One of the great things about Game Design Expo is that it gives us a chance to lift the cover off the games we make and the games we play.
In fact, this year’s Industry Speaker Day presentations on Saturday, April 10, 2010 promise to shed light on high-profile and smaller-but-buzzworthy titles alike. Games like Mass Effect 2, ModNation Racers, Alpha Protocol, and Dead Rising 2.
Tickets are on sale now for Industry Speaker Day (visit gamedesignexpo.com to book yours now), and as we look forward to this year’s speakers, we also thought it’d be a good chance to take a glance at the games they’re behind.
Mass Effect 2 At Game Design Expo:Get Your Game Out Of My Movie! Interactive Narrative Design in Mass Effect 2 Release Date: in stores now! The Buzz: Since the game’s release in January, the response from critics and gamers has been… how to put this… ridiculously over-the-top good. ME2 improved on its predecessor in just about every way, and it’s an early candidate for Game of the Year. If BioWare didn’t already have the respect of just about everybody, it sure would now. At Game Design Expo, Mass Effect 2’s Lead Cinematic Designer Armando Troisi will discuss the innovative interactive storytelling that’s at the core of the game’s success. (Ahem… we also hear his talk at GDC was standing-room-only.)
ModNation Racers At Game Design Expo: Anonymity to Superstardom: Making User-Generated Content Fast and Fun Release Date: May The Buzz: It’s best described as the Little Big Planet for the kart racing set, and that’s enough to get a lot of gamers salivating. ModNation Racers promises a huge amount of user-generated wackiness and an awful lot of cute. It’s not difficult to see how kart racers could prove to be fertile ground for creative gamers, and developer United Front Games’ William Ho will touch on exactly that – how game designers can tap into the limitless creative power of its audience to produce an experience unlike any other.
Alpha Protocol At Game Design Expo:Crafting the Perfect Challenge Release Date: June The Buzz: “Spy RPG,” full stop. What else needs saying? This title fromObsidian Entertainment is one of those “why didn’t I think of that?” concepts – players guide the main character through the twists and turns of the espionage world, making the kinds of tough decisions you’d expect in any good spy thriller. (Who doesn’t want to take a character and model him after their favourite “JB” – Jack Bauer, James Bond, and Jason Bourne?) The word of mouth on Alpha Protocol has been steady, and now that it has a release date, we’ll be hearing a lot more. Lead Systems Designer Matt MacLean will use Alpha Protocol’s development to illustrate his talk about challenges, rewards, learning curves, and more – i.e. the bread and butter for any game designer.
Dead Rising 2 At Game Design Expo:Re-Raising the Dead – Sequeling Dead Rising 2 Release Date: August The Buzz: There was a lot to like about the first Dead Rising - taking a golf club to a teeming horde of zombies has a certain intrinsic je ne sais quoi. Considering the likelihood that the sequel’s developer, Blue Castle Games, will iron out the first game’s minor kinks (like its frustrating save system), there’s already a lot of buzz for this installment’s summer release. Creative Director Jason Leigh and Level Director Josh Bridge will be lifting the cover off the sequel’s development at Game Design Expo, sharing their unique insight into the challenges of creating a follow-up to a fan-favourite title.
TRON: Evolution
At Game Design Expo:The Modern Role of a Game Designer and the Importance of the Team Voice Release Date: November The Buzz: Details are sparse for now – except for a launch trailer from December – but it’s TRON, so you know there’s talk. We wouldn’t expect Propaganda Games Design Director Chris Whiteside to reveal too much at Game Design Expo, but he will be exploring the ways a game design team works – and works successfully – which, in a medium like this, is about as important as it gets!
We’d be remiss, of course, if we didn’t also mention Tyler Sigman (Big Sandwich Games), whose presentation is called Game Mechanic Throwdown – sort of a big-picture palate cleanser that bring us back to the basics of what make amazing games… well, amazing. And the panel, which features, among others, Saints Row 2’s David Bowring, and is moderated by Victor Lucas of The Electric Playground. The panel is a major highlight of Game Design Expo every year.
Tickets for Industry Speaker Day are still available. Visit gamedesignexpo.com for details and to register.
