{"id":57652,"date":"2019-04-24T10:58:50","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T14:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=57652"},"modified":"2019-04-25T12:38:09","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T16:38:09","slug":"brock-students-shine-at-provincial-gaming-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2019\/04\/brock-students-shine-at-provincial-gaming-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock students shine at provincial gaming event"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brock\u2019s gaming prowess impressed high-profile industry judges during a recent provincial gaming event.<\/span><\/p>\n

The University sent its largest ever contingent \u2014 more than 40 students in five teams \u2014 to present their games at the 2019 <\/span>Level Up Showcase<\/span><\/a> April 17.<\/span><\/p>\n

Held at Toronto\u2019s Design Exchange, the annual game design showcase brings together hundreds of aspiring game developers from post-secondary schools across the province to have their work judged by industry professionals and the public.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Five Brock teams presented their games to industry professionals and the general public at this year\u2019s Level Up Showcase on April 17.<\/p><\/div>\n

A team of 10 third-year students in the joint Brock\/Niagara College GAME program caught the attention of the judging panel, earning a first-place win for Social\/Mobile Gaming and second place for Artistic Achievement for their game Bad Manors.<\/span><\/p>\n

The accolades are no small feat, given judges include representatives from UbiSoft, Game Loft, Microsoft, Xbox, Uken, Zinga, AMD and Unity.<\/span><\/p>\n

The students spent eight months developing Bad Manors, a two-on-two game that has one team play as ghosts haunting a mansion and the other team as teenagers trying to steal treasure found within.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWatching people enjoy our game during Level Up made all the time we put into this project worthwhile,\u201d said Chris Rosati, the game\u2019s technical artist and co-lead designer with Nathan Lantz.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was the first time students in the GAME program competed in the event, although Brock has previously attended with Interactive Arts and Science (IASC) students, who also continue to participate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur GAME specialists are in their third year and they\u2019ve already reached such a high level,\u201d said Justin Howe, Project Co-ordinator and Technical Assistant for Brock\u2019s Centre for Digital Humanities, and instructor for the IASC capstone course 4L00. \u201cThat\u2019s in addition to our Interactive Arts and Science generalists who can easily hold their own in game development.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Howe said he\u2019s \u201cvery proud of the exceptional, quality work that was put forward by all our students who made a great array of content for judges and the public alike.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He anticipates Brock will send twice as many students to the provincial showcase in 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n

Level Up gives GAME and IASC students an opportunity to hone key industry skills, such as working with and managing large teams, and creating and maintaining a project schedule, said fourth-year IASC student Ellen Thornton.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Fourth-year Interactive Arts and Science students took their espionage-themed puzzle game, Spy2K, to Toronto\u2019s Design Exchange for the ninth annual Level Up Showcase. The team spent the past eight months developing their game from initial concept to playable product.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the ultimate test to see what we\u2019ve learned in the IASC program,\u201d said Thornton, who was the producer for IASC 4L00\u2019s game Spy2K. \u201cAs someone who doesn\u2019t see themselves making video games in the future, there are still so many things that I learned throughout the year that I can apply to any career path.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The three other games developed by GAME students were Dreamscaper, a 3D navigational challenge; Heist, a criminally-themed co-opetition game; and Magehem, a virtual reality wizard game featuring gestural recognition technology to cast spells.<\/span><\/p>\n

Awards were given for Technical Innovation, Artistic Achievement and Overall Game Design. The public also votes for the event\u2019s People\u2019s Choice Award, which was<\/span> won last year<\/span><\/a> by Brock\u2019s fourth-year IASC students for the game Stop Running.<\/span><\/p>\n

Level Up is organized by Algonquin College, Brock University, Sheridan College, Ontario College of Art and Design and the University of Toronto. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brock\u2019s gaming prowess impressed high-profile industry judges during a recent provincial gaming event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":57653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[37,1,4],"tags":[263,5538,30,123,6494],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57652"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57652"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57662,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57652\/revisions\/57662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}