IGAD Gamelab Roundup 2010

August 5, 2010 by Chris McEntee
Filed under Articles, News

What is IGAD?

The International Game Architecture and Design course is one of the many courses available at the nearby Breda University of Applied Sciences, and specializes in the production of video games from either a visual art perspective or a programming perspective. The course spans four years, and the students go through a variety of different classes all relevant to the design, creation and production of video games.

What is Gamelab?

Gamelab is a class in which the IGAD students must work together in groups of both artists and programmers, and create a game from scratch, making use of the knowledge they gain in their other classes.
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Tags: breda, course, cycle, event, Game, gamelab, igad, linkedin, made, paleolithic project, ray tracing, relativity, Special, study, taco trouble, tubular, will of nature

The Third Never Ending Conference

July 18, 2010 by Chi Wong
Filed under News, Reviews & Interviews

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On the 10^th of June I attended a public conference, namely the Never Ending Conference at the NHTV-building in Breda, where people give lectures about technology, philosophy, design and problems in the gaming industry. During this conference, which was the third one in a row, Bethesda’s Joel Dinolt who’s acquainted with one of our lecturers, gave a guest lecture about game architecture and the state in which the games industry’s in.
Here is the list of speakers who each gave their own speech, and I can tell you will notice that each of them has their own passion for what they do, which is passed on to you through their presentations. Read more

Tags: Arauna, Bethesda, breda, BRIGADE, Design, Dino Dini, Freek Hoekstra, Game architecture, Game Lab, igad, Jacco Bikker, Joel Dinolt, Never Ending Conference, nhtv, Nils Desle, path tracing, philosophy, ray tracing, Stefano Gualeni, third

IGAD Breda Is A Game Design School Like No Other

November 28, 2009 by Maikel De Bakker
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Today Kevin and I (Maikel) traveled to Breda, an old town in the Netherlands; we had been invited by a teacher from a school there to have a look around. After battling a windy and rainy day on my motorbike with Kevin holding on for dear life, we arrived at the NHTV International University of Applied Sciences. A branch of this University is called IGAD, which stands for International Game Architecture and Design, and it is at this department of the NHTV that the teacher Stefano Gualeni lectures. When we arrived, Stefano was eagerly waiting to give us our tour of the faculty.

Tags: art, breda, Chris McEntee, Education, Game Design, Haerfest, igad, Interview, Jacco Bikker, Kevin Ketelaars, Maikel de Bakker, Marcello Gomez Maureira, Martin Beresford, programming, Stefano Gualeni, tour

The Life of a Game Development Student

November 24, 2009 by Chris McEntee
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Since I’ve started studying game development my life has been much more hectic and stressful and my free time has been reduced to roughly non-existent. Now, I can’t tell you what life is like for every student studying game development because obviously I have no idea how other people live, but what I can illustrate for you is what daily life is like for me and my fellow classmates, from what I observe around the school building.

Well, I assume (from many encounters with many different ignorant people) that many imagine studying game Read more

Tags: Game Design, gaming, igad, Lifestyle, Student

Attending “game education”, from the perspective of a Visual Artist

August 5, 2009 by Chris McEntee
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For an aspiring video game artist, it can be difficult to choose a good school to study at. You could always try to let your portfolio speak for yourself and try to push your way into the industry without attending some form of higher education, and, in many cases, this can work. Of course, if you’re talented enough to make a move like this, more power to you! But if you’re like me, and you would prefer to get a good overview of game design and development in general, as well as experience all the varied aspects of game artwork production, then going to a game design course can definitely shed some light on the subject. In the case of the International Game Architecture and Design course, however, they do more than shed some light; you’ll actually need to wear sunglasses to handle the intensity of the course. This is, of course, a terrible metaphor, but it does illustrate a very serious point: This course is rough, it’s intense, and it’s very serious business.

