Pulse College Careers Event

Pulse College is hosting a free event on career opportunities in the computer games industry.

Guest speakers will include Owen Harris of Bit Smith games and John Joyce CEO Seoige Technology.

Date – Wednesday 30th May

Location – Studio one at Windmill Lane Recording Studios.

Time – 10am-12pm

Irish Games Company Launches Texas Ask’Em Poker!

Today sees Irish company OteetO Ltd. launch a new form of poker with the much anticipated Texas Ask’Em Poker on Facebook at the Social Gaming Summit in Berlin, Germany.

Texas Ask’Em PokerTM combines poker with trivia to create a new poker game with a big difference – players can now influence the cards they receive yet the game still maintains the core successful poker elements of skill and chance.

Texas Ask’Em Poker enters the world of Facebook poker games with a decent pair of hole cards, they have amassed 5,000 likes and their players have already sent over 100,000 game invites to their friends – and all this even before today’s official launch.

“One weekend in February, we quietly spent €400 on Facebook ads in order to have some real players , unknowingly, be the first to play Texas Ask’Em Poker”, says Neal O’Gorman Co-Founder of OteetO, “ the response was really excellent, people played for hours and then later we got complaints from fans whenever the game went down for updates! We have made significant improvements to the game since then and will continue to but we are now delighted to be officially launching Texas Ask’Em Poker at the Berlin Social Gaming Summit”.

Texas Ask’Em Poker is addictive, fun and simple to play! Gamers are invited to sit at a table on a topic they know and enjoy e.g. Sports, Entertainment, General Knowledge, etc. Each hand begins with a multiple choice question, each player answers and then receives their cards and regular Texas Hold’Em Poker follows.

So where’s the smart part? The first trick is that all players are competing for the best of the randomly dealt starting hands. So, the person with the fastest correct answer will receive the best of the random starting hands. Naturally players with the correct answer will receive better ranked starting hands than the players that answer incorrectly.

The second, but key trick, is that players are not informed as to how either they or their opponents performed in the question round until the poker hand is complete! But, players be warned, even if you feel you answered fast and correct maybe someone else was faster but perhaps even more importantly, as it is still poker, having a good starting hand does not guarantee a winning hand anything can appear on the flop the turn and the river! Even the person that had the answer wrong can still win the poker hand – you still need to know when to fold’em!

On signing up to Texas Ask’Em Poker, each player receives 20,000 worth chips and can raise this by 3,000 by liking the app and another 2,000 to 5,000 chips every day they log in. The smallest number of chips a player can purchase is 675,000 chips for close to €2 euro with the maximum being 270 million chips for over €100. At the moment there is only 1 stakes table but as there are more players joining the game will offer higher stakes table. The stakes table currently has a minimum number of chips needed to play of 200 and the max you can join the table with is 4,000 chips with minimum bets at 20 chips.

Texas Ask’Em Poker is a lot more social than normal online poker games as people with two hobbies in common are seated at the same table, with good questions striking up table chat, and players being able to share the experience of an interesting or relevant question with their friends on facebook. In addition, not only can you play against your friends in real time but you can also try to win more chips than them or beat their personal record of correct answers in a row.

Targeted at the existing facebook poker players Texas Ask’Em is not for players that play for real money just the fantasy and adrenaline rush that you get from playing with in effect monopoly money in the online world. With over 40 million facebook poker players playing each month, Texas Ask’Em Poker is appealing to the poker players that are looking for that extra challenge and additional entertainment value.

Poker players on facebook are predominantly male (75% male and 25% female) but OteetO feels that Texas Ask’Em Poker can appeal to a wider audience changing the demographics to 70% male and 30% female. Currently only available in English this will be expanded into other languages over the next six months.

www.TexasAskEm.com

www.OteetO.com

Company History.

OteetO Ltd, an Irish startup with seed investment from the Berlin Accelerator Make-A-Startup.

OteetO was founded by Neal O’Gorman and Narcis Ilisei in December 2010, after they both took redundancy from the multi-national Agilent Technologies (a Test&Measurement company with about 19,000 people) where Narcis worked as Senior R&D Engineer and Neal as Programme Manager with responsibility for products that were used in testing laser used in communications.

