Philo Stuff » ETH GameLab Collaboration

Digital VS Analog

Philo — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 08:19:04 +0000

Tuesday:
All 6 game design master students had to present the current state of their projects. The teachers weren’t very satiesfied with mine. Mostly the fact that my research is too broad and doesn’t deliver any analysable results hit me right in the weak point. Guess I have to finally decide what I’ll actually be doing during the next year
After lunch, I met up with my childhood friend Jessica to produce buttons for her business Little Bitty Creatures.

Wednesday:
I already told you about the ETH final presentations. Head over here if you missed it.

Thursday:
In the morning Andi, Mela, Stefan and me had to help build up the master exhibition for our senpais. We had to even-up the uneven ground with little plastic sticks so that the screens were standing straight. Luckily we made a great team and were done quickly which left me some time to go work at the Capsule Games office.

Friday:
Working meetup for Niche! I really enjoy working on the game again, together with Beat and Severin

In the evening I went to the Gross.Stadt.Jagd event to pick up Markus. There were sooo many people there, staring at a small screen to stay up to date with the games progress.

ETH Game Programming Laboratory

Philo — Fri, 29 May 2015 18:47:34 +0000

On Wednesday evening about 300 people gathered in the ETH audi max.
Why? Well, for the final presentation of the ETH game programming laboratory of course! And me and my classmates where right in the middle of it all. This year the ZHdK cooperated with the ETH, allowing the students of both schools to create games together. Our group “Team 5″ has spent quite a lot of time working on our project “Evolution Party”, a cooperative multiplayer game. You can read all about the development process in my earlier posts.

After a short introduction by Bob Sumner, leader of the ETH gamelab program, the presentations started.

After all 6 teams had finished, it was time for the award ceremony!
Winners of the jury award: “Micro Wars”
Congrats!

The audience voted for their favorite game, deciding the winner of the audience award. And that was us O_o!
All winners received a goodie bag from Microsoft. Thank you!
After the award ceremony was over, everyone gathered to play the games and get some apéro.

We wanted to keep partying after the ETH had closed and went to the Safari bar

The ETH gamelab course was a great experience. And now they even opened a game technology center!
I want to thank my team members Isabel Schacher, Jascha Grübel and Renzo Roth. Do did a great job and I really enjoyed the time we spent together :D!

Aaand, some press articles related to the event:
Computerworld
Tagesanzeiger

End of semester is coming

Philo — Tue, 26 May 2015 19:06:23 +0000

I decided to write a weekly conclusion instead of daily updates. Slowly but surely, the daily routine of the master is kicking in so there’s not that much to report about

Tuesday:
In the morning I attended the 2. Semester Stroytelling analysis, great stuff! Then we got an input about politics which was quite strange -> Got the advice to buy a ferret for ma master thesis xD
And he had another input at ETH. The last one actually!

Wednesday:
At the Stammtisch we played and analysed “Quartett”

Thursday:
In the name of the SGDA I went to the ETH and awarded the best Matura Game of this year ^^

Friday:
Niche working meetup! Lots of decisions have been made. Look at these milestones!

A week in my life

Philo — Sun, 10 May 2015 09:31:03 +0000

This week was a rather calm one. So I’ll just recap everything in one post.

Monday:
Boring theory lesson. I almost fell asleep, seriously.
Isa and me headed over to the ETH to prepare our game for the upcoming presentations.
The working session was “interrupted” by a SGDA planning event. I really really love sitting at this table with these great and hardworking people!

Tuesday:
The input about News Games by Margarete Jahrmann was interesting.
Afternoon ETH presentations. Our game didn’t receive as much reaction from the audience as I hoped. We have to improve the “fun to watch” part

Wednesday:
News Games workshop with Marcus Bösch.
Nobody wanted to make a mobbing cardgame with me *sob* so I had to join another team.

Thursday:
Film Noir story input by Beat Suter, cool stuff!
A normal afternoon at Capsule Games. I did community/organisation stuff and Robin had a life or dead Tower Offense battle with his arch enemy Gian. Also, we decided to use Slack as a communication tool and setup a timetracking sheet. Very business, much professional.

Friday:
I visited Kobold Games at their new office, like it a lot!
We talked about the story, setting and art style of their upcoming game, but that’s a story for another day

R-Type analysis & ETH image

Philo — Fri, 01 May 2015 18:15:51 +0000

This happens when René is in charge of teaching us: We sit somewhere in the middle of the school building where lots of people walk by and watch a Let’s play of R-Type. I could read it in the passing peoples eyes: “What are those strange game design students up to now?”. It was great xD
Well we didn’t just watch a video, we had to analyse enemy waves, emotional arcs and movement strategies.

In the evening Isa and me met up with our ETH team to produce a screenshot for the upcoming exhibition flyer. I like the result

Bachelor presentations, Gobo Games & Board Game Feedback

Philo — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 16:27:16 +0000

In the morning I joined the game design “technical prototype” bachelor presentations. Lots of interesting projects, can’t wait to see them all finished
As usual the teachers were harsh but gave some good feedback.

Next point on the list was our weekly visit at the ETH. This week: Studio Gobo told us about their new studio in Zurich and showed us their portfolio which includes developing games for Disney Infinity.

Since the day was so nice and sunny, we went for a drink in the university bar. Diego brought the board game he’s developing for his master thesis and we discussed the new layout of the board pieces.

Pitch training

Philo — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 08:45:13 +0000

In the morning we analysed the mechanics of Tennis for Two, the first videogame of history. I was a bit too quick to say that I understand how the mechanics work and our teacher René punished me by making me the others playball
(Pictures says it all)

After that we analysed the ETH game projects. Taking on another groups project, we had to come up with level designs and alternative concepts and present them.

After the pitch training for the “Call for projects” last week, we decided that we want to run a second round. The ZHdK Incubator was so kind to offer us their office space, listen to our presentations and provide us with feedback. The event was entierly open to the public and we had quite a few guests. Now I feel well prepared!

ETH game & Niche test

Philo — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 09:42:56 +0000

We met up at the ETH today to work on our multiplayer party game. I got to make some lowpoly art

In the evening the Niche movement rework kept me busy. It’s really getting somewhere!

The List

Philo — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 07:55:37 +0000

Theory lesson today was quite alright. Topic was writting.

The game design students keep skipping afternoon classes because of our collaboration with the ETH xD
Our presentation at the ETH went quite well, our game concept is taking shape.

During the theory input I had an idea. Lots of people are currently talking about or even already making lists of the Swiss Games Industry. Instead of just working all by ourselves and have many unfinished/outdated lists or survey that don’t contain all important questions, we should join together. So if you’re up to helping us, head over to the discussion group.

ETH game and SGDA work

Philo — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 21:38:52 +0000

No theory lessons today, horray
Instead we met up and worked on our ETH game.

The evening was spent mostely on SGDA organisation things aka Fantasy Basel and Swiss Online Marketing tasks

Edit: Totally forgot to mention the awesome First Strike infographics that came out today! I had the pleasure to work on them during my internship and they have been tweaked and released now. Take a look at it: First Strike, year one in numbers