“The course is hard, but worth it in every way”

~ Karim Baz: 3rd Year Visual Artist

The intake procedure alone is very rigorous and highly selective. Only the students which submit artwork that shows serious potential are handpicked by the school, and in most cases, the students hand chosen by the school are the ones who succeed in the course. When applying for the course, the teachers will be harsh with their criticism, and won’t hold anything back, but what you get in return is a sincere review of your potential talent, and an honest recommendation of whether or not pursuing visual art will be the right path for you. In the end, whether or not you make it in, you will definitely have a better perspective on your potential career as an artist, and, in my opinion, it’s better to have brutal honesty when you’re still in a place where you’re flexible enough to change your direction in life, rather than fill you with false hopes and encourage you to pursue a dead end.

“In my opinion, IGAD is a deep pit into which you are being thrown, and you will have to work your ass off to climb back out, but once you get out you’ll have all the experience you need.”

~ Daniel van Leeuwen: 2nd Year Visual Artist

The environment at IGAD is truly one-of-a-kind. If you can imagine any off topic forum of any video gaming enthusiast website, imagine four-hundred of those users sitting in building in real life. If you’ve lived on forums, in MMORPG’s, or have spent a large amount of your childhood playing video games and participating in gaming culture, you’ll immediately feel right at home. All of the stigma from high school and the general student pressures fly out the window, and finally you’re placed in a school with only students who you can completely relate to. Not only that, but the teachers themselves hold true to this model as well. They are industry professionals who have paved the way for modern gaming, and took part in creating gaming culture as we know it.

“IGAD is a course way different than any other course you’ve seen; it’s an education which strives for perfection, professionalism and team-work. For me personally, it’s more about working and having fun with the people you meet during the course, while staying focused and practicing the knowledge you learned.”

~ Chi Wong: 2nd Year Visual Artist

The classes for visual artists range from 3D modeling and texturing to rigging and animation, and even character design and level decoration. Every aspect of art production in the gaming world is covered, along with all the traditional art bases necessary: drawing skills, life drawing, and art and architectural history. These classes are given in such an order that the student can easily learn from the ground up, and goes from the bare minimum basics to the hardcore professional level artwork they aspire to ultimately achieve. The projects given are strenuous, and they are numerous every block. The student is literally bombarded with work from day one, and the workload only gets greater and greater as you continue along the path at IGAD. This becomes a test of endurance and skill, and only the truly talented and dedicated students prevail. In my personal opinion, the measure of your success in these art driven courses does not stem from your level of talent or expertise, but rather it comes from personal improvement. If you enter the course with no background in 3D modeling, and by the end of the second block you’ve created an industry standard piece of geometry, that already shows that you have a thirst for knowledge and the willingness to work to achieve your goals. In the end, I personally feel that dedication and taking the course very seriously are the keys to succeeding.

“What I really like about IGAD is that it offers me to become a professional in what I used to think was only possible as a hobby. “

~ Jeffrey Oort: 2nd Year Visual Artist

The course is not strictly about artwork however, the student also receives classes ranging from Narratology (the study of storytelling and narratives) to Ludology (game design theory) to Graphics Fundamentals and even Game Production classes. These are all the extra courses which might seem less interesting to some art students, but in the end they are the courses which give you the greatest balanced overview of game production as a whole, and truly allow you to understand everything it takes to create a quality title. I feel that these “extra” courses are really the backbone of this education, and bringing yourself to take them seriously and treat them with enough respect and care will be what allows you to perform well in not only this education, but in a professional working environment in the future.

“Hard as hell, but the first year has been a blast.”

~ Erwin Heyms: 2nd Year Visual Artist

The teachers at this school are also genuinely one-of-a-kind. In a typical university situation, teachers explain large amounts of theory and test the students on their understanding and interpretation of this theoretical knowledge. In this course, students do receive a healthy dose of theory, as it should be. However, more importantly, the students receive extensive amounts of practice and are forced to work constantly to achieve the proper standard set by the lecturer. I feel that the fact that we need to actually spend hours upon hours on end working on a single assignment is what really teaches us the important lessons we need; as the best way to learn is to make mistakes and correct them yourself. I can tell you from personal experience, I’ve made dozens of mistakes on this course, but every single one has taught me a valuable lesson, and I was always able to come back from it with more than I had lost to begin with. The lecturers are all industry professionals, who use their lectures and lessons to not only give theory, but share personal experience of the pitfalls of game development, so that after this education, the students will emerge well prepared for the worst, and perform better in a team of professionals. For an industry as demanding and competitive as game development, I truly feel that this is the best and only way to teach this material so that a student can really be more than prepared for what the actual industry will expect of them.

