Entries tagged with games - Channel 10

Using Games To Teach: G4LI Unveiled

sarahintampa — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:59:00 GMT

Microsoft is teaming up with a handful of universities to study if and how computer games can be useful in education for teaching students math, science, and technology. The research project has Microsoft working with NYU as well as City University of New York, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Parsons the New School for Design, and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Columbia’s Teachers College and NYU’s Polytechnic Institute. The test subjects in this study will be middle school students.

Why middle school? According to Ken Perlin, an NYU professor of computer science, in middle school many students “become discouraged or uninterested and pour their time at home into gaming. We think gaming is our starting point to draw them into math, science, and technology-based programs.”

The research study will be called the “Games for Learning Institute.” The budget is $3 million. Microsoft will be paying half with the universities chipping in for the other portion. The study hopes to discover what makes games compelling and playable and what elements make them effective for learning…that is, even they are effective for learning. The games used in testing will be deployed along with curricula to 19 NYC area schools where results in the classroom will be tracked. (via Wired Campus)

Gigs in Gaming: Part II

Laura — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:29:00 GMT

Every gamers dream is to eventually work in the gaming industry. Wouldn't it be great to help concept and build the games you get to play? Well, if that's your goal then getting a college degree in game design is a step in the right direction. Bellevue University is one of the schools that offer this program. The great thing about Bellevue is that if you don't feel like picking up and moving to Nashville, Tennessee- you don't have to! Bellevue University’s Bachelor of Science in Gaming and Simulation degree is a professional-level degree completion program offered completely online. Watch this clip for more details on gigs in gaming.

BlizzCon 08: Diablo III Class Design Panel

Sampy — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:08:00 GMT

One of the first panels I attended was the Diablo III Class Design talk featuring Jay Wilson and other members of the D3 team. We had just witnessed the unveiling of the brand spankin' new Wizard class so this panel promised to give us a sneak peak behind the newest defender of Sanctuary as well as other behind the scenes information. They talked about the skill system and how animations and graphics feed back into making a class shine.

The D3 designers want to give players that glass cannon that so many of them love. Sure it can blow things to pieces but get in their face and they aren't exactly the sturdiest of heroes. The Wizard is for that player who looks at the character selection screen and says, "I want to blow stuff up." For those Diablo 2 fans out there, this is an iteration on the fan favorite Sorceress class but with a different focus. Rather than summoning the elemental powers of Fire, Ice, and Lightning, a Wizard uses what Blizzard is calling "High Magic." This involves channeling the raw forces of the universe. The designers described the powers warping the laws of physics, weather control, and even time control to lay waste to foes. They even went into detail of the history of the Wizard. "She didn't study for her Conjuration class... but she aced it," one developer joked. "Her teachers said, 'Don't study that, it's forbidden.' So she said, 'That's what I want to learn.' We'll have to see if that gets her into trouble down the line." Take a look at how she looks in the preview video and you can see how this plays into character design.

They showed off a few skills for the Wizard. Magic Missile, a fantasy classic and very useful for shooting into the darkness, is the first spell a Wizard uses. In raw numbers terms, it's not much different than a Fireball or Ice Bolt but the designers explained that even a simple choice like this has design implications down the road. Players expect a Fireball spell to upgrade into burning damage or an explosion, an Ice Bolt slowing foes or freezing them. A Magic Missile, however, fires more and more bolts as it increases in power or starts homing in on targets. By starting from here, more skills start to come into view as the design evolves.

The other Wizard skills detailed were:
Electrocute - Part of the weather control power set, it's like a beefed up Chain Lightning spell that bounces electricity from target to target.
Slow Time - This is the bubble that the Wizard uses in the preview video. Time control isn't something you see often in RPG games, especially multiplayer. They originally wanted the slow to be gamewide but the implications for multiplayer seemed pretty un-fun. As it stands, it's a great defensive power that really makes the Wizard feel powerful.
Disintegrate - Another pen and paper RPG classic, this powerful spell rarely makes it into computer RPGs. It began it's life as a Barbarian skill called great swing. The idea was for the player to hold down the mouse button and build up a big attack. For the barbarian though, it ended up not being very fun. Monsters would shoot the player from range, well meaning friends would kill the foe before he got too close, etc. On the Wizard, however, holding down the button and sweeping firey death across the battlefield is pretty fun. As the spell hits a single target, it "heats up" doing more and more damage.