The company name OteetO stems from a Greek word ικανότητα (ikanOteeta) which means skill, ability and also proficiency. This reflects nicely on how Neal and Narcis want to run the company but also on the games that they look to develop. Texas Ask’Em PokerTM is the first game released by OteetO Ltd.

Neal O’Gorman

Originally from Naas, a graduate from UCD (Electronic Engineer), O’Gorman (35) was Co-founder of Tsunami Photonics (founded in 2001) which merged with PXIT in 2003, moved to the US (Silicon Valley & Boston) in 2004 to work with PXIT for 2.5 years, then moved to Germany (Boeblingen – near Stuttgart) when Agilent bought out his previous employers PXIT in 2006 and worked there for three years as PXIT Product Manager & Optical Programme Manager with responsibility for “all products that were used in testing laser’s used for communications” before leaving to set up OteetO with Narcis. Now spending his time between Naas and Germany (Boeblingen & Berlin) O’Gorman still makes guest appearances as the Quiz Master in the local Irish Pub in Boeblingen – which was a catalyst for Texas Ask’Em Poker idea.

Narcis Ilisei

IIisei worked with Agilent for ten years from 2000, as Senior R&D engineer that was assigned to the PXIT products within Agilent. Originally from Romania, IIisei (36) moved to Germany when he started with Agilent. Prior to that Ilisei worked at the Technical University Iasi in Romania. A very talented technologist turned Entrepreneur and Game Developer. Texas Ask’Em Poker is the second game IIisei has developed. Ilisei also founded Inatech in 2010, a start up company that focus’s on smartphone/tablet application development. In 2011 Ilisei officially joined OteetO as a Co-founder.

Sci Gallery Game Cfp

Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland is seeking proposals for an upcoming major exhibition GAME.

Call Opens: Wed 23rd May 2012

Call Closes: Monday 2nd July 2012

Exhibition duration: 26 October 2012 – 18th January 2013

See call at http://www.sciencegallery.com/game

Calling all gamers from casual to hardcore, newbies and retrogamers, data nerds, hobbyists, artists, scientists, tech geeks, edgy engineers and serious gamers, Science Gallery is seeking proposals for its major 2012 exhibition GAME launching in October 2012, during Dublin’s tenure as European City of Science.

Ireland is rapidly emerging as a global hub for animation and games with many of the leading software and middleware developers located here.

GAME at Science Gallery will explore the multifaceted world of gaming from the technology and design behind games to gaming and society and the history of games. GAME at Science Gallery will explore the amazing potential of games and offer opportunities to visitors to engage in numerous aspects of this theme, even creating their very own game during a visit.

GAME will ask why people play games? How do our brains respond to games? What makes a game compelling? What will the future of gaming look like? How can we harness games for good?

GAME is Science Gallery’s end of year exhibition for 2012. We are interested in receiving proposals for exhibits, events and workshops along the following themes,

*Game Technology from state of the art physics, graphics, animation and audio to augmented reality to cutting edge interfaces to neuro-gaming
*Game Design from the art of games, to the mechanics of games and game narratives and storytelling
*Games & Society from gamification to competitive games to the psychology of gaming and serious games to gaming as a professional sport to the opportunity for gaming to make us better
*History of Games from Spacewar! to the first home consoles to speculative pieces exploring the future of gaming
*Game production and the business of games – what do game designers consider in developing a new game, how do games make money and what are the new trends in this growing market?

