What does this mean to incoming students? The major isn’t on the applications yet. It’s not on any registration materials. So what it means is that I have to put together some marketing materials to send out to attract majors.

And over the summer and in the fall I need to contct high schools to attract students for the next year. Talk about thinking ahead.

If you’re interested in the major or you know someone who is, contact me at kgregson@ithaca.edu or IM me at kgregson or drop me a twitter at @kgregson. My office phone is 607-274-7348 - that works too.

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• Students in Critical Analysis of Games Blog About Games (profkim.blogspot.com)
• Global Game Jam (profkim.blogspot.com)

In early February the Global Game Jam took part in more than 50 sites around the world. People came to the sites, formed teams, and spent the weekend making a game. There was a very general theme - As long as we’re together there will always be problems. Each site was then also given an adjective - cold, funny… The teams could use a wide variety of tools - XNA, flash, Unity, Game Maker. Anyone could participate - there were high school students, college students, people from the game industry, and just random people interested in creating games. They had to create their own graphics and sound as well as come up with a game idea and implement it.

Two students from Ithaca College’s game design major, Corey Jeffers and Ryan Giglio - they’re on facebook if you want to talk with them about their experience,  went to the jam up at SUNY Albany. Sounds like they were very organized. People paid $5 and got food for the weekend. Students at another nearby college found housing for everybody. They had enough participants for 6 teams. Click here for a link to Corey & Ryan’s game - they made it with GameMaker, a 3D free game creation tool that they learned how to use in class.

A week after the global game jam, Barry Caudill , executive producer at Firaxis Games, visited with game design and screen writing students. He told some good war stories and offered advice about how to make getting into the industry easier. One suggestion that we try to implement in our program is to make games. The students in critical analysis of games will make 2 games this semester. Next fall we’ll have our 2 semester intro to game design class and students will make a 2D game. In the spring we’ll offer a special topics class and they’ll make a 3D game - we’re still working out the details.

The same weekend as Barry’s visit, another student interested in game design attended the New York Comic Con to participate in Magic the Gathering card game events. He also got to see several demos of games soon to be released. He will be adding some details soon.

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• Global Game Jam (profkim.blogspot.com)
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Check it out - http://kimgregson.com/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=111&Itemid=39

Image by kgregson via Flickr

During the freshman year of the game design major, we focus on analog games - board games and card games. We play them in the fall to learn about win conditions, rules, game play mechanisms, and we make them in the spring to put our knowledge into action.

Here are some more pictures from the intro to games & society class - this is the class where we play analog games. Every 2 weeks each group starts on a new game. They won’t become experts at the games but they’ll see a lot of new games and we’ll be able to discuss them in the Spring. Hopefully they’ll try to work in some rules or mechanisms from the boardgames in their own games.

Over the semester I”ll add to the pictures so check back.

In this class we will learn design basics by studying exisitng video games and virtual worlds. Students will apply the design basics to create their own board or card game. This is a required course for the new BFA in game design and immersive media.

If you have any questions, contact Kim Gregson (IM: kgregson or office phone: 4-7348)