This is a platform puzzler game that makes very clever use of light and dark space. Highly recommended.

Play here: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/480006

Randy Pausch co-founded the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon. He was a friend to IMD.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/07/last-lecture-pr.html

I saw this gentleman from Taito demo this mobile phone music app at a conference recently and it was really fresh. The music is coming out of his phone (hooked up to a loud speaker). Notice that he has a special sensor in his right hand. When he strums it across the phone guitar music [...]

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences is now accepting applications for the Dr. Randy Pausch Scholarship Fund for the 2008-2009 academic school year. The scholarship will provide four students with $2,500 in financial aid in preparation of entering the game industry. Submission requirements, details, and the application form are all available in PDF via [...]

Please join me in congratulating the three winning teams for the 2008-2009 Advanced Game Project class. As you may know many teams submitted proposals in March, five finalists were chosen to present their work to a selection committee from USC and industry yesterday, three winning teams have been greenlighted to move forward. They are: 1) [...]

Thanks to all students who submitted proposals for the 2008-2009 Advanced Game Project process. The selection committee met Wednesday and reviewed all submissions in detail. The five finalists in random order are: 1) Reflection – Keith Co 2) Minor Battle – Andre Clark 3) Runesinger – Ethan Kennerly 4) SpliceMeister – Joseph Spradley 5) Bloodlines [...]

CTIN/CSCI 491 is a two-semester advanced game project class administered collaboratively by the USC School of Cinematic Arts and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Note that is course is also called CSCI 529 for Viterbi grad students. Students bring their individual talents as designers, programmers, artists, writers, composers, producers, etc. together in cross-disciplinary teams. [...]

I was interviewed by the good folks at WhyTuesday.org the other day. WhyTuesday is an activist organization that seeks election reform – especially any measure that would increase voter turnout by moving Election Day from a Tuesday (e.g. a workday) to the weekend or holiday (hence their name). WhyTuesday has a relationship with YouTube wherein their [...]

Here’s an excerpt: The growing partnership with Spielberg is beneficial for both sides. Young says, “Steven is a gamer and appreciates all kinds of games.” That love of games has continued as Spielberg chairs the University of Southern California film school and EA helped to create USC’s gaming program, headed by EA’s chief creative officer, Bing [...]

http://igda.org/arg/whitepaper.html

Well known game designer and industry thought leader, Doug Church will be speaking in CTIN 488 on Tuesday evening, 11/7. All in the IMD community are welcome.

The class starts at 7 pm. More about Doug and his work here

This article from TV Week talks about a bunch of mass-participation television shows that are coming out. They are essentially television shows that are distributed via broadband and include creative social networking features. This article from the LA Times explains that broadband television programs (like the ones mentioned above) will be able to compete for Emmys directly [...]

Hi All. David Jaffe couldn’t make his planned visit last Tuesday because of illness. He’s recovered now and will be here Tuesday night 4/18 at 7 pm. He’s speaking in CTIN 488. As I mentioned last week Jaffe is the creator/director of God of War and other hit titles. God of War was named 2005 [...]

Hi All. David Jaffe couldn’t make his planned visit last Tuesday because of the stomach flu. He’s recovered now and will be here Tuesday night at 7 pm. He’s speaking in CTIN 488. As I mentioned last time Jaffe is the creator/director of God of War and other hit titles. God of War was named [...]

Rob Pardo – one of the designers of World of Warcraft, Warcraft III, and other Blizzard games – will be speaking in CTIN 488 this evening. The topic is his experience in the game industry, Q&A about Blizzard, World of Warcraft, etc. WHEN: Tuesday 11/15 – 7-9 pm WHERE: Interactive Media Lab, G142 IMD community [...]

WHAT Board game designer, Brian Hersch will be speaking in CTIN 488 tomorrow night (11/8). He will share insights on how he creates and markets board games for mass audiences. Brian’s games include Taboo, Malarkey, Super Scattegories, and many others (full list below). WHEN Tuesday November 8 7-8:30 pm WHERE Interactive Media Lab – G142 [...]

from today’s Variety…

Young said EA and the director connected via USC School of Cinema- Television, where Spielberg is involved and the publisher sponsors a graduate degree in interactive design.

At the opening of an EA-sponsored vidgame development lab at USC last year, Spielberg commented on the potential of games as entertainment.

Full article here

Dear CTIN 558 Students, I’m writing to follow-up on our conversation from class yesterday afternoon, 9/12. This message contains two things: 1) specifics on what you should do this week for Assignment 2: Project Plan 2) a few more tweaks to the course plan (please read) WHAT YOU SHOULD DO THIS WEEK FOR ASSIGNMENT 2: [...]

Here is a set of analyst reports from various game companies. They are not required reading but they may be of use to you as reference for your class assignments.

Thanks to Bing for making them available to us.