Game Club President

Update Round 2: 

The TSU Game Programming Club

As of the start of this semester, I've been serving as President of the Game Programming Club at TSU!
As the old head of the group of students, I try to coordinate and help everyone on our journey to becoming game developers.

We meet every Thursday in McCord Lab 11 at 4:30. Usually we open up with whatever announcements may come as projects evolve, sometimes a short gamedev video such as one's shown at previous meetings about what the dark side of the industry could be like as well as the wise words from the great folks at Extra Credits.  Then we roll on into our tutorial sessions.
Since the group is largely freshmen and sophomores, and lack a depth of programming experience, we're using Unity due to its quick start up and low barrier of entry. Dr. Erdemir is leading most of the tutorials with Blake and I assisting, and by the end of the semester, everyone is the club should have at least one very nice Unity Game Project and a certificate for our extra curricular activities.

The long term plan for the club is to remove the tutorial sessions as they become full classes and hopefully a concentration in our Computer Science Department and spend meeting time coming together, discussing our ventures, Indie/AAA related issues, and of course playtesting and working on projects.  I've tried to instill this doctrine at each meeting and in our media groups and by compiling a list of resources for everyone to make use of here. Hopefully future student leaders can continue and direct the needs of the group as we become more skilled and successful.

This is just the beginning of what I hope continues to be a legacy of greatness!

Please stay tuned here or more specifically here for all news from the group blog,
run by Danielle Heik of FocusFitandFab.com

Qwest

One of the larger projects I've been consumed with is an App Called Qwest.

Where Did February Go?

Happy Black History Month!

Hopefully, you know more than you previously did about how awesome people come from all backgrounds and how we should all be learning about the full history of humanity and our how past effects the present and the future, if we don't learn from previous missteps.
Don't forget these lessons!
//If you've forgotten or was never made to not be ignorant on peace, love, and historical knowledge, comment/email me and I can send you some links to enlighten you!!

Anyway, I've been sick, interviewing for jobs, coordinating clubs and trying to attend class (whoops), and doing homework. Nary any time to get into the nitty gritty on my projects... To make up for this, I'll update with a post on my different organizational obligations (Game Club, WOO!) and another post on how things are going with my app team on Qwest later on tonight, before or after meeting with the .

Till then

Fight the power!

TSU Game Programming Club

Edit: This post should have happened weeks ago... anyway, Happy Belated!

The Game Programming Club is a newly formed club in Tennessee State University's Computer Science Department by Professor Erdemir. During fall semester, students joined groups and worked together to learn and create using the Unity3D game engine.  The club and students are all energized and hopefully we'll be on a good footing to having a great and sustainable resource for the student body!

Here are some of the pictures from the final meeting of the Club at Tennessee State University back in December.

Some introductions of new members

A bowling game presentation

Pirate Island Themed Bowling Game

Most members, pre-meeting

My team member, Blake presenting our Battle Zone Remake

Jeff and team member(sorry) presenting their bowling game Razz

Jeff' gave a post game presentation on what he learned over the first semester working with Unity.

Global Game Jam 2014!

Alright, I'm done!

GGJ14 was a (personal) success!

You can try the game out via the page link above or here.

This year was my first ever Global Game Jam event. I jammed out with the awesome people of Nashville Game Developers! I think the jam continues until tonight (Sunday at 10) or so, but I'm dying from being at it for most of the day.

Theme: "We see things not as they are, but as we are"

This theme led to ideas that were very meta and even mindbendingly complicated to break down to a bare game mechanic sensibly.  It's something that we've already seen in games time and time again in games where different characters/character features give the player different in game reactions. After thinking on it during our brainstorm friday night, and most of Saturday morning, and even as I was in Franklin crafting this idea, I settled the evolved version of my one of my original ideas: a maze.

It's pretty simple, except it's not... Travel into the depths of your memories and maybe you can reflect on yourself and how you see things!

We Dared to Be Brilliant!

Brilliantly satirical, that is!

I'm speaking of my comrades Kyle and Khoa, who, along with myself, attempted to game the idea of the theme of Ludum Dare 28.  The theme was You Only Get One. With that, we embarked on creating a game in which You can Only Get One new game a year. So you pick one game, play it for an imaginary year, and then the next year, you can get something new!  You can read more on the idea and was accomplished before our magnificent project swan dived to a post compo/jam finish at  Kyle's Ludum Dare Blog Posts.

Here's my screenshot for the Fighter component of the game.

And here is a link if you want to try out the madness yourself:

I'll be back sometime this week with end of semester updates!

TGIBT (Thank God It's Break Time)

?It is day what?

Alrightey then.
November has been a weird month with a topsy turvy schedule. Since I was with you last, I've finished contributions to the Alpha Build of Project Bala with the implementation of 2 enemy types and a few enemy enemy behaviors; started up a remake of Battle Zone with a movable tank and have begun setting up the project framework through my quick lessons from most honorable leader Kyle Bolton; created an ugly, but functioning (enough) trombone; and made a few strides with Round The Block when other matters weren't pressing my brain to mush.

By the end of the year, I'll be done with Round the Block by virtue of not spending forever to release something.  I just need to add in power ups that change the ball speed, sounds, and slight design touch ups. The trombone is in a phase of interface modification and fixing the screen layout for Android.

I'll try to come back again for a good semester wrap up post within the next two weeks.

Happy Holidays!