BAFTA Special Award for Brenda Romero

We are delighted to hear that BAFTA has announced that it will honour Brenda Romero with its Special Award during next week’s (Thurs the 6th of April) ceremony in London.

The accolade recognises not only her creative contribution to the games industry, but also her advocacy of the creative process and the work she has done in encouraging a new generation of game makers.

Brenda Romero said: “I am first and foremost grateful to BAFTA for recognising the artistic potential and power of games. This recognition is culturally critical for games overall. So for that, I am profoundly thankful. As for me? Genuinely, I am still in a state of shock, having been chosen. I’ve devoted my life to games – making them, teaching them, playing them – and to receive any honour from the community is incredible. But a BAFTA? It’s well beyond anything else.”

People in Ireland will be very familiar with Brenda’s work and Romero Games in now based in Galway, Ireland and Brenda is active with Imirt, the Irish Game Makers Association. There is a nice pic of the staff of Romero games on gamesindustry.biz here, with some familiar faces. We look forward to hearing more about their latest project.

On the night, the ceremony will be streamed live at twitch.tv/bafta.

BAFTA’s website will feature highlights, photography and winners’ interviews, as well as dedicated coverage on its social networks including Facebook (/BAFTA), Twitter (@BAFTAGames / #BAFTAGames), Instagram and Snapchat.

We recently announced that Brenda will also be teaching and directing the new MSc in Game Design and Development at the University of Limerick from Autumn 2017.

Full press release here.

Well done!

Updated: State of Play 2017 – Talks & Expo, 5th April

State of Play is Ireland’s premier Independent Game Maker Event hosted by the School of Media in the Dublin Institute of Technology, in conjunction with IMIRT, the Irish Game Makers association. This year it will take place on Wed the 5th of April.

From 18.30 there will be an exciting and eclectic mix of inspirational international & Irish Guest Speakers.

This will be followed by the ‘After Party’ which will take place once again on the Rooftop Bar in Odessa.

Speakers

Keynote this year will be the world renowned game maker Brenda Romero., who now lives and works in Ireland.

Other speakers have been confirmed for the night and you can see the full list at http://www.stateofplay.ie/

Tickets for Talks.

Check out https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/state-of-play-2017-irish-game-maker-expo-and-talks-sop17-tickets-32256399760?aff=efbevent for tickets for the evening event.

NOTE: The EXPO which takes place earlier in the day (1-5pm) is free. It is only the evening talks that you need a ticket for. If you wish to register to demonstrate at the EXPO or as a speaker please visit www.stateofplay.ie for more details. The EXPO will see developers, students and industry professionals demonstrating their work.

Call for Chapters: Contemporary Media Art in Ireland

For those who like to write about games this might be of interest (gd.ie).

“Submissions are invited for a collection of essays provisionally entitled, Contemporary Media Art in Ireland. This will be a volume of essays that provides a detailed account of born-digital art in an Irish context.

For the purposes of this collection, “Irish” is considered in the broadest and most inclusive sense, and suitable artists and/or works should simply demonstrate some significant connection to the island and/or relevant subject matters. “Contemporary media art” is an equally inclusive term, and includes any form of artistic practice that is rendered on a screen of any type: electronic literature, video games, film, interactive performances, or any other type of experimental screen fiction or multimodal production.

Artists and practitioners are welcome to discuss their own contributions, though all submissions need to be presented in a scholarly fashion using an appropriate critical framework.

Proposals

Proposals for 6,000-word chapters should be sent to j.c.osullivan@sheffield.ac.uk by June 1^st.

Proposals should be approximately 300-500 words in length, and give a clear indication of the proposed chapter’s content and significance. A biographical note should also be included.

Publisher

A number of academic presses have expressed interest in this manuscript, so a draft will now be prepared. All submissions will be peer-reviewed by the publisher.

Editor

James O’Sullivan is the Digital Humanities Research Associate at the University of Sheffield. His work has been published in a variety of interdisciplinary journals, including Digital Humanities Quarterly, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, and Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures. He edited Reading Modernism with Machines (Palgrave MacMillan 2016) alongside Shawna Ross. He is also a published poet, and the founder of New Binary Press.”

Q-Con XXIV

Now in its 24th year, Q-Con takes place annually in Queen’s University Belfast Students’ Union, and is a weekend long celebration of everything gaming and anime related, from eSports and Tabletop, to Cosplay and Movie Screens. Major events already confirmed to make a welcome comeback in 2017 include The Irish Video Game Orchestra, Q-Comedy Show, the Saturday night pub quiz, Club Q-Con across two floors and much more to be announced.

As always Q-Con’s award-winning roster of gaming competitions will be back with a bang, including a weekend-long League of Legends tournament, dozens of console tournaments from open until close every day, a huge timetable of traditional, tabletop and board gaming tournaments and lots more.

Anime fans can be the centre of attention again with a number of cosplay competitions planned, complementing our timetable of panels, workshops, screenings and unique events that won’t be found anywhere else!