“The lessons are focused to teach you a set of skills and knowledge, and drive you to be the best you can be. I personally missed a vital part: the ability to keep an open mind. Things were a bit too structured for my taste. In the end, however, I am more than happy with the course.”

~ Wytze van Balkom: 2nd Year Visual Artist

The final aspect of IGAD, which is certainly far from the least important, is the Gamelab course. Gamelab puts students into small teams of artists and programmers, and asks them to create a game in fourteen days time, spread out over half a school year. This is as close to a realistic industry situation as you can get without actually being a worker in the actual industry itself. The teachers function as your guides, but also as the producers and management, and everything you do needs to be passed through them in a professional manner, and if you can’t manage to impress them, you need to go back to square one. It can be an extremely rough experience for most, and the games will almost never come out as originally intended, but in the end, what you take away from it will certainly, in my opinion, be the most educational and influential experience you will ever encounter on the IGAD course.

“Well, for me, Gamelab is a way to test your skills in an environment that is competitive, but educational. You learn new things and learn to work in a team, as well experience what it feels like to be stressed in a team situation, and overcome adversity. I feel it is the closest thing to real life, but in a safe environment.”

~ Marvin Roelofs: 3rd Year Visual Artist

At the end of the day, I personally am more than happy with what I have learned in only one year on the International Game Architecture and Design course, and eagerly await the next three installments to come. I have no doubt in my mind that this education will be the foundation which will take me all kinds of places in the future, and I consider myself very lucky to have made it in and to have been able to take part in such an amazing course. I really do think that this course works extremely well for an aspiring visual artist, and as long as the course is taken seriously and treated with a professional attitude, what will be taken away from it will ultimately be much more valuable than the bachelor degree itself.

The NHTV International Game Architecture and Design course, from the perspective of a Visual Artist.

“The course is hard, but worth it in every way”

~ Karim Baz: 3rd Year Visual Artist

Tags: Education, Gaming Industry, igad, nhtv

Breda Brawl: Reflections of a contestant

June 7, 2009 by Chris McEntee
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Now, I must admit, I haven’t always been as interested in the Smash Bros franchise as I am today. Back in the days of the original on the Nintendo 64, I would play on occasion at a friend’s house, never really figuring out the controls or any combos; I would just play around with a character or two and generally have a good time, but probably lose majority of matches. I just wasn’t into it.
Melee was a very different experience, however. On the Gamecube, the game felt much more fluent; the controls, the characters, the speed; Melee really sucked me into the franchise for good. Eventually I found a tight group of “hardcore” Smash Bros players at my school, and we would play for hours on end, week after week. There were about three of us at the time, and whichever one beat the others felt like the king of smash. We would watch combo videos and laugh, thinking we could take on any of these “pros”, anytime, anywhere. Nobody ever came around to prove us wrong.

…and then came Brawl, and what a difference it made. It looked amazing, felt great, introduced old Nintendo favorites… and most importantly for me, it evened the playing field. I was always one of the worst players in the group, never winning more than a couple matches every now and then. With Brawl though, I could finally deal some real damage. Eventually, the three of us parted for college and I met a new group of Smash fans: the students at the International Game Architecture and Design course in Breda. For me, this was my test of skill. This was a whole new group of people I had never seen before, I couldn’t begin to predict the levels at which they much fight. I quickly came to realize that the three of us weren’t as good as we originally thought, and slowly, but surely, I climbed up the ranks at IGAD. After a short while, I was finally one of the better players; I wasn’t scared of losing anymore. On the contrary, I could walk up to the machine and see looks of distress as the powerful PK Thunder entered the arena.

