//The BSc/MComp in Games Computing at the Lincoln School of Computer Science was commended in the Lincoln Student Union Awards 2013, under the “Best Course Award” category.
The recent upgrade of facilities for this course has been greatly appreciated by students. The exemplary use of blackboard as a timely communication tool particularly stood out to the panel as a leading example of how virtual learning spaces can be used effectively.
Well done to everyone involved in delivering this programme!
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“The Seven Day Gentlemanly Game Challenge”, as organised by Sean Oxspring, has officially started today. It is a week-long Game Developing Challenge for any students and staff in the Lincoln School Of Computer Science to take part in! As the name suggests, The Seven Day Gentlemanly Game Challenge will require you and a team of up to four others to make a game based around the general theme of gentlemanliness and well-to-do things (e.g. top hats, monocles, steampunk etc.) in seven day’s time! Ladies are also very welcome and highly encouraged to partake in this challenge, of course.
We announced that mechanics from a voting poll will be used for the challenge. The mechanics are:
We are hoping that you will be able to come up with innovative and creative ideas based on the themes we are giving you. If you are finding it difficult to come up with an idea – do not panic. You have a whole week and plenty of time to develop your game! Please recall that both themes must be used in your game to be eligible to enter the competition.
Feel free to chat about your game development towards the game challenge on Facebook, Blogs and Twitter! We even got our own hashtag: #7DGC .
If you have any questions, feel free to contact Sean Oxspring for any enquiries!
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It is time once again to spend a week doing what everyone loves – developing awesome video-games! Based on the success of The Seven Day Game Challenge, Sean Oxspring has decided to put on another game-jam to celebrate the end of the year and the founding of his new games company Top Notch Studios – The Seven Day Gentlemanly Game Challenge!
As the name suggests, The Seven Day Gentlemanly Game Challenge will require you and a team of up to four others to make a game based around the general theme of gentlemanliness and well-to-do things (e.g. top hats, monocles, steampunk etc.) in seven day’s time! Ladies are also very welcome and highly encouraged to partake in this challenge, of course.
Similar to last year, there is a voting process involved, this time around, partakers are requested to vote on the game mechanics the games that are being developed should include! Click here to vote! Choose up to three mechanics to vote for. You can vote once every six hours. Please recall that you can win up to £100 of gentlemanly prizes!
If you are interested in participating in The Seven Day Gentlemanly Game Challenge, then come along to Complab B, 3rd floot MHT Building, at 5:00PM on Friday 24th May 2013. Bring your team of designers, programmers and artists. In this session we will be going over the rules of the game jam and revealing the extra mechanics that you game must include!
We’ll see you there, and let’s make some jolly spiffing games! Ho, ho, fabulous!
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The well known games industry figure, Professor Richard Bartle, will return to the University of Lincoln to give a talk about his recent video-games related work. Professor Richard Bartle is considered as one of the pioneers of the massive online game industry, and authored the most comprehensive treatment of virtual world design to-date book entitled “Designing Virtual Worlds”. He will discuss the narrative aspects and storytelling in video-games.
The talk will be given on Friday, 26th April 2013 between 15:00 – 16:00 in the Jackson Lecture Theatre, which is situated in the Main Building of the campus. No registration is required, just pop to the lecture theatre on time. We hope to see you all there!
//During the course of the weekend of the 9th and 10th March 2013, the computer laboratories of the University of Lincoln were buzzing with excitement, madness and traces of uranium. People reported that they could not fulfil certain computer activities with their shoes on, some others requested their “bro” if they even script, while others were wondering how their baguette would even be able to shoot. Bystanders described that over seventy individuals from many universities (e.g. University of Leicester, De Montfort University, University of Lincoln) merely wished to ‘get their hands dirty’ on some activities that involve developing original, juicy and fun applications, which some of us know as ‘video-games’. This is only a subset of what could be described as a rather peculiar behaviour. However though, such activities were most common, most normal and seen as everyday routine amongst the participants of CanJam 2013.
Canjam 2013 was the second major video-game jam organised by the University of Lincoln Computing Society (ULCS) in cooperation with the Lincoln School of Computer Science (LSoCS). Based on the major success of the ULCS GameJam in 2012, CanJam attracted over 70 competitors, regardless of their background, knowledge, experience or ability to get their hands dirty developing a video-game in less than twenty four hours. Developers from the video-games industry (Crytek GmbH and Rockstar Games) judged games based on their originality, juiciness, fun-factor and best use of the given themes. Over £500 worth of prizes were awarded to the category winners alongside many honourable mentions.
This year, the crowd-sourced themes were based on objects and concepts. On Saturday morning, competitors were requested to submit one object (.e.g. moustaches) and one concept (e.g. smuggling) into the theme suggestion box. Judges chose the most fun and original contribution. This year, they settled on the themes of Uranium (object) and Madness (concept). Following the announcement of the themes, participants rushed towards their teams to discuss game ideas, development plans and workload distributions. Actually, some of them preferred to head towards the local pubs to find some much required inspiration.
CanJam 2013 had a great line-up of representatives of the video-games industry, including Rockstar Games and Crytek GmbH. They took their time throughout the event to chat to all participants, and they provided useful feedback on the games. On Sunday afternoon they independently judged every game submission throughout the game presentation session on Sunday afternoon. Judging was described as a most difficult task, as the judges strongly believed that all of the submissions were worth a prize.
We highly recommend to have a peek at the two minutes team interviews of Canjam 2013 participants on YouTube. Furthermore, some participants uploaded videos of their submissions (e.g. Atomic 92 Uranium Madness, Totally Illogical Meltdown). Additionally, Dmunkeys (GameArt Jinx) wrote a brilliant blog post about their experiences at CanJam, Oxyoxspring describes CanJam as the most tiring yet pleasurable Game-Jam experience, and David Saltares, one of the Crytek GmbH judges, underlines the tremendous effort of the organisers and takes his hat off for all participants.
There were more than 200 pictures taken throughout the event. They are all available on the public Canjam Facebook Page. We wish to thank Jonathan Woodliffe and Joshua O’Rourke (Follow him on Twitter) for their photography skills!
This was a great opportunity to show off students’ skills, to enjoy great fun times with other similarly minded people, to develop a game in teams up to four and to create a great piece of work for their portfolio!
See you all next year for CanJam 2014!