Fuzzy Flyer Game released

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Fuzzy Flyer is a new 2D physics based arcade/puzzle game released by Dublin based indie developer Cian Kearney, with assistance from Cian McNabola (Artist) and G. Owens, Black Bag Music. Some of you might remember seeing an early build of this at a dubLUDO event earlier in the year.

In the game you must help guide Spike, a young Fuzzy Flyer who was cruelly taken from his home, and has to make his way through levels filled with danger. You can help Spike progress through these levels and hopefully find his way home.

The game contains 105 unique levels. Each level is made up of different types of walls ranging from moss and ice to bouncy walls each with its own different properties and uses. Levels also contain spikes, saws, water and chances for Spike to use his grappling hook.

Features

 105 unique levels

 Power-ups to help if you get stuck –  Invincibility, Replay last move, Speed Boost

 Create your own levels with the in game level designer

 Submit levels for chance to be featured in future updates

 

 

 

Fuzzy Flyer is available FREE on the Apple App Store and Google Play Android Market.

 

The app was not found in the store. :-(
Fuzzy Flyer
Fuzzy Flyer
Developer: Cian Kearney
Price: Free+

 

For more information see website or contact Cian using any of the details below:

Email: info@fuzzyflyer.com

Twitter: @FuzzyFlyerGame

Facebook: FuzzyFlyerGame

New B.Sc in Game Art & Design

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It is that time of year when prospective students and parents are researching potential college courses for an application deadline in January.

We will be posting up more information on the site in the next few weeks for these readers.For now, Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT) and the Limerick School of Art and Design (LSAD) have been in touch to tell us about their new Bachelor of Science (Honours) Degree in Game Art and Design. Below is information from their press release.This programme will run on the LIT Clonmel campus where it will compliment their current suite of digital programmes including Digital Animation Production and Creative multimedia.

The programme has been created to address the need for creative graduates who possess a unique blend of artistic and technological skills. This will support the continued growth and success of the games industry both nationally and internationally. The programme aims to develop graduates who can create high quality game content, design game levels and work with industry leading content creation tools, scripting languages and games engines.

World renowned Game Designer Brenda Romero, who recently visited LIT Clonmel for two days as part of a Fulbright Fellowship to Ireland, assisted in the design of this new programme (see image below). “A unique aspect of this Bachelor of Science programme from a national perspective is that all applicants must present a portfolio of relevant work. This will ensure that entrants to the programme have an aptitude and interest in the field of Game Art and Design”.

 

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The new programme was approved in October and they are currently in the process of promoting the course which will see its first intake of students in September 2015.

More information on the course can be found online.

If you have any questions about the course please contact andrew.crotty@lit.ie

ShipAntics Chpt 1 now free to download

Studio Powwow

Studio Powwow

To celebrate the release of Chapter 2, creators Studio POWWOW have made  Chapter 1 available for FREE worldwide n the App store now, with Chapter 2 available as a simple in-app purchase. Chapter 1 ‘ShipAntics – The Legend of the Kiki Beast’ was originally released in the summer of 2014.

Studio POWWOW was founded on the principle that young audiences’ viewing habits and behaviours have changed as the internet, mobile and tablet devices become an ever increasing part of the way people consume entertainment.

POWWOW creates entertainment brands with engaging stories and characters on multiple media platforms by bringing their experience of award-winning TV-quality animation, design and storytelling to interactive content and games.

Studio POWWOW are based in Dublin.

ShipAntics is published in association with Storytoys Entertainment Ltd., also based in Dublin.

Contact them at hello@studiopowwow.com

Squeazy: The Game released

Squeazy: The Game has just been released by a group of Irish teenagers from ManorHamilton in Co. Leitrim.

If you have heard the name before that might be because you heard about them after they won the Senior Category of the National Student Enterprise Awards and they were on various national media outlets with their game based around a science demonstration called the ‘Cartesian Diver’ which was affectionately known as the Squeazy.

Now the three, Matthew, Luke and Fergus, have made an app based on their original game and it can be downloaded  for FREE on iPhone/iPad, Android, Windows Phone and Amazon Devices.

