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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Atlanta, GA | Posted: November 19, 2012
Rebecca Keane
404-894-1720
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Games aren’t much without people engaged in playing them. Just try paying for your next latte with Monopoly money. The student group VGDev hosted its first original game demo night on November 16, 2012 in Clough Commons to test out eight new game concepts on real users.
VGDev Demo Night
VGDevEvent image courtesy Sho Kitamura of Technique. Anjana Kallarackal, a Science, Technology, and Culture major, contributed to this report.
Games aren’t much without people engaged in playing them. Just try paying for your next latte with Monopoly money. The student group VGDev hosted its first original game demo night on November 16, 2012 in Clough Commons to test out eight new game concepts on real users.
Approximately 20 different laptops, a few smart phones, iPads, and a steering wheel were set up with working models of various video games in genres that included racing, adventure, shooting, RPG, puzzles, and simulations - all created entirely by Georgia Tech students.
VGDev is a student-led, student-driven campus group that’s now in its fourth semester. It was founded by Chris DeLeon, a spring 2012 masters graduate and a current doctoral student of the Digital Media program at the School of Literature, Media, and Communication (LMC). The group brings together students to develop game concepts on their own time, outside of class requirements. This provides industry experience for prospective game developers and project leads, freedom for exploration outside of classroom requirements, and a lesson in time management.
Matthew Guzdial is the current semester speaker for the group.
“In VGDev we build video games from the ground up. That obviously involves a lot of computer science, but also a huge amount of music composition, sound effect creation, digital art, traditional art, 3D modeling, and all types of interaction design,” said the computational media major, a joint studies program between the College of Computing and LMC. “To be able to create any video game one must put oneself at this intersection, viewing user experience problems from both a design and computer science perspective.”
When a user gets tripped up in a game, it could be caused by either a technical glitch or an interface which doesn’t clearly communicate the necessary steps.
“Good game design means considering options from all along this spectrum,” said Guzdial. He feels his major has helped him both to be able to create effective designs and “understand how to implement complex computational systems to make use of them.”
The VGDev Campus Demo Night provided student gamers that chance to run their new game concepts by a fresh audience for impartial review. Feedback always pays off, said Guzdial.
“I know I personally like nothing better than to watch someone enjoying a game I helped make. It’s an absolutely exhilarating, heart-warming experience that somehow makes the game seem so much more real.”
VGDev meets weekly on Thursdays, 4:45 – 6pm in DM Smith 105.
