Room 135 (original post has been updated to reflect this as well).

Many thanks to Darren Torpey, who took video of the July meeting and posted it online. It’s about an hour long and is available in 6 parts, embedded below and on this Youtube playlist.

Come and play Zork where it all started. We will be venturing together into the dungeons of the Great Underground Empire.

Inspired by Adventure / Colossal Cave, Zork was one of the first text adventure games, developed by a team of students at MIT back in 1977 on a PDP-10. If  you’ve never played a text adventure game, this is your chance to experience the joys of playing through the command prompt by joining others in the adventure. If you’re an old Zork hand, help us track down in-jokes and historic references.

July 25th, 2 – 5 pm
MIT Campus: Building 1 Room 135.

The GAMBIT Summer Program has seven games in early development, each one seeking to answer a different research question. We invite everyone – young, old, game playing, game developing, or even never touched a video game before in your life – to play our games and give us the early feedback we need to complete our games by the end of the summer.

What is an “Open House Focus Test”? During the Open House, our development teams observe your game playing, answer any questions you may have, and record your comments and opinions about the games you are playing. Our games are in their fourth week of development, and are at an early stage, with placeholder artwork and user interfaces still in development. By testing them now, we intend to get feedback we can use, with time left to use it. This is your big chance to actively influence our games in development!

Our doors are open from 6pm – 8pm. You are welcome to drop in at any time during those hours and play as many (or as few!) of our games as you wish. Each game takes around ten minutes to complete; some are longer than others. We do recommend that if you want to play all the games, you arrive earlier rather than later! There will also be light snacks available, to keep your game playing strength up!

While we welcome testers of all ages, our games are not intended for the youngest players. Children under seven may have difficulty playing our games alone, but might enjoy sitting on a parent’s lap and watching. We are an active research lab, so any minors (age 17 and under) need to have a parent or guardian fill out a consent form before playing any games. Forms will be available at the lab, or you can contact gambit-qa@mit.edu and request forms that can be printed and filled out to bring to the test.

We are at 5 Cambridge Center, 3rd Floor. Tell the guard at the desk you are here for the GAMBIT Focus test, then take the elevators up to the 3rd Floor. Turn towards the big glass doors as you exit the elevators, and come on in!

Thursday, July 8th and July 22nd
6 PM – 8 PM
Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab
5 Cambridge Center, 3rd Floor
Cambridge, MA
(Next door to the Kendall Square T stop)

The July meeting of Boston Post Mortem will be held on Wednesday the 14th at 7pm at The Skellig in Waltham.  This month we’ll be doing a reprise of the PAX East Panel, “Indies Will Shoot You in the Knees“:

Join the NE Games SIG for a casual year-end get together at Champions at the Marriott Copley in Back Bay on Tuesday, June 29th – 7pm. Champions is at 110 Huntington Ave.

Tuesday, June 29th

7:00pm – whenever!

Come down to chat about the latest in the industry, what happened at E3, what the autumn holds and to just plain connect. Red Sox vs Tampa Bay will be on the screens as well.

(This is a come as you are and pay your own way event.)