The next bit of the panel was about the skill system. They went through a ton of iterations. I chose one of the craziest above to show you that they really considered everything. They have a saying at Blizzard though, "Different but worse isn't better, better is better." This brought them back to something a little closer to those who've played Diablo II. Check it out:

On the left of each tier, you can see active skills. These are just like the kind of abilities you spend points on in Diablo II. To the right, you can see passive skills that allow you to beef up your abilities without adding too many actions to your bar. They want to keep that Diablo feel of fast clicking action rather than something like World of Warcraft where you need at least a dozen skills. Now what are those little circles under the active skills you ask? Why, those are Rune slots of course!

For those who can remember way back to the original Diablo, skills dropped from books. They liked the way this mirrored the random drop feel of items but it was too random. Runes are a middle ground between D1 and D2. The runes aren't class specific and can be put in any skill. The trick is that each skill changes differently depending on what rune you put into it. A lethality rune makes Electrocute cause foes it kills to explode and damage everything around it. Also as pointed out many times, explosions are cool; cheers showed that they were right when they said, "we have our finger on the pulse of the Diablo community." Multi-strike causes the Witch Doctor's Flame Skull to skip across the ground before exploding and the Wizard's teleport spell to create duplicates of the caster to confuse foes.

After covering classes, the technical effects designer talked a bit about player skills and monster deaths. Each class has their own feel: Barbarians display great physical power, Witch Doctor's use various voodoo items and swarms to damage foes, and the Wizard was described in two words: Light Show. All of these help add a visceral feel to playing Diablo. Of course one of the best parts of Diablo is watching hordes of monsters die before you. They added basic physics to monsters so they would fall as they were cut down but didn't stop there. Critcial deaths can occur with crushing swings, exploding with blood. Different damage types leave monsters in pieces or glowing with purple energy. Disintegrate leaves nothing behind and swarm leave only bones. All of this plays into the fun of Diablo: battling the minions of the Lord of Terror and mowing down his hordes.

All in all, Diablo III is looking like a great edition to the Diablo series. It still looks a ways off at this point but what I've seen so far makes me quite excited.

Are you excited about Diablo III? What class are you going to play? Let us know what you think!

New Ultimate Extras

sarahintampa — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:03:00 GMT

Vista Ultimate users recently got a nice surprise: a handful of new Ultimate Extras have been made available for download. These Extras include new DreamScenes, soundscapes, and a fun puzzle game called Tinker. The four new DreamScenes are simply four different variations on one image of clouds and sky, each with a unique color scheme. These are great for those of us who want to use DreamScenes but wanted a background that wasn’t too busy as some of the others were. The sky image is much simpler and can still be enjoyed even if you decide to cover it with icons.

The real winner from this recent update, though, is the new game called Tinker. (Click here to see a video). This is a fun little puzzle game that features a character called Tinker, a robot that some say is reminiscent of Wall-E. In the game, a creation of Fuel Industries, your goal is to navigate Tinker through various obstacles in order to complete each level. It may sound easy, but it’s not as easy as you think. However, it is addictive, so be warned - you might end up playing it for much longer than you anticipated! There are 60 levels in all, and if you complete the whole game, you can actually build more levels by downloading the editor used by the team. You can then share those levels you made with your friends.

Ultimate Extras Team: Thank you! This one rocked.

XNA Game Studio 3.0 Beta Now Available

Nic — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:38:00 GMT

XNA Game Studio 3.0 Beta is now available to download with tones of new features including support for the new Zune 3.0 firmware, Rich Presence and Invites.

Download here: http://creators.xna.com/en-us/3.0beta_mainpage

More info on the XNA team blog here: http://blogs.msdn.com/xna/archive/2008/09/16/xna-game-studio-3-0-beta-is-go.aspx

What's new?

Zune

Compatibility with the upcoming Zune 3.0 Firmware release.
Improved deployment stability.
Support for Zune deployment on Windows Vista x64 Systems!
You can now use the Remote Performance Monitor for Zune games.