GAME objectives

*To engage young adult visitors to GAME not merely as consumers of games, but as potential game creators;
*To inspire visitors with the opportunities in the games sector;
*To provide an engaging experience of the creative process of game design and development;
*To provide exciting experiences of current trends and future directions in games (mobile/social games, neuro-gaming, AR, etc);
*To provoke critical engagement with games and game-culture and “gamification”;
*To highlight the different skills (art, science, design, storytelling, strategy) involved in game creation
*To impact over 50,000 visitors on-site during the 3 month exhibition run and over 100,000 visitors online (through key online-only elements)
*To work with key games industry and research partners and EI/IDA to highlight Ireland’s position as a potential hub for games industry
*To help put Ireland on the map for games with key international audiences including game industry, investors, tech community through significant national and international media coverage for GAME and its participants
*To host high impact events, workshops and demos during the course of GAME for young adult, educational and industry/investor audiences
*To inspire more young people to take an interest in computer science, physics and mathematics and to motivate them to develop their skills in these areas

Curator and Advisors:

GAME will be curated by Steve Collins, Founder of Swrve and previously co-founder of Havok and Kore, Mads Haahr a lecturer in Trinity College Dublin’s Department of Computer Science with a focus on computer game studies, mobile and ubiquitous computing and self organizing systems, Dylan Collins, Founder of Fight My Monster and previously Demonware and JOLT and Michael John Gorman, the Founding Director of Science Gallery and Adjunct Professor of Creative Technologies at Trinity College Dublin.

How to submit a proposal:

To submit your proposal, please follow the link the submissions page http://opencall.sciencegallery.com/

If you need any help, please email help@sciencegallery.com.

Please feel free to forward this e-mail and link to other forums and individuals and do please contact us at vicky.lee@sciencegallery.com, if you would like to suggest projects or people for the exhibition.

Science Gallery

Science Gallery (www.sciencegallery.com) is a dynamic new model for public engagement at the interface between science and the arts which has rapidly achieved significant international profile since its launch in Dublin in 2008.

Science Gallery is an initiative of Trinity College Dublin with support from the Wellcome Trust, our Science Circle of Dell, Google, ICON, NTR Foundation, and PACCAR. Science Gallery is also supported by the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and Science Foundation Ireland. Sponsors during 2012 include Intel, IBM and Dublin City Council.

Ballyfermot Animation Show

The Ballyfermot College Animation Showcase 2012 is on Wednesday 23rd May at 7pm in the IFI, Temple Bar.

The showcase will include a mixture of third and fourth year short animations from the BA (Hons) Animation course.The showcase will be officially opened by Andrew Kavanagh of Kavaleer Productions.

See http://www.isa-bcfe.ie/

Composing For Games

The founder of Games Music Ireland, Mick Kiely, in association with Windmill Lane Recording Studios will be offering a short course in Composing for Games, June 11-12-13 2012 in Windmill Lane, Dublin.

The module will take place over three days. The course offers up skilling and training in technique for composing in the field of digital games.

Day 1.

Morning session.

• Introduction.
• A brief history of music in games.
• The rapid evolution and demand for music in games
• Understanding a game brief
• Composition, Film v Games.

Lunch

Afternoon session.
• Game score demo.
• How the score works interactively in the game.
• The importance of loop progression.
• Creating the evolving score illusion.
• Memory economy within the game.
• Useful tips and tricks.

Day 2

Composers will be assigned a brief and will work with the platform of their preferred choice in a compositional exercise where they will compose and construct game scores with interactive capability. Composers will receive one on one support during this session.

Day 3

Today sees the final touches to the scores, analysis and discussion. The module closes with a talk on plans for the future. Platforms supported by the course are Pro-Tools, Logic and Reason. Also provided is a Mac computer and keyboard. The module will be delivered by Mick Kiely.

The cost for the three day course is €380.

Places are secured on a first come basis.

To reserve a place email: gamesmusicireland@gmail.com

About Mick Kiely

Irelands first AAA games composer with a firm understanding of music and it’s place in the digital games industry. Well connected internationally with music professionals in the games industry. Also composing professionally for TV and film.

Game Based Learning Symp

This event should be of interest to some on gd.ie.

*********************

Registration is now open for the second Irish Symposium on Game-Based Learning (iGBL2012)!

This one-day event will be held in Waterford Institute of Technology on Thursday 7th June 2012, and bring together teachers, students and researchers with an interest in the educational potential of games.

This conference will be a great opportunity to learn more about the different educational applications of games, and network with other like-minded researchers and practitioners.

