GDC scholarships

There are currently two ways to try and reduce your costs for getting to GDC in San Francisco next year.

IGDA scholarships

The IGDA Scholarships program have announced that 18 scholarship recipients to GDC will receive a travel reimbursement stipend courtesy of the IGDA Foundation’s generous donors and recent fundraising efforts including being featured in the recent Steam Humble Jumbo Bundle. This stipend amount will be based on the university location where the student is based.

-Only full-time undergraduate, graduate or doctoral (or similar) students, or former students who graduated in the 6 months prior to the event they are applying for, are eligible

– Applicants must be 18 years of age or older as of the date of the event. (Also note that certain aspects of some events may carry higher age restrictions).

-Applicants must be IGDA members in good standing. If you are not currently an IGDA Member, you must join the IGDA before applying for the scholarship. All applications will be verified. If you aren’t currently a member, you can join today.

Just a few weeks remain to apply for GDC IGDA Scholarships, now Including Travel Stipend!
Applications due 15 December 2015!
Learn more at http://bit.ly/1MOoEgs

Imirt Scholarships 

Imirt, the Irish game makers associated also has 10 scholarships available for members. Their scholarship do not include flights and accommodation.

The judges will prioritise applications that:

  • emphasize diversity in the Irish game maker community.
  • highlight those who are under represented.
  • enable knowledge sharing between different locations, creative mediums, backgrounds or skills.
  • benefit the applicant’s experience and/or skills.
  • inform the wider games community as to what’s happening in Ireland.
  • contribute back to the Irish game maker community.
Applications due 3rd Dec.

Zap that Code

new-cover-v7

A new book aimed at younger coders will provide source code for twenty classic game types. Young coders can type in the code directly and then run it. “I wanted to createa book that would get non-coders interested and allow them to have fun creating games using code.” – Gary Plowman, Gazzapper Games.

Gary Plowman is the Founder of Gazzapper Games (www.gazzapper.com), an Indie Game Studio based out of Dublin, Ireland.  They have several titles available on Google Play and over a million downloads. Gary got his first computer in the eighties, a ZX Spectrum, which he used to learn Sir Clive Sinclair’s BASIC. Gary says that learning early and using a simple language like Sinclair BASIC was the key to keeping him interested in coding at such a young age.


“I wasn’t the kind of kid to spend all my time coding, and computer games were a huge distraction. Playing soccer with my mates meant I didn’t have the time to devote to learning machine code. So learning BASIC was the compromise and it does provide a great basis for coding – There are many more high performing high-level languages now than there was back then and most new languages try to be simple and easier to understand. I still feel that BASIC is a great starting point for younger coders that need more time to develop.”

Gary decided to write a book containing up to twenty games in code form, which he wrote especially for this book. These Type-In Listings are full games (including rudimentary graphics) in code form. The code consists of line numbers and the coding instructions. The BASIC language that is used is very similar to English and similar to logical task it performs making it ideal for new coders. In the eighties, before high street shops sold games directly, many magazines would publish games for the user to type in directly. Many of the top developers got their start coding using BASIC before moving into professional development.

The book is called ZX Spectrum Games Code Club and it contains many different game types including a clone of Flappy Bird, ZX Breakout, Astral Invaders, Numbers Game (math-based) and simplified Tetris-type game plus many more.

Many countries including the UK, Europe and United States are looking to boost interest in coding with younger pupils and trying to get the parents to help encourage them to join code clubs and similar initiatives.

More information on the book can be found at http://gazzapper.com/games/zx-spectrum-code-club/ 

About Us:
Gazzapper Games is Indie Mobile Gaming Studio from Ireland. They have many titles in Google Play Store and have more in development. Gary Plowman has been involved in games and technology businesses for many years and has a varied background of knowledge. He is also a web application entrepreneur and also the Founder of Testimonial Robot.

Imirt Game Showcase

In the last two weeks Imirt, the new organisation representing analogue and digital game makers in Ireland, have put together a showcase of some of the great games being developed by talented game developers in Ireland.

Editing was done by EndLife Studios and Geoff Newman and Vinny McCreith did the music.

Visit http://www.imirt.ie/ for more information.

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diZreJp4Ix4[/embedyt]

 

 

Execution Labs is looking for indies

Execution labs

Execution Labs in Montreal, Canada is now taking applications for the winter 2016 cohort of the Execution Labs Accelerator programme. The deadline is  November 22nd.

Execution Labs is run by a team including Jason Della Rocca and it brings indie teams with a commercial orientation into a three month mentorship and development programme. All of the games/teams they get involved with are cool, innovative, fun games, but the emphasis is on commerciality and building sustainable studios. When gd.ie visited the space last year they had teams from Canada, North American and Europe.

Full details on key dates etc. at:

http://executionlabs.com/2015/10/apply-now-to-the-xla-winter-2016-cohort/

http://executionlabs.com/programs/accelerator/

Companies which have ‘graduated’ include Outerminds, who had huge success with Legend of the Brofist, hitting top grossing mobile charts within 24hrs this Autumn! Kitfox, is also a graduate and they were on stage with Moon Hunters at Sony’s booth in E3. They also helped 9dots score nearly $1m in production funding from CMF. The Steam version of Secret Ponchos was launched by Switchblade Monkeys to rave reviews. Etc, etc.

They have a fancy promo video featuring several alumni: https://vimeo.com/141203622

Teams only stay in Montreal for 3 months, after which they ship you back home. They are NOT backed by the Canadian government and they are NOT a scheme to attract studios to move to Canada. In case you were wondering.