 

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We were a bit intrigued by the group so I sent them down a few Qs. Here are their answers.

Q: What year are you in secondary school?
A: All members of Squeazy are in leaving cert in St. Clare’s Comprehensive in Manorhamilton.

Q: What are you all hoping to do after secondary school?
A: Mathew is looking at going into marketing, Luke teaching and Fergus is interested in science.

Q Who developed the App?
A: The app was developed by a 15 year old talented app developer called Jonathan White. He runs a business called Sillan Studios and he did  all the technical development of the app, whereas the other three came up with the ideas and marketing for the app.

Q:How long did the project take?
A: Development began in August 2014 and it was released on the 2nd of December.

Q: Are you still promoting and selling the physical squeazies?
A: We sell Squeazys, the toy, in Cogs the Brainshop in St. Stephens Green and also online via PayPal. Once we finish our leaving cert we plan to engage with the larger national retailers.

Q:  Where are they made?
A: All their Squeazys are handmade in our local headquarters (Mathew’s garage) and are made to comply with European Safety Standards.

Take a look at their launch trailer.

 

It was developed using the Unity3D game engine and the students would really appreciate the game development community in Ireland to support them and download the game.

Contact them at info@squeazy.eu

GameCraft Logo

Jolly Gamecraft

Last weekend saw the Jolly Gamecraft take place in Microsoft Ireland, Sandyford Industrial Estate in Dublin.

Gamecraft is a games jam event designed around building the gaming community. They allow game-makers to meet, share ideas, have fun, compete for prizes and most importantly make games! Usually they take place at weekends and are a great way to learn and improve your game making skills.

About 100 people turned up to take part in the Jolly Dec. event and they were treated to tutorials, pretty nice cookies and some nifty prizes. Of course they had to work for it. The Wrath of Kitty was the theme of the day and they had just one day to work on their game idea.

Fungus also got an outing – which explains the strange hats that some of the participants were wearing.

Don’t know what that is? It is an extension to Unity3D to help folks make story based games. It’s a great tool for learning the basics of programming and also for creating professional quality story games. Fungus is a free open source library and is fully compatible with the free version of Unity 3D. Check it out.

Well done to all the organisers. That was the 8th gamecraft of 2014.

Gd.ie popped in to snap a few photos.

 

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Fungus table

Fungus table

 

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Need Liquid in your game? Asset for Unity3D released.

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Physical Liquid Software, based out in the Nova UCD Innovation park, is a game and app development company primarily focusing on android and ios devices. They are currently working on “Advergaming” projects but as part of this work they have just released an asset for the Unity3D game engine called ‘Liquid Physics 2D’ (LP2D).

Liquid Physics 2D is, as the name suggests, a 2D physics engine plugin for Unity. It is based on a version of Box2D and LiquidFun (an extension of Box2D).

It’s an easy to use tool that allows you to create advanced physics based games and simulations within the unity engine.  It can simulate tens of thousands of particles in real time to create realistic fluid effects.

It can even simulate 1000’s of particles in real-time on modern mobile devices (ios and android).

Check out the android testbed app.

The asset is in continued development and is fully supported. There is a dedicated support forum for more information and asset support.

See also a recent article in the Examiner.

Check out the trailer below.

If you are interested in doing a review of the asset (and sharing it with us) drop us an email (info@gamedevelopers.ie) or PM us via twitter.

Games Fleadh, 2015.

fleadh logo-trans

 

We have just received advance notice of the date and theme for Games Fleadh 2015, Wed., March 11th!

Games Fleadh 2015 will consist of the Game Studio Endless Runner competition, Direct X Endless Runner challenge and Robocode as well as Games Pro talks by Industry veterans (including a video link to Brenda Romero for a key note talk).

The winners and runners up of the Game Studio competition will have the opportunity to present their entries to the Romeros and the UC Santa Cruz green light committee for feedback and suggestions.

This year the event is in association with Microsoft and other partners.

More info soon but mark March 11th in your diaries.

Also keep on eye on their website.