Xbox 360

Xbox 360 project templates (You will not be able to develop on the Xbox 360 until our final release. We felt this was important to include so that you could get projects converted over and look at the system, even if you are not able to run the games, yet).
Support for the Big Button Pad.

Framework & Visual Studio Features

Enumerate and play back media on your Windows computer or Xbox 360.
Simple sound effect support on Windows computers and Xbox 360.
Support for Rich Presence (lets friends know what’s going on in your game).
Support for Invites (ask your friends to join you in a multiplayer game) and Join Session In Progress (after you see what your friends are doing, you can join their current session with just a couple of button presses, even if that’s a different game to the one you are currently playing)
Compress your content and save space with the new content compression features!
ClickOnce packaging support for distributing your XNA Framework games on Windows.
Upgrade your project from XNA Game Studio 2.0 using the Project Upgrade Wizard!
Take screen captures of your game running on Zune through the XNA Game Studio Device Center.
Support for .NET language features like Linq
Create multiple content projects and leverage cross project synchronization in Visual Studio.
FBX importer improvements: read materials containing multiple textures, and export custom shader materials directly out of Max or Maya.

Microsoft's Holiday Preview - Windows Vista Powered PC's and Accessories

Laura — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:36:00 GMT

This Holiday season is certain to be merry considering all the great new products being offered to you from Microsoft Hardware, Vista powered machines and Games for Windows. Check out some of the sexy new Dell laptops, BlueTrack mice and of course...some great games for Windows like Fallout 3 and Lego Batman.

Also-make sure to check out what you can expect from Windows Mobile and Xbox 360.

Wii on PC

Laura — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:43:00 GMT

The Microsoft Research Summit showed off some amazing new technology and also some REALLY fun games. The experts at the University of Central Florida have created multiple ways to incorporate the motion sensing device used with Nintendo's Wii, on the PC. Take a look at all the games...

Schizoid For XBox LIVE Arcade

sarahintampa — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:03:00 GMT

Congratulations to Torpex Games for shipping Schizoid on the Xbox LIVE Arcade! The game is the first game to be made commercially available on the Xbox 360 that was built entirely with the XNA Game Studio. Not only that, but the game made Penny Arcade’s PAX10 list, too. According to the XNA blog, gameplay in Schizoid involves controlling red and blue ships and ramming them into enemies of the same color to destroy them. There are 120+ levels that can be played in either single-player or co-op mode. To learn more about the game or to see more screenshots, check out this page on xbox.com.

Xbox 360 at E3 2008

Laura — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:07:00 GMT

The games have begun and Microsoft's Xbox 360 came full force with their showings for this years E3. There's exciting news about an all new dashboard, a partnership with Netflix, and of course TONS of cool games. Take a look at some highlights from their press conference here and see demos of Fallout 3, Gears Of War 2 and of course...the long awaited and stunningly beautiful, Final Fantasy XIII. Plus a few extra goodies including a live musical performance and some fun surprises. Enjoy!

Olympics Are Coming To Media Center

sarahintampa — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:16:00 GMT

The 2008 Beijing Olympics are nearly here and along with the Silverlight-powered NBCOlympics website, the Microsoft/NBC partnership will also bring us video from the Olympic Games right to our Media Center PCs. These videos will be made available as clips on Vista Media Center and organized into channels based on event (e.g. swimming, gymnastics, track & field, etc.) The service, called "Olympics On the Go," won't be offering live coverage, but will be providing "up-to-HD quality" automatic downloads with help from digital content provider, Wavexpress's TVTonic. Because the content is downloaded instead of streamed, the footage can be watched whether you're online or not. And since Media Center extenders like the Xbox 360 let you view content on other devices besides a PC, you can watch the Olympics events you want to see from any room in your home. Best of all, this service will be completely free!

Impulse Brings Software and Games Straight to the Desktop

sarahintampa — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:17:00 GMT

Stardock, the company behind Windows skinning software like WindowBlinds and Object Desktop, have just released a new product called Impulse. This new tool is a platform for digital distribution that lets you quickly and easily download games and other software to your PC’s desktop. Via Impulse, you can get access to all sorts of games from casual games to first-person shooters to RPGs to puzzles and a lot more. In addition to the games, Impulse can also distribute the company’s other popular products like like WindowBlinds, ObjectDock, CursorFX, TweakVista, DeskScapes, SkinStudio, MyColors, as well as 3rd party software like AVG anti-virus or Corel Office. Impulse is a free download, but the programs themselves are not.

