Tackling deforestation, water pollution and poverty earned University of Houston (UH) students top honors in computer game designing at the U.S. finals of the 2011 Microsoft Imagine Cup competition. With the annual contest drawing more than 74,000 of the nation’s brightest technology students to Microsoft’s headquarters, UH made quite an impact with three of its four finalists winning in game design.

– Lisa Merkl @ University of Houston

Eight students from The Guildhall at SMU’s Master’s degree program in video game design won the grand prize Friday in the non-professional category at the second annual D.I.C.E. Indie Game Challenge in Las Vegas for their game, Inertia.

The recognition comes with a $100,000 cash prize, and the Hermes crew also won a $15,000 EEDAR DesignMetrics prize, and a $2,500 prize for technical achievement, as well as another $2,500 prize for achievement in gameplay.

Inertia features an innovative mechanic that allows players to suspend gravity and use inertia to bounce off walls, float through space, and move through the game’s environment – a decaying space station on the brink of collapse.

– Victor Godinez @ dallasnews.com

Team Hermes had an idea.

The team worked hard to make the idea real

The effort paid off like a pair of Winged Sandals. Go team!

Indie-game developer Zach Johnson is the author of Infiltration:

Infiltration was built in response to blog Boing Boing’s call for games to be developed that were inspired by “chip music”. Most likely very familiar to gamer cycles but not far beyond, chip music is inspired by early video game soundtracks. Think Asteroids, Pac Man and a host of Nintendo games. Grab a Casio keyboard and hang on …

Johnson, a fan of this unique musical genre, has spent more than his fair share of time listening to chip music and envisioning the game activity that it might accompany. A User Experience developer at Worrell, he says, “Video games contributed to shaping my entire career in computers.” It was clearly a natural for him to develop a chip-music-inspired game.

Indie-game-developer game designs tend to be very simplistic, with an almost nostalgic look and feel. “Part of the design is a nod to the old-school music, but it’s probably more about the amount of time and money indie game developers have to spend on the games.” He goes on to note, “It took nine people a year to write Pac Man; I wrote this in about 30 hours.”

Johnson also saw an opportunity to advance his passion for open programming. “I wanted to make a game that didn’t need a plug-in.” Hence the use of Javascript, allowing the ability to play the game directly from your browser. ” Javascript- and browser-based games offer a very low barrier of entry,” notes Johnson.

– Phil Wilson @ minnpost.org

“There is a single rule in the game, but it needs to be broken. There is a goal in the game, but when you reach it you die ….”

Frankfurt, Germany, 15 October 2010

During a glitzy ceremony at the Congress Center in Frankfurt, Belgian independent games developer Tale of Tales were awarded the Advancement Prize for Innovative Game Design by the European Innovative Games Award 2010 for their moody and mysterious Red Ridinghood-inspired exploration game The Path.

The Path turns game design conventions upside down. There is a single rule in the game, but it needs to be broken. There is a goal in the game, but when you reach it you die. There are many objects to be found in the large open environment of the game, but you need to let go of the avatar to interact. There’s 144 flowers that can be collected but no reward for doing so. And in the last part of the game, you can only move forward or stop. There are no options, no “meaningful choices”.

– Gamasutra

The Path story: http://grandmothers-house.net

The Path trailer: http://ThePath-game.com

The Path main website: http://Tale-of-Tales.com/ThePath

I don’t know these guys, but I smiled to read the story of their success. And I love the name “Awesome Town” — now there’s a great name for a game! Best of all, Awesome Town has laudable goals for the betterment of mankind. Check it out:

Engineering students Travis Sein and Ryan Scott recently showcased skills they’ve gained in Arizona State University’s computer gaming program in the finals of the national Microsoft Imagine Cup challenge in Washington, D.C.

… Microsoft, one of the world’s major computer technology corporations, gave students the task of developing games that demonstrate technological innovation and convey messages about making a positive difference in the world.

… Sein and Scott competed against teams from Yale University, the University of Southern California and the University of Houston, among others.

Their game, called Awesome Town, reflected the Millennium Goals themes of global partnerships and resource management.

In the game, players face the potential end of human civilization. After the Earth has been harvested dry, there is a last-ditch effort to save humanity. Several individuals are sent on space shuttles on a mission to colonize a distant planet capable of sustaining life.

… Sein and Scott say they hope the game teaches players how to work together, and how to work with nature, in efforts to develop technologically and socially sustainable societies.

- Arizona State University News by Krista Flewelling and Jessica Graham

Big thumbs up to Travis and Ryan — congrats on your accomplishments and the due recognition, and keep on rockin’ in the game world!

The finalists and semi-finalists for 2010 have been announced:

2010 Casual Finalists

• Escape From Planet Zero: Lance Myers
• Paper Balloons: Kylan Coats
• The Unconcerned: Borut Pfeifer
• Zep!: Hadidjah Chamberlin

2010 Casual Semi-Finalists:

• The Unconcerned – Borut Pfeifer
• Athens Burning – Mack Flavelle
• Escape from Planet Zoo – Lance Myers
• The Vagabond – Ashton Simmonds
• Solenoid Slopes – Jamieson Clem
• Electri-City – Rudhraigh McGrath
• Factions – Anders Howard
• Paper Balloons – Kylan Coats
• Zep! – Hadidjah Chamberlin
• Color Complex – Ireti Olowe

2010 AAA Finalists

• BikeClub Games “Tall Bike Joust”: Fredric King & Ryan Doyle
• Grimore: Patrick Cunningham
• Robot Revolution: Sam Combs
• Shadow Wars: Patrick Cunningham

2010 AAA Semi-Finalists:

• Overwatch – Rich Newman
• BikeClub Games “Tall Bike Joust” – Fredric King
• Fishbot – Terry Tolleson
• Viva Lucha – Jordan Booth
• Displaced – Michael Braunschweig
• F(r)iction – Tim Willingham
• Grimore – Patrick Cunningham
• Shadow Wars – Patrick Cunningham
• Robot Revolution – Sam Combs
• Magick Sticks Ghost Delivery Service – Christian Sawyer

Via Scrink

The Expressive Intelligence Studio at UC Santa Cruz will be hosting a StarCraft competition:

This competition enables academic researchers to evaluate their AI systems in a robust commercial RTS environment. The final matches will be held live with commentary. Exhibition matches will also be held between skilled human players and the top performing bots.

Getting Started

The competition will use StarCraft Brood War 1.16.1. Get it here

Bots for StarCraft can be developed using the Broodwar API, which provides hooks into StarCraft and enables the development of custom AI for StarCraft. A C++ interface enables developers to query the current state of the game and issue orders to units.

• Instructions for setting up the environment are available here.

• An introduction to the Broodwar API is available here.

• Instructions for building a bot that communicates with a remote process are available here.

• There is also a FAQ listing common issues.

Tournament rules are available here

[Full article: StarCraft AI Competition]

Via SlashDot