God of War III hits the shelves today, and the PS3 action game has us asking the question: what crazy kind of butt-kickery is Kratos up to now? The game was developed by Sony Santa Monica, and is, for the most part, getting killer reviews.
One of the VFS grads behind the scenes? 3D Animation & Visual Effects alum Tyler Breon, who graduated in 2005 and boasts the first Uncharted as his previous credit. On God of War III, he served as a character artist, and was responsible for bringing that volcanic guy pictured in the screenshot below to life. It’s well worth your time to check out Tyler’s online portfolio – some incredible work there!
Ji Ye, a Digital Character Animation grad, also contributed to the gamevia well-known studio Massive Black, except that he did it before beginning his 6 months in DCA – which he wrapped just this past December!
Last year we blogged about two Film Production graduates — Angela Buhr and Mohamed Soliman — who traveled to Uganda to film Opportunitas Aequa’s efforts to better the lives of youth living in war-ravaged communities through the unifying power of soccer.
The short documentary “David” is a product of that trip. Directed, produced, and edited by Mohamed and Angela through their company Eye Inside Films, the short profiles a teenage boy who witnessed a deadly attack on his family and is struggling to remain positive in life.
Leave it to BioWare to do an expansion right. Following on the massive critical success of Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2, the Edmonton developer is releasing Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, a full expansion in an industry often preoccupied with fast, cheap downloadable add-ons.
Awakening comes out tomorrow, and, like the main game, features the work of a whole bunch of VFS grads. Among them, 3D Animation & Visual Effects grad Nathan Zufelt, who, as he explains on his blog, was the cinematic animator on the expansion:
It’s quite rare these days to be given a script on a large project that you get to storyboard, animate and even light and composite. Bioware is one of the few big studios where an animator can actually take his own shots entirely from script to screen.
Game Design grad Mark Barazzuol, who we interviewed at the time of Dragon Age: Origins‘ release, was also in the mix.
When Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II hit last year, it was, for many, a very welcome departure from the tried-and-true RTS formula. But there was a big gap in the shape of the ever-popular Chaos Space Marines faction, and that’s something Vancouver-based Relic Entertainment rectified this week with the release of DOWII’s first expansion, Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II – Chaos Rising.
A lot of VFS grads work at Relic, to put it mildly. There were about a dozen on DOWII (check out our interview with one of them, Game Design grad Francois Chaput), and Chaos Rising is no different.
Entertainment Business Management’s upcoming Open House will be a memorable night for all those who see the waves of change hitting the entertainment industry and think only one thing: opportunity.
We’ll be revealing all the details about how — in one year — EBM students learn to develop better film, TV, game, and music properties, get the most buzz, and build bigger audiences.
Don’t miss your chance to discover how EBM provides a new kind of business education inside a world-leading entertainment school.
Entertainment Business Management
Open House
Thursday, April 8 at 6pm
Vancouver Film School
420 Homer Street (at Hastings)
- Learn about our one-year Entertainment Business Management program
- Find out how you graduate from EBM with a portfolio of real accomplishments
- Meet our faculty of respected entertainment industry pros, along with students and alumni
- Discover how EBM gets you ready to be a force in the entertainment industry
Last week, we had the great pleasure of welcoming some spectacularly talented students onto our campuses here at VFS to take part in a series of exclusive 2-day programs for high schoolers.
To many, the event became known simply as Stand Out – a chance for students to learn from our faculty right inside our programs. While our full-time students were off enjoying their break week between terms, this group managed to put their stamp on VFS in a very short time. Amazing!
When we first launched this initiative, we were looking for the best – and, believe us, that’s what we got. They came from around Greater Vancouver and way beyond, from across Canada, the U.S., and even all the way from Suriname! They really wowed us with their talent and drive… and their karaoke skills, too.
When it was over, one attendee left a comment on our YouTube channel that read: “It was two of the best days of my life.” And all we can say is, ditto! (You can see some of the result of his two days in this video.)
We’d like to thank all of the students who came out and made this event so incredibly exciting and fun for everybody. Best of luck to you all, and we look forward to seeing you again soon!
Check out this slideshow for a taste of what students experienced!
Want to find out more about the programs that were offered? Visit vfs.com/standout.