Expect Q-Con’s trade hall and artists’ alley to be once again packed with everything you’ll need to make your weekend a memorable one, including Replay Games and many more – a full list will be confirmed as the weekend draws near.

Their immensely popular indie game developers area will be soon accepting applications – this will be announced in due course.

Last year over 5,500 attendees packed the Students’ Union building as well as the nearby Elmwood Hall and South Dining Hall. Once again, the event is expected to be a sell-out and attendees are encouraged to pre-register online to avoid disappointment.

SoP GameJam

DIT are running a gamejam for State of Play on the 1st of April.
It will be located at the grangegorman DIT campus.

Tickets cost 10 euro and give you free entry to state of play.
Each game will be shown at SoP and the crowd will vote on their favourite in order to enter to win cool prizes donated by DIT and GameCraft!

Food and Refreshments will be provided on the day we just ask that you bring your own mug!

Find the link to the Eventbrite here!

https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/state-of-play-gamejam-2017-tickets-32960361328

Irate Traffic by Polyonic Studios released on Android

Polyonic Studios is an independent games development studio based in Sligo. They are a team of three, who met in college studying games development. After leaving college they started Polyonic Studios and began development on Irate Traffic in August of 2016.

“There has been a sharp learning curve for all of us throughout the development process, but we learned a great deal from it and had fun doing it as well.

Today we are proud to officially announce the release of our new game, Irate Traffic on the Google Play Store.”

Irate Traffic is an endless runner where you control a vehicle weaving it’s way through oncoming traffic whilst trying to collecting coins on the road to buy new vehicles. With plenty of vehicles and five unique areas to speed through there’s plenty to keep you playing.

Download QR-Code

Irate Traffic

Developer: Polyonic Studios

Price: Free⁺

If you want to learn more about Polyonic Studios you can visit thier website: http://www.polyonicstudios.com

New MSc Game Design & Development in UL

Starting in the Autumn 2017 the University of Limerick is launching a new MSc Game Design & Development.

Led by Brenda Romero as course director, the MSc in Game Design & Development is a two-year program (level 9) which takes place over four semesters. Students are encouraged to use the summer break between years 1 and 2 to expand their game horizons, exploring experimental work and working on independent game projects. You can find a full break down of the core modules at http://www.ulgamedev.com/curriculum/

The course also has an impressive list of national and international people on their advisory board including people from Occulus, Microsoft, Insomniac and of course Romero Games.

Brenda told us that “With modules in Game Balance, System Design and Rapid Prototyping, this program is designed with the game designer or gameplay programmer in mind. I am particularly excited because it’s so much more affordable than similar education in the States, and it makes this field far more accessible. I look forward to welcoming our inaugural cohort of students in the fall.”

Prerequisites are a knowledge of programming and applicants must have a portfolio.

Applications are open until July 1.

For more visit http://www.ulgamedev.com/

Games Fleadh 2017 update

LIT Tipperary, will host Games Fleadh on Wednesday March 8th 2017, the annual colleges and schools game development competition, and the theme for the 2017 event is Racing Game.

Games Fleadh will also feature games development and research talks by industry veterans and researchers. The full list of speakers is now available on our Games conf page. Companies and organisations that will take part in the talks include Microsoft Ireland, EA, Imirt, Game Sparks and SimVirtua.

Games Fleadh 2017 is open to the public for free. Tickets can now be reserved on their tickets page.

For more follow @gamesfleadh on twitter or the hashtag #gamesfleadh.

The Games Co-Op. A new monthly meetup in Dublin

There is a new games meetup starting in the Liquor Rooms, Dublin, at 7pm on Tuesday, March 7th.

(ID REQUIRED!!! Over 18s event, and the venue were quite specific about everyone bringing ID.)

The Games Co-Op is a new, monthly, multi-discipline event that aims to bring people with different skills together to make awesome games – both digital and analog. We’re talking about bringing writers, musicians, artists, game designers and programmers together to meet new people and form new teams. At the same time, we want to provide a space for developers or students to just get eyes on their game and get good feedback from a large, mixed crowd.

Have a game you want to playtest? Bring it!
Looking for new team members? Find them here!
Just want to check out what’s going on or make new friends? You’re more than welcome!
There will be prizes for things!

ALSO

This first meetup is doubling as the official(ish?) post-Global Game Jam meetup so everyone can play what was made at the Irish jam sites back in late January. As Griffith College jam site organiser, Eoin Carrol said:

“The Global Game Jam® (GGJ) is the world’s largest game jam event taking place around the world at physical locations. It is the growth of an idea that in today’s heavily connected world, we could come together, be creative, share experiences and express ourselves in a multitude of ways using video games. The weekend stirs a global creative buzz in games, and it is all condensed into a 48 hour development cycle. The GGJ encourages people with all kinds of backgrounds to participate and contribute to this global spread of game development and creativity. Continuing the theme of togetherness, we would like to invite you to gather once more without the 48 hour deadline and enjoy some of the wonderful games created over the weekend. Even if you did not take part this year join us to see the creations and chat about the experience.”

A volunteer run information site on the games industry in Ireland (2002-2022)

Month – March 2017