//The Games Reading Group will continue in the 2016/17 academic year. Our first meeting is on Thursday, December 8th from 13:00 to 14:00. As usual, we will explore topics around Human-Computer Interaction, Games Studies, and wider Games Research.
If you are a (staff or student member) of the University and would like to know more and/or join the group, please contact Kathrin Gerling.
//The School of Computer Science at the University of Lincoln will be hosting a site for the 2016 Global Game Jam, which takes place from January 29th to January 31st. If you’re looking to have a go at developing a full game in just a weekend – why not join us?
“Come along to the University of Lincoln site for the biggest international game jam of the year! This 48 hour Game Jam pits developers across the globe against each other in a battle to make the best game they can.
Programmers, artists of all types, sound designers, even writers of ALL abilities are welcome to come along and work on something fantastic. Even if you’ve never written a line of code before, or have never drawn anything, we still want you to come on down and have a go! 48 hours is a long time, so why not learn something new?”
Attending the event is free, but you will need to book a ticket via Eventbrite. More information on the Lincoln site is also available via facebook.
//For the 2014/2015 academic year, the Games Research Reading Group explores topics related to Human-Computer Interaction, Games Studies, and general Games Research.
The next meeting will be Tuesday, March 17th from 2:00 to 3:00 PM to discuss “The Effectiveness (or Lack Thereof) of Aim-Assist Techniques in First-Person Shooter Games” by Vicencio-Moreira et al. (available via http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2557308).
Everyone is welcome, and we particularly encourage participation of undergraduate Games Computing students. For a full overview of topics and dates, please visit http://games.lincoln.ac.uk/reading-group/. If you would like to join the group, please contact Kathrin Gerling.
//We again hosted an official site of the Global Game Jam, in space kindly provided by the School of Computer Science. This year we had over 50 jammers join us from all over the UK in what is becoming our favourite weekend of the year.
The Global Game Jam is the world’s biggest hackathon and this year saw over 28000 jammers work in 518 locations in 78 countries, simultaneously spending 48 hours creating 5437 brand new games. This year the theme was the simple question “What do we do now?”, which served as inspiration for a wide variety of games from imaginary skipping ropes, through idol worship simulators, co-op platformers, games of celtic mysticism and even a game that uses a real coffin as a controller. I prepared a short video of the many highlights to give a taste for the weekend:
You can see all 19 games created on the University of Lincoln page on the Global Game Jam site. All games are open source and downloadable for free – please give them a go!
Special thanks to Matt Ashton, technician for the School of Computer Science, for support and patience over the whole weekend, plus the School of Computer Science for loan of the space and expenses, and the University of Lincoln Computing Society for helping manage and organise the event. And of course thanks to all the jammers for making such a fun weekend!