In their third of six terms, Digital Design students create title sequences for a film that doesn’t exist… yet. In short, it’s a chance to create something by combining the skills and experience they’ve picked up so far in their year. Often, it’s when students really get to cut loose creatively. (One of Christopher’s fellow YouTube Scholarship winners got to go to Beijing on the strength of his. And the two sequences could not be more different.)
The award, selected by a jury that includes the founders of the amazing The Art of the Title Sequence, will be handed out on Tuesday, March 16th. Watch Ladybird below, then head over to Christopher’s site for a brief but interesting case study on its creation!
When Jesse Davidge and Jonathan Busby graduated from the Classical Animation and Maya programs at VFS (the latter would soon evolve into today’s Digital Character Animation) they both took a pretty well-journeyed career path, working for big local studios like Studio B, EA, and Bardel.
A few years on, Jesse and Jon wanted something a little different. They wanted chances to work on smaller, more diverse projects – to build their own relationships with clients and see their work all the way through from concept to completion.
That resulted in the founding of Blatant Studios, a new Vancouver-based production studio specializing in animation and motion graphics. Jesse and Jon form two-thirds of the operation. “Blatant began as a way to brand our after-hours commercial work,” Jesse says. “Eventually, it became a full-time company.”
Blatant now boasts a splashy website and a nice track record of pro work, and, as Jon explains, it’s not the kind of thing you start on a whim. “Starting a studio is not an overnight venture. It takes years of networking, knowledge of production, and building a client base. It’s a 24/7 commitment.”
The two are putting their full range of animation, directing, and producing skills to use on an array of interesting projects – like this spot for Sprint/NASCAR, produced in collaboration with San Francisco’s Gunshop. Even more recently, they were approached by Tribal DDB to produce two videos for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies at the Winter Olympic Games. They had about 3 weeks. Like a lot of homegrown talent involved in the many facets of the Games, it brought a whole new level of exposure. “The thought of having millions of people see our work definitely energized us to do what was needed to see the project realized,” says Jesse. The second of the two videos was projected on the floor of B.C. Place during the Closing Ceremonies.
We’ll leave you with a video for the Canadian singer-songwriter Dan Mangan that Blatant did. It was released earlier this year, and it’s pretty awesome.
To see all their latest work, check out the Blatant Studios website at blatantstudios.com.
Today is International Women’s Day, a time to reflect upon and celebrate the achievements of women the world over. And in honour of the occasion, we’d like to tell you about our Women in Games Scholarship, presented in conjunction with Game Design Expo 2010.
The Women in Games Scholarship covers the full tuition for the one-year Game Design program at VFS.
“The Game Design program at VFS has been a very rewarding and enjoyable experience thus far,” last year’s winner, Shannon Lee, told us. “Applying for the scholarship was the best decision I’ve ever made and I’m sure that the next recipient will feel the same.” Shannon started in the program in late October.
The scholarship is a big part of our ongoing initiative to support women who aspire to be professional game designers. It’s about giving women opportunities to excel – and, as we’ve seen with our past female graduates, we believe our Game Design program is a great launchpad for just that.
The 2010 Women in Games Scholarship will be officially unveiled with full details at the Open House on Sunday, April 11!
Not sure what these are?
One of the great things about Game Design Expo is that it gives us a chance to lift the cover off the games we make and the games we play.
Mass Effect 2
ModNation Racers
Alpha Protocol
Dead Rising 2
TRON: Evolution
God of War III hits the shelves today, and the PS3 action game has us asking the question: what crazy kind of butt-kickery is Kratos up to now? The game was developed by Sony Santa Monica, and is, for the most part, getting 
When Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II hit last year, it was, for many, a very welcome departure from the tried-and-true RTS formula. But there was a big gap in the shape of the ever-popular Chaos Space Marines faction, and that’s something Vancouver-based 
Entertainment Business Management
Last week, we had the great pleasure of welcoming some spectacularly talented students onto our campuses here at VFS to take part in a series of exclusive 2-day programs for high schoolers.
When Jesse Davidge and Jonathan Busby graduated from the 
The two are putting their full range of animation, directing, and producing skills to use on an array of interesting projects – like