Geography Tetris

sarahintampa — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:22:00 GMT

Here's a much more fun way to learn geography than just staring at a map - a game called Statetris lets you learn geography by playing an online game, similar to Tetris, where states or countries are the blocks which you must move or rotate to fit them into the correct locations. The Tetris board will be a shape of a map and the "pieces" drop down from the top. Using the arrow keys, you move the pieces to where they belong on the map. There are three levels to play - easy, medium, and hard. There are games for USA, UK, Europe, Africa, and more. (via Digital Inspiration)

A Big List of Popfly Games

sarahintampa — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:09:00 GMT

The folks on the Popfly team are keeping a list of their favorite games made by regular Popfly users over on the Popfly wiki. The games are categorized as Shooter, Adventure, Arcade, Puzzle, and Other. It's pretty impressive how many people have made games in such a short amount of time - something that speaks to the ease of using the Popfly game creator, I suppose.
Some of these games are pretty funny, too, featuring characters like an axe-throwing baby, a farting monster, a hungry pea, evil apples, and more. But I'm still a fan of the "Arrington in Space" one myself.

fmx & Silverlight

lorigros — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:29:00 GMT

Vom 5. – 8. Mai fand in Stuttgart die 13. fmx Konferenz statt – Europas größte Konferenz zum Thema Animationen, Effekte, Games und Digital Media – veranstaltet von der Filmakademie Baden Württemberg. Microsoft war zum ersten Mal als einer der Hauptsponsoren mit einem großen Stand und einer Xbox-Lounge vertreten, an der sich die Besucher mit einer Tüte Popcorn bei Guitar Hero und anderen Xbox-Spielen vom Konferenzstress erholen konnten. Am Stand präsentierte Microsoft dem interessierten Publikum aus der Games-, Medien- und Designbranche neue Technologien wie Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft Popfly und Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth.

Ich war dabei und habe vor Ort mit Steffen Ritter, Microsoft Designer Marketing Manager über alles rund um die fmx und natürlich auch über sein Lieblings-Thema Silverlight gesprochen. Auch zu sehen in diesem Video, ein paar coole Silverlight Demos, vorgestellt von Oliver Scheer, Microsoft Developer Evangelist.

Die Demos findet man auch hier:

http://silverlight.net/themes/silverlight/community/gallerydetail.aspx?cat=5
http://silverlight.idvsolutions.com/
http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/
http://www.bluerosegames.com/brg/games.aspx
http://home.comcast.net/~barney.ross/RubikCube/RubikCubeTestPage.html
http://silverlight.net/

How To Build Games With the Popfly Game Creator

sarahintampa — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:13:00 GMT

By now, you've heard about the Popfly Game Creator and you're ready to get started building your first game. Great! But what do you do? Well luckily, there is the Popfly Wiki to help you out. On this web site, you can find helpful info and documentation about Popfly, including how to use the Game Creator tools. However, if you're a more visual learner, there are also several video tutorials available that walk you through making games using the Popfly Game Creator. These include the following videos:

Let us know about your game!

XNA Game Studio - Your world, your game.

Laura — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:29:00 GMT

XNA Game Studio really does give you all you need. Not only do they give you the tools to make the games that you want, but they also give you the training and tutorials to give you the skills to do it. I ran across one of their many game design challenges to see exactly how it happens, who can enter- and of course, where you can find out when one is coming near you. Take a peek here at the latest event in San Francisco, and then I hope to see you at the next one!

Halo 3 Heroic Maps Free Today

sarahintampa — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:26:00 GMT

Happy Halo Map Pack Day! As of today, Halo 3's formerly $10 set of maps, the Heroic Map Pack, is now free. This add-on lets you add new battle zones to the Halo 3 game. The pack consists of the Rat's Nest, Standoff, and Foundry maps, where players are provided with things like labyrinthine mazes (Rat's Nest) and editable objects that can be used to create a custom battlefield (Foundry). The next series of maps, the Legendary Map Pack, will be available on April 15th for 800 Microsoft Points.

Games on your Zune!?! What? How? When?