Well, wasn’t that sentimental? Now, why am I giving you all this back-story? Well, that’s because recently, on the 17^th of May, in the city of Breda, an actual Brawl tournament was held. I had never participated in one, not even in the days of Melee, nor had either of my past Smashing partners. I just had to join and see where I stood in the greater picture of the game. Maybe my tricks worked on the other students, but perhaps that was just because I was familiar with their play styles; maybe just familiar with their regular characters? I needed to see for myself whether or not I was comparable to the tournament regulars; whether or not I was actually skilled.

So, when the day of the tournament finally came around, one of my old friends from the days of Melee and myself departed for the event, uncertain of what to expect from the other participants. A number of students from IGAD joined the fray as well; we were all curious where we stood. The other contestants quickly walked in the doors, speaking of things such as their seeding ranks and their tournament stats, requesting special placement in the randomized matchups… it was intimidating to say the least. The anticipation grew with the end of each round. There were only a few consoles available, so a contestant might have had to wait an hour before their matchup was scheduled. The one thing which really knocked me off balance was seeing the top ranked player from IGAD being beaten in the first round. It came as a shock to everyone from the course, and we didn’t want to see what the tournament had in store for the rest of us.

When it was finally my turn to take the controller and enter the ring, I had a fairly decent matchup, myself as Ness, and my opponent as Lucas. Both similar fighting styles, and I was obviously very familiar with it. My opponent had me slightly worried at first, but I quickly realized I could make short work of him. I slowly sank back more comfortably into my chair, and pretty much started playing on autopilot. I was actually at a real tournament, and in the zone. When the final match of the set ended in a meteor smash from yours truly, I got to walk away with a great sense of achievement; I came to a tournament, and made it through the first round. It might sound stupid, but hey, after all that tension and build up, it was relaxing as ever to be walking away victorious.

My next match was against a tournament veteran who had been boasting his rankings before the tournament had started, and obviously it was intimidating. When I sat down in that chair though, I just told myself to relax and get in the zone again; he was just another random player and I could beat him too. He chose Snake, a powerful character; it proved fatal for him. In that first match I dominated, he went down pretty hard, but I did take quite a bit of damage. It had me shaken up, but I was confident. I had to take a breather right afterward to actually realize, I had just done it again. Only one more win and this guy was out of the tournament and I was one step closer to the final.

We went back to the character select screen and while I waited for him to press start I noticed him changing his character. To my great disappointment, his cursor scrolled over Meta Knight, and he quickly selected him and went to the stage selection screen. Right then I knew I was done for. I knew I couldn’t just sit back and enjoy the ride anymore. He had me shaken up, and I really took a beating for it in that second match. I used all the wrong moves at all the wrong times, and he just kept me from getting back to that platform. We then went into the third match of the set, both with a win. Winner of this match would continue on; the pressure was on. Same match-up as round two, unfortunately, but this time I knew my mistakes. The match began quite similar to the previous, I lost a life quite quickly, and it was looking grim on my next already. Somewhere in the middle of the match, however, things turned around, and I was getting sweet spots here and there, he was flying all over the place. In the end though, I just couldn’t recover with him edge guarding like a madman, and I eventually fell and lost the third match, pushing me out of the singles tournament for good.

It wasn’t just me who was out in the second round though, my friend who tagged along also lost in round two to the massive hammer and reach of King Dedede. His ROB was no match for this tournament veteran in action.

We stayed to witness the rest of the tournament, and saw the progression towards the finals. Some matches were highly one-sided, others were neck-and-neck. In the end, however, truly the two best of the day were matched up in the final. These three matches had to be three of the most exciting matches I have ever witnessed, and every second had the entire room on the edge of their seat.

The team tournament was held shortly after, and unfortunately my team’s performance isn’t even worth mentioning. It was fun, but by no means as exciting as the singles tournament.

In the end I have to admit, it was a very exciting experience, and a great environment. I hope to participate in more tournaments should they come along. I highly encourage any Smash fans to participate, especially if you think you’re any good at the game. Joining in one of these bad boys would be an eye-opener for any “hardcore” brawler.

Additionally, here are the pictures for the Super Smash Brothers Brawl tournament