Monthly Archives: January 2009

I know some of you will be attending the Global Game Jam this weekend. But maybe that’s not enough for you, maybe you need more exciting video game plans this weekend. Well boy are you in luck!

This Saturday is the Battlecode final tournement. For those of you who don’t know, every January MIT has a one month course imaginatively called 6.370 in which students attempt to create the best game artifical intelligence (AI) around. The competition is fierce, and this Saturday the finalists will battle to see who’s AI reigns supreme from 7pm to 9pm in the Kresge Auditorium. If you haven’t been before I strongly recommend checking the competition out, it’s really exciting and worth the trip!

Oh, and us Fire Hose nerds will be there as bronze sponsors of the event. You can check out the competition’s website for more details, but there aren’t tons.

Last night Chris Swain, assistant Professor at USC and the co-founder of the EA game innovation lab, visited MIT to give an interesting talk on all things games. Touching on myriad subjects, Chris hopped from how we came to our current state of game development, what areas/genres of game development are still ripe for exploration, and what trends he has been observing in the games industry. He ended with a quick piece on how he believes development will change over the next few years to remain sustainable.

Chris also made some controversial claims about how games will be the dominant form of media in this century, which while I happen to agree with him I don’t think I’d make the statement so strongly, and I wouldn’t count out less interactive media like film. Overall the talk was really enjoyable; Chris really knows his stuff, and has the development chops to back it up (full disclosure: I worked with Chris on Immune Attack).

Follow this fantastic link for more details on the talk – Continue reading →

When was the last time a game made you laugh? Not smirk, not smile, but actually laugh out loud at how ridiculous it is? If you just played QWOP then the answer would have to be “a few seconds ago”. Less of a game and more of a punchline, QWOP chronicles the efforts of your country’s sole Olympic representative in his bid to run in the 100 meter whatever. While it sounds easy, the game’s ragdoll physics makes this a bit… challenging.

The game is one player and the instructions are straightforward, but I highly recommend playing this with friends around, or taking turns. You’ll enjoy it a lot more. See if you can beat my high score of 23 meters.

Update 1/29/09: To be clear, we did not make this game. Someone over at Foddy.net did.

Some people play games, some people make games, and some people lock themselves in rooms for a weekend and go crazy trying to spit out a game in a short period of time. Yes, of course I’m referring to Game Jams, one of the most fun things you can do if you’ve got some free time and an itch to make something new and different. This time the Jam is of a Global flavor, and teams from around the world will be making games at the same time. Just think about it! Nerds in California, Japan, Singapore, and Sao Paulo will all be trying to one up Braid and World of Goo in the same weekend.

The Boston branch of this Jam is being graciously hosted by the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab (of CarneyVale: Showtime! fame) and will take place this next weekend, from Friday Jan 30th to Sunday Feb 1st. Follow the shiny link for details on this awesome event. Continue reading →

As you can probably tell from the title of this post, we’re looking for a damn good artist to join us here at Fire Hose. We’d like to get someone with a good amount of prior game development experience, but what we’re really concerned with is talent. If you can make art that is beautiful, sexy, and perhaps beautifully sexy we’d like to talk to you. Check out our jobs opening page for more details.

All the artist who submitted resumes + portfolios in response to the Craigslist entry: I’m