Laura — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:08:00 GMT

There are many happy Zune owners right about now. At GDC last week Microsoft announced that XNA Game Studios games can now also be made for the Zune. If you didn't know, XNA is a game development toolkit available to "do it yourself" enthusiasts for about $99 / year. You don't need to create your own games, simply take advantage of XNA games created by the user base. The XNA team also made some cool announcements about Xbox LIVE community games. I got all the good dirt- take a look.

Boonty, le réseau social pour vos jeux vidéos

bgauth — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 06:43:00 GMT

Vous connaissiez déjà probablement la société Boonty. Celle-ci propose des casuals games téléchargeables sur le site www.boonty.fr. Les jeux sont téléchargeables et gratuits pendant un lapse de temps et si vous souhaitez continuer l’expérience, vous devrez en faire l’acquisition contre 20€ pour une licence à vie ! Cette société existe maintenant depuis plus de 6 ans et reçoit environ 8 millions de visiteurs uniques par mois. Au niveau mondial, 300 millions de personnes surfent sur ce type de jeux. Afin d’étendre leurs activités, ils s’apprêtent à lancer dans les semaines à venir, cafe.com. Portail permettant de créer un réseau social autour du jeu vidéo. Celui-ci prend pour ainsi dire, le meilleur des réseaux sociaux existants (Avatar 3D, monnaie virtuelle, groupes….) et l’intègre dans le monde des jeux casuals avec un nouveau modèle de paiements. Les explications dans ce podcast.

Microsoft struts their stuff at PAX

Laura — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:00:00 GMT

When you think of big gaming conventions I'm sure you conjure up visions of E3 and GDC. I'm here to tell you that from here on out you should include the Penny Arcade Expo to that list. It felt like home to wander through the dark halls and wait patiently for my turn to play BioShock. Here's a glimpse of what Microsoft was showing off this year.

Zero Gravity: Silverlight based puzzle game

Laura — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 16:36:00 GMT

You've all played these web browser "twitch" games before when you should be actually working- but wait! Well Zero Gravity is different. Zero Gravity isn't flashed based, it runs on Silverlight. I spoke with the guys from Terralever who set out to prove that Silverlight is certainly a worthy platform for this type of game and talked about some of the difficulties and successes involved in the games development. So, how do you play? Well you put your thinking cap on, try to get Lt. Bennett home via his spaceship and watch this clip for the details.

All Games Radio: Scot Rubin brings you daily gaming goodness!

Laura — Tue, 01 May 2007 19:23:00 GMT

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away Scot Rubin and I made video game programming on the information super-highway. Cut to 8 years later and he's back. All Games Radio is more than entertainment, it's a community of devoted gamers and fans all coming together to celebrate life digital. Take a look at this piece and join in the fun.

Show Us Your Home: Andrew Parsons Edition

nhodge — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 05:32:00 GMT

Do you have Australia's Geek-iest House?

First in our competition, with no prizes apart from everlasting fame here On10.net, is Andrew Parsons. Recently moved into his new Geek Castle north of Sydney - Andrew proudly displays his devices and geek collections.

After I get my hit of traditional gaming, I ask Andrew his Geek Story. And it's a goodie. One of the proudest GeekDads I know.

Andrew is also the web master of GameParents, a site dedicated to educating parents and teachers on games titles. Go visit.

If you have a competitor to Andrew's GeekHouse - Xboxyde published the first devdiary for GRAW2 last night. The video focuses on the technical and artistic accomplishments such as object translucency, dynamic fire and smoke, and a real day and night time cycle. While we're not sure about a war with Mexico, we're looking forward to playing out the what-if.

Rare tour and XNA workshop

Paulfo — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 06:02:00 GMT

As part of the UK launch of XNA Games Studio Express, Microsoft Games Studio company Rare ran a series of XNA workshops for academia at the Rare offices. I tagged along to get the tour of Rare and discuss game development with workshop organiser and Rare software engineer Nick Burton.

I've had some fun in this video, tell me what you think. Also, to be clear Grant Kirkhope did most of the music for Viva Pinata with Steve Burke providing supplemental music. To hear Steve Burke’s fantastic music to Kameo, and see the story behind it, visit www.kameosoundtrack.com.