This year, we are delighted to welcome Derek Robertson as our keynote speaker. Derek has an impressing record in innovative teaching. He has done significant work in the area of Game-Based Learning, and given several inspirational keynotes on how to engage students inside and outside the classroom through games.

Derek Robertson’s career in education has seen him work as a primary school teacher, a staff tutor in a council education department, a lecturer on the B.ED(P) and PGDE(P) teacher preparation courses at the University of Dundee, and now as national adviser for emerging technologies and learning at Learning and Teaching Scotland. In his current position, he leads the team responsible for exploring and developing the effective uses of computer games to enhance teaching, learning and assessment approaches that underpin Scotland’s new curriculum: Curriculum for Excellence.

In addition, the symposium will include more than 20 presentations from national and international experts in a wide range of areas including: virtual worlds in the classroom, using chess to improve cognitive skills and confidence, e-Poetry, games to improve mental health, instructional design patterns, adaptive learning strategies, GBL start-ups, Scratch & Kinect, gamification, Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), Role-Playing Games (RPGs), games for health care, or games to teach people with intellectual disabilities.

For more information on presentations please visit: http://www.wit.ie/gbl/igbl2012/Program/Presentations/.

This event promises to be very interesting and attendees are now welcome to register before Friday 25th May 2012.

For more information on iGBL2012, please send an email to: pfelicia@wit.ie.

You can also sign up to the iGBL 2012 mailing list by sending an email to pfelicia@wit.ie with the subject “iGBL2012 mailing list”.

Q-Con Belfast

Q-Con is taking place in Belfast from 22nd to 24th June this year, and the weekend is attended by a mixture of enthusiastic gamers, fans, and game creators. The event is hosted by QUB Dragonslayers, the Queen’s University Belfast Gaming and Anime Society.

The event attracted over 1800 people last year and they expect to receive around 2000 this year.

They are keen to have more local Irish independent studios involved and have a dedicated demonstration space for local indie studios to show off their latest releases and upcoming games.

There will also be a series of talks and tutorials by professional and upcoming creators on the Saturday, under the moniker of “Q-ED sessions”.

For more information on the Q-ED sessions, and taking part, please contact qed@q-con.org.uk

See http://q-con.org.uk/

Games Music Event

We have just received notice of an event aimed at building links between game developers and composers of music.

The discussion will focus on identifying music challenges in casual games. Attending will be composers wishing to network with game developers. The evening will open with a panel discussion between developers and composers exploring the area of
music in games, followed by light refreshments and an opportunity to network.

The event talkes place in the IMRO offices in the (appropriately enough) named Copyright House on Pembroke Row in Dublin 2 on the 29th May from 6:30pm – 9:30pm.

Free admittance but RSVP to gamesmusicireland@gmail.com

2Paperdolls Hires Paddy Murphy

So finally we can talk about the gossip.

We have received official news to say that 2PaperDolls, a mobile games studio in Dublin, has hired Paddy Murphy (of the red hat) to its development team as a Community Manager.

Murphy, former CEO of Open Emotion Studios, is well known here on gd.ie, was instrumental in the production and launch of games released globally across PC, iOS and console platforms and picked up a number of awards in the inaugural Irish game awards at the 2012 Games Fleadh.

Happy to have “his infectious enthusiasm and creativity behind our upcoming launch of Mind of Man,” 2PaperDolls founder Louis Ravenet cites Murphy’s experience in games production, development and community relations as an opportunity too good to pass on.

2PaperDolls is a game development studio currently blurring the boundaries between real life and your online persona. Their latest project, www.mindofman.com, plays with crowdsourcing and sentiment analysis, gaming your life on Twitter.

To find out more, visit www.2paperdolls.com

(Early adopter? Mind of Man now available on the iTunes Store, pre-released in UK and Ireland. See http://bit.ly/GM47EF)

Indie Bundle Logo

A group of indies are putting together an Irish indie bundle for the PC. It is envisaged that up to six games will be included in the first bundle and those to be included will be selected by some well known developers.

Currenctly the group are looking for a logo. Please take part in the conversation at http://bit.ly/JCPh6V and vote on the logos already submitted at http://on.fb.me/IGIPLF

For more check out #irishgamedev