IGDA Scholarships now open

 

The IGDA and the IGDA Scholarship Committee are delighted to announce that the 2016 IGDA Scholarship Program is kicking off with applications for the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in 2016. The program is open to all students and recent graduates in fields related to game development. Applications should be submitted by 15 December 2015, please see http://scholars.igda.org/ for further information.

GDC will take place 14-18 March 2016 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, USA. The world’s largest and longest-running professionals-only game industry event features over 400 lectures, panels, tutorials and round-table discussions on a comprehensive selection of game development topics taught by leading industry experts. Awarded to the best and brightest students in game development disciplines, the IGDA Scholars program gives recipients an unforgettable experience including an all-access pass, industry mentorship, and local studio tours.

IGDA Scholars in the past few years have had incredible opportunities above and beyond the awarded event passes as part of our program, including private Q&As with industry luminaries such as Jenova Chen, Brenda and John Romero, and Kellee Santiago. They’ve also toured game studios such as Zynga and Double Fine Productions and made connections with their mentors and fellow Scholars that last well after the conferences.

You can learn more about the program, its history and find out how to apply at http://scholars.igda.org. Please help us spread the word about this excellent opportunity for students from around the world by following and retweeting us on Twitter @IGDA_Scholars.

Check out this new video about the scholarships and please share with a talented game dev student today!

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvdR73PzcMI[/embedyt]

Grandpa Pip’s Birthday released

Some well know local devs have just announced the release of ‘Grandpa Pip’s Birthday’.

 

Made with the Fungus SDK and Unity3d, Grandpa Pip’s Birthday is a short and light 2d, side scrolling, point and click adventure game.

 

“Welcome to Pipsville, a back water town at the far flung corners of a distant land. Things are very quiet because it’s Samhain, a sleepy time in Autumn when not much happens. But as always, someone is creating a drama. This time its a birthday party and an unexpected visit from an undead army. Tisk, how typical, mountains out of molehills I say. How about you pop in and see if you can set things right?”

 

 

Name your own price. Available on Windows, Mac and Linux.

 

Well done all.

Follow the key devs @johnokane @snozbot

 

Free Course in Games & Interactive Technologies

Pulse College launches FREE Course in Gaming & Interactive Technologies for long term unemployed

 

Pulse College, the education faculty of world renowned Windmill Lane Studios, specialising in education programmes in Music, Audio, Filming, Gaming and Animation announced a FREE 33 Week Course in Self Employment for Gaming & Interactive Technologies.

 

Supported by Solas, this course is offered through Momentum Skills who fund free education projects to allow 6,500 jobseekers (who are unemployed for 12 months or more) to gain skills and to access work opportunities in identified growing sectors.

Pulse College aim to educate and incubate new gaming and technology entrepreneurs through a 3 stage approach:

 – Elevation: educating participants with the required skills in Gaming & Interactive Technologies

 – Acceleration: coaching and mentoring participants on their new profound skills in commercialising their ideas

 – Incubation: providing support and resources for new entrepreneurial start-ups

pulse72

Speaking about the course, Head of Gaming & Animation at Pulse College David Williams stated ‘on completion of the course students will have developed their own business, bringing it from an idea into a real venture, with a large pool of talent readily available from other students in the college, people within the incubation and from those within the community that is present here at Pulse College, participants will be supported from an all round approach.’

Pulse College has been educating students for more than 20 years in audio, film and gaming. ‘If you want to become part of one of the most inspiring and exciting industries in Ireland, now is your opportunity’. – Naomi Moore, CEO of Gaming at Pulse College.

For more see: http://www.pulsecollege.eu/contact/

Contact Sarah Walsh – Momentum Project Manager. E: Sarah.Walsh@pulsecollege.eu

Imirt Board elected

Imirt

Imirt: The Irish Game Makers Association represents game makers from all disciplines throughout Ireland, both analog and digital. They have just held online elections to elect their first board.

