This weekend the Pittsburgh Post Gazette ran some stories on the ETC.
Click here to read a story about Drew, and his new role as Acting Director of the ETC.
Click here to read a story about the projects the students have done for Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center, or TARC and Firaxis Games.
The third story just gave a great overview of the program and some of the great things students are doing this semester.
At last week's D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit award ceremony announced the awarding winning games of 2012. Thatgamecompany's "Journey" was the big winner at the 16th annual D.I.C.E. Awards, capturing eight awards, including Game of the Year, Outstanding Innovation in Gaming, and Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction. ETC alum Chris Bell was a designer for "Journey"
"Borderlands 2" game credit includes ETC alumni Trey Davenport as a producer and 2nd year student Carey Davenport. The game was named Action Game of the Year.
Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in Gameplay Engineering: "XCOM: Enemy Unknown"
Garth DeAngelis is listed as part of the additional level design and lead producer.
"Halo 4", which won Outstanding Achievement in Connectivity and Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering has Alyson Szymanski as part of the production team for developer 343 Industries.
And in a previous story, RayRay Shen was part of the team that made the Fighting Game of the Year: "PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale".
I know we have many more alumni that helped on the other great games, like Mass Effect 3 and Sim City Social, but I was using Moby Games for a list of credits on the games.
If anyone would like to be part of this story, please let is know!
In 2010 Jesse Schell's look at the future of games, had people talking about 'Gamification' and changed many people's perspective of how games could influence people's behaviors. It looks like the talk that Jesse gave at the 2013 DICE is also causing a buzz. In his talk, Jesse appeals to game designers to change people's lives in positive ways.
Here is what Gamasutra
gamesindustry interntational and
took from his talk.
Nice work Jesse!
ETC alumnus RayRay Shen (09) sent us email to let us know that the game she has been working on as a combat designer has just won a D.I.C.E. award from the best fighting game! Nice work, RayRay.
In the first semester at the ETC students take The Visual Story, a filmmakers course for non-filmmakers. At the end of the semester, students can submit their work to the Telly Awards. This year, we have two teams who won Telly Awards.
Congratulations to team Zebrass: John Baxa, Phillip Chung, Hongsa Chen and Victor Qin
Their animated short "Ball" won a Silver Telly. It tells the bittersweet story of an old man who, by accident, finds he can recapture his youth.
Check it out here:
Congratulations to team TacocaT: Ruokan He, Katie Correll, Liyue Shen, Xu Guo. They won a Bronze Telly award. Their wacky space travel music video takes off to search the galaxy for other forms of life. From breaking down on a far away planet made of cheese to fighting amorous space monsters the crew sticks together through thick or thin.
Check it out here:
The video can also be downloaded from Ruokan's website:
More about Visual Story:
The Visual Story course combines the traditional notions of a film course — how to use the visual language from film — with the emerging notions of how interactivity changes the way we communicate with an audience.
More about the Telly Awards:
The Telly Awards is the premier award honoring the finest film and video productions, groundbreaking web commercials, videos and films, and outstanding local, regional, and cable TV commercials and programs.Our mission has been to strengthen the visual arts community by inspiring, promoting, and supporting creativity. The 33rd Annual Telly Awards received over 12,000 entries from all 50 states and 5 continents.
History of the Telly The Telly Awards was founded in 1978 to honor excellence in local, regional and cable TV commercials. Non-broadcast video and TV program categories were soon added. Today, the Telly is one of the most sought-after awards by industry leaders, from large international firms to local production companies and ad agencies. With the quality of non-broadcast productions, traditional local & cable television commercials and programming on the rise, along with the world of online video continuing to rapidly evolve, we are excited to see this year's class of entries.