On Now – Fused – a live adventure game

Those of you who were at the recent Prototype Play festival in the Project Theatre in Dublin will have had a chance to playtest this new game/theatre event created by Dan Bergin, who also works for SixMinute, an independent game design studio in Dublin.

FUSED is an immersive work of fiction, a live-video-game-experience channeled through theatre.

It opened on Dec 1st (8.15pm) in the Project Arts Centre and run till Dec 13th.

The show aims to bring back the excitement of playing classic point-and-click graphic adventure games like The Secret of Monkey Island series, Broken Sword, Grim Fandango or Telltale’s Walking Dead – games that have marked the youth of today’s 30-year-olds. The game is targeted at students, young professionals and people fascinated in new technologies or who are nostalgic for their first encounters with the digital world. Its ambition is to give the audience agency in developing the story.

It’s also an interesting example of a collaboration between a vibrant, thriving Dublin game scene and theatre scene. In this project, the creator of FUSED, Dan Bergin, and graphic designer Robert Semple, harness the experience they’ve gained through the years with SixMinute.

Tickets: Box Office, Monday – Saturday, 11am – 7pm

Tel: +353 1 8819 613 or  box-office@projectartscentre.ie

http://projectartscentre.ie/event/fused-2/

Tickets €15.00/12.00


Fused-3-2-1024x726

 

Redesign Update

gamedevelopers-ie-v3-live

 

The current iteration of the GameDevelopers.ie is a work in progress.

Since August we have completed our change in infrastructure, and are running nicely on our new server. We have ported over a lot of content and set up our twitter account.

The to do list is still quite long however. We still have an extensive archive of content to tag and bring back online. There are design and CSS issues still outstanding. We are also aware that we need to make the site more mobile friendly, and this is going to be part of phase 2.

In order to see what else our members feel that our community needs, we have been reviewing our survey results and we would like to report them here to you.

Over the summer and early Autumn we conducted a user survey. 40 people responded (thanks everyone who participated), of which 88% were male. Respondents were aged from 35 years and below.

Over half were in the games industry, while another quarter were in the ‘other category’, possibly working in other industries.

Many had been members of gd.ie for 11 years but equally some had only become users in the past one or two years. The image below shows an early design from 2003.

GD_Concept1

For respondents the home page, forums, news, features, events and jobs were the most regularly visited pages.

Company information and college information was only occasionally visited and personal profiles even less.

When it comes to contributing and getting involved people had posted on the forums and attended shindigs but there was less involvement in submitting content bar the odd job or event. Hopefully we have made it much easier to submit content with the new site, and a number of you have done so.

When asked about new features, or new channels we might start using, the most popular was twitter using a specific hashtag (now set up…@gamedev_ie).

This was followed by a Youtube Channel, an email summary mailout and finally a Facebook newsfeed. The last three are in development and will be launched as more volunteers get involved.

Other notable suggestions include (our answers included):

 

  • A section for newbies to share information on tech, tools – The new forums have this, and we take submissions!
  • Change the new font! – We can and as we tweak the design this may change again:)
  • A useful calendar with exports to Google Calendar – now available
  • Better UI.  – We’re half way there
  • Make work more like a news site – we’ll publish what people send us
  • It should work seamlessly cross-platform on mobiles / tablets – planned in phase 2
  • Regular reporting of calls for submissions as part of a site digest e-mail (i.e. the following events/expos/talks are now open for submissions etc.) – Our #IrishGameDev newsletter is opening soon
  • Interviews and conversations with Irish industry support groups – enterprise Ireland, EU funding bodies etc.  We need more people to get involved to help us to do these – they might make great college or side projects…
  • Highlight new faces, up and coming talent. – We are trying to do this now through our news section
  • Shout about new games – We are doing this through our showcase of Irish made games

 

Just over 40% of respondents offered to help out – and we will be in touch when we get the technical side of things settled.

We are still seeking volunteers, and we can’t get the site being what the community wants without everyone chipping in, whether it’s submitting news and updates, information about your games or feature length articles.

We could also do with a little finance every now and then too – thanks to Demonware for supporting our work for the past few years!

Thanks everyone for the  feedback and the patience.