Toronto, Digital Journal — Many people probably don’t know that there’s a conference on making video games held each year in Ontario, Canada. It’s nothing like E3, but offers some very interesting content.
This year’s Computer Game Technology Conference (CGT) was hosted by Algoma University College and offered attendees a chance to understand the particulars of game artificial intelligence, interactive story telling, practical programming and much more.
What makes this conference so unique is its purpose: To bridge the gap between academia and industry. In the three days of the conference, students, researchers, educators and game designers attended discussions and lectures hosted by industry experts.
And this year’s conference was no small matter — guests and speakers came from all over the world. One discussion, called “A Look at the Next Generation of Consoles and How They Will Impact the Industry” was held by Dr. Jim Terkeurst who came all the way from the University of Abertay in Scotland. Other schools such as Algoma, the Art Institute of Toronto and the International Academy of Design Technology had booths to encourage students to sign up for game design programs. Schools from Vancouver and Michigan also dropped by to participate. It’s the third year of CGT, but this year’s conference was moved to a locale just outside Toronto’s Pearson International Airport from Sault Ste. Marie (where Algoma is located). The move was made to encourage a greater international presence of academics. It worked.
“This year we have 33 different universities from United States, Canada and Europe,” says Gary Spinks, Algoma’s Director of Information Technology. “I think [CGT] gives a good view of what game design and game development is as an area of academic study, or as a career option. It really opens a lot of the students’ and faculty’s eyes to how that process works.”
The conference hosted a number of workshops that showcased game design tools such as Discreet’s Virtools Product Training Workshop. There was even a field trip — a bus took some attendees to Seneca College for a demonstration in their motion capture studio. Once there, attendees watched the moves of a martial artist get transferred into a game environment.
In addition to workshops and lectures there was also time to play a game or two, including ones created by entrants in the Student Game Competition.
One such game was Arrgh!!! — a mod project being developed by students and graduates of the 3D Animation for Gaming program at Seneca College. Arrgh!!! is an Unreal Championship 2003 mod, a multiplayer first-person shooter which pits teams of live pirates against undead pirates.
“Obviously a big part of getting into the game industry is getting experience any way you can and one of the easiest ways to do that without getting a job first is just start making your own games,” says Elliot Christian, Art Director for Arrgh!!! and member of the student team called Black Ice Games. “The main goal was for students who are in the 3D Animation program to get experience making an actual game.”
But Team Black Ice’s plans do not end simply in gaining practical experience; “Another side goal was that there’s current a contest being put on by Nvidia and Epic called The Make Something Unreal Contest,” says Christian. “Basically, the contest is to take their game, Unreal Tournament, and modify it and make your own game, which is what we’re doing. So we’re entering our mod into the contest and hopefully we can win some prizes.”
The winners of the Make Something Unreal Contest have yet to be determined, but Christian did not hope in vain. By the conference’s end, Arrgh!!! walked away with the Student Game Competition’s top prize in the Game Mod category. Team Black Ice was awarded an armful of Radeon ATI cards for their work. Team Circular Logic of Washington would take the top prize for Best New Game with Botango.
Also big at this year’s conference was Pseudo Interactive, a Toronto-based game designer that made waves with their Car Crash Demo. Company reps Joe Ganetakos and Rick Knowles talked about the process of level design, and did so with great ease and success. In fact, their talk was so in-depth that even some of the visiting game design veterans were able to pick up a thing or two.
“I’ve never actually had a class in level design myself, and I thought that was particularly well presented and it was nice that it was coming from a well-respected Canadian game company,” said Ernest W. Adams, an author and celebrated video game expert. “One of the things that Pseudo Interactive taught me was some of the considerations that occur [in level design]. I’ve worked mostly on sports games that do not change from one game to another. I was very pleased to learn a great deal from them.”
Adams was there to hold his game design workshop and give the keynote address called the “Principles of Game Design.” During his illustrious career, he is credited with being the lead designer of the very first Madden NFL Football game on the 3DO. He is also the founder of the International Game Developers Association.
Adams is a strong supporter of game academia and believes study and research will go a long way towards getting the public to take games seriously. “The benefit of the conference, in general, is that it’s a great help to the Canadian industry. [The Canadian gaming industry] needs a local event so that people don’t always have to go the United States to see what’s going on,” he says. “I hope it will help to concentrate talent here in Toronto and give them an outlet for their own experience.”
For his part, Spinks hopes to be able to include an even wider variety of topics next year. He notes that previous CGTs have focused a lot on programming, but have expanded to fine arts and graphics. This year’s conference included important elements of game design like interactive story telling.
“This year we had about 150 registered for the main CGT,” Spinks says. “We introduced, for the first time, a high-school level, mini-CGT. We had 65 high school kids sign up for a half-day session and we’d like to continue to grow with that as a special focus area of presentations.”
If CGT has a core message, Spinks says it’s “To participate.” It’s not just about joining different sessions, but also to look at the associated activities that accompany each discussion.
LINKS:
- CGT 2004: “>www.pseudointeractive.com/games.shtml
- Algoma:
