The Technoculture, Art and Games group brings together people from many different disciplines and sectors around digital games as a way to think, talk and create together. The group is based at Concordia but includes people from other universities, as well as outside the university.
Sorry for the late posting but we are playing Werewolf today at 5 at the TAG Lab. There is also plenty of beer, non-alcoholic beverages and chips left over so come by and help us finish them off! We’ll be sending off an email this week with our September schedule for Wednesdays (as well as a blog post) detailing some pretty cool 5a7 ideas.
See you all soon.
We’ll hold our first come one, come all general meeting on Friday Sept 17th at 1pm in the Hexagram resource room. We’ll have a mini state of the union, present the budget and discuss the upcoming year. If there are any particular things you want to make sure we discuss please email me and i’ll make sure it makes it to the agenda.
I’d also like to take this moment to pull aside the curtain and formally introduce Saleem Dubbous who takes over from Morgan as the TAG coordinator. Saleem has been on point since June and in addition to being the main point of contact for TAG stuff, he’s also helping to orchestrate the new CFI equipment coming in any day now, updates to the website, scheduling and whatever else. Feel free to send him your announcements, updated bio info, publications, etc… and he is also tasked with wrenching that stuff out of you if your tendency is to remain silent.
Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you know that through out the next few weeks we’ll be experiencing some downtime and changes on the website as we update the site for the new school year. If you encounter any bugs or errors on the website that you’re sure aren’t caused by temporary updates plesae email tag.coordinator [at] live.com with the URL of the broken page.
This should be a handy resource for many TAG projects. Co-optimus is a website/community dedicated to the exploration of coop games. As the blurb says “every game listed on our site has some form of cooperative gameplay element. Our job is to bring you the most comprehensive list of games that support co-op play, and let you know what that experience is like!”
One the interesting things here is their working definition of co-op:
“A co-op game is a game where two or more players work together to accomplish a goal against AI opponents. Ideally the game will feature a strong story in which both players take part of. Co-Op can be online over the internet, offline on the same console, or via a LAN or Wireless Network. We do not consider team based games as co-op where players face off against another team of human players.”
The line between team-based PvE and PvP (as its defined in the MMOG world) is pretty thin sometimes but the distinction speaks well to the difference in design emphasis and how very difficult it has been to create very successful co-op games (or co-op vs AI games).
We need some folks to help us playtest the G3 game (and to finalize a name/title)! The session runs all afternoon from 1-4pm on Thursday July 22nd - location is EV- 10.760. Contact me if you can come along and help out.
update: If you are coming to play please wear clothing we can pin the sensors on — so long pants and shirts with sleeves is best.
Another one from the archive… the Video Game Memorabilia Museum appears to be run by Brett Martin (”Nightram”). I’d love to know where it’s housed.
There’s not much to say here other than this is the tip of the iceberg really (check out the forums and links) and to my knowledge no one has really written seriously about this particular culture of collecting before. The time is now people! Here’s an interesting paper to get you started.
Okay this is hard to beat… For those who do not know, Montreal is home to a serious LAN party and competition scene but this is the first I have run across the competitive street fighter crowd here. Actually I was cued to this by a student who walked into the TAGlab once but then I forgot about it — and then I found Montreal Street Fighter.
Not only that but they meet at Netchamp which is right around the corner at 1822 Rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest (up in the Faubourg). Along time ago an MA student in GameCODE (Rob Parungao) did some interviews with WoW players there… now it looks like the place is hopping. Since my brief foray studying LAN gaming (I spent time observing at LAN ETS back in the day) I haven’t been doing a good job keeping tabs on whats been going on… now there’s great organized gaming in our backyard so there is no excuse.
So this is for checking out… the Montreal Street Fighter site has some great video footage, they seem well organized and I do believe another field trip is in order!
Er.. happy day after Canada Day and all that.
I would be remiss if I did not remind TAG folks that you have 7 days left to add your two cents to this digital economy consultation process. What goes on here in the long run is likely to be of direct consequence to the concerns of game studies and design folks.
I have no idea about how useful this process will be as a means of generating innovative ways to think critically and strategically about digital economy, culture or design but there are some interesting observations worth noting as I find myself working through this all on a couple of fronts this week - Concordia’s own strategic plan, the GRAND NCE (which we are a part of), and short range and long range planning for TAG.
Yes indeedy I am starting to give our TAG blog a much needed spring workout and I’ll be cleaning out some old thoughts, announcements and info in the process.
And so I draw your attention to Gameartisans Montreal which appears to be a game art gallery/lounge/education/meeting space located on Meyer street (off Bleury I believe). I came across this in random surfing so I would appreciate any insight about the place from anyone who knows or has been there. Of course, a small field trip during their gallery open hours could be fun.
See below the break for the blurb
I actually didn’t know about this before reading the recent article on Kotaku. This is a from-the-ground-up game created by fans of King’s Quest to be a sequel in the series and would seem to stand as a great example of fan-based creation meets independent game design.
I gather from the story that the whole project has met with all sorts of hassles in terms of copyright infringement but that these have been resolved and the game is due for release for free in July. Check out the game trailer here.
Does anyone have any other examples of a stand alone fan game (rather than a mod) of this sort?