The board members are:

  • Chris Gregan – has worked in the games industry for 13 years. He is currently a founder at Fungus Games Ltd. and is the author of Fungus, a free open source tool for easily creating storytelling games in Unity 3D.
  • John Halloran – has been working in the games industry for over 10 years. Currently, he is the CEO of SixMinute, a Dublin games studio which he co-founded in 2013. He led SixMinute’s most recent funding round and their ongoing partnership with Finnish game developer Fingersoft. Before SixMinute, he was a founding member of PopCap’s Dublin studio set up in 2004.
  • Owen Harris – Game Designer, Lecturer and lover of all things playful. When not working on DEEP, he is the studio head of the award winning bitSmith Games and is the course head of DIT’s new BA in Game Design.
  • Stephen Kelly – Stephen has worked in the games and animation industry for over 8 years and is Co-Founder, Head of Games and Interactive at Studio POWWOW.
  • Colm Larkin – Colm is a programmer, game designer and board game enthusiast. He launched his first commercial game ‘Guild of Dungeoneering’ in 2015. He also helps run 1GAM Dublin, a gamedev meetup where you are encouraged to share rough prototypes, which has been held monthly since April 2013.
  • John O’Kane – John O’Kane has worked in the games industry for 8 years. He was previously Co-Founder, Designer, and Lead Programmer at SnowGlobe Games and a Programmer at Instinct Technology. John helps to run Inis Spraoi, a yearly game maker festival retreat. He is currently a founder at Snozbot and Fungus and he develops small free and paid games.
  • Brenda Romero – award-winning game designer, artist and Fulbright scholar who entered the video game industry in 1981. Romero co-owns Loot Drop and Romero Games.

Gamedevelopers.ie would like to congratulate everyone who was elected and wish them well in their role supporting the Irish game development community.

There will be an AGM in November for all members which will be a great opportunity to hear from the new board.

If you would like to join Imirt you can do so online at http://www.imirt.ie/join/

It costs €20.

TIGA Game Industry Awards 2015

Tiga logo2

Two Irish companies have been nominated for the 2015 Game Industry Awards.

TIGA is the non-profit trade association representing the UK’s games industry. Members include independent games developers, in-house publisher-owned developers, outsourcing companies, technology businesses and universities.

Each year they organise the TIGA’s Games Industry Awards to focus on the best games in the industry over the last 12 months as well as highlighting and rewarding best practice from those contributing to its long-term success.

This year there are two Irish nominees –

– GameSparks  has been nominated in the best middleware, engines, tools and technology

–  Hay Ewe by Rocket Rainbow has been nominated for best game of the year, 2015.

We see that Havok is also a sponsor!

The results will be announced at an awards ceremony in London on Thursday 12th November attended by national and trade press media. See all the nominees here.

Havok acquired by Microsoft

150_havok_front

It has been announced this month that Microsoft has acquired Havok, the Dublin based physics company, from Intel.

Below is the press release.

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

As we welcome Havok to the Microsoft family, we will continue to work with developers to create great games experiences, and continue to license Havok’s development tools to third party partners. We believe that Havok is a fantastic addition to Microsoft’s existing tools and platform components for developers, including DirectX 12, Visual Studio, and Microsoft Azure.

Havok is a fantastic technology supplier in the games industry and the leading real time physics creator. We saw an opportunity to partner together to deliver great experiences for our fans. Throughout the company’s history, they’ve partnered with Activision, EA, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Sony and many others to create more than 600 games including Halo, Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, Destiny, Dark Souls and The Elder Scrolls.

Microsoft’s acquisition of Havok continues our tradition of empowering developers by providing them with the tools to unleash their creativity to the world.   We will continue to innovate for the benefit of development partners. Part of this innovation will include building the most complete cloud service, which we’ve just started to show through games like “Crackdown 3.”

Havok shares Microsoft’s vision for empowering people to create worlds and experiences that have never been seen before, and we look forward to sharing more of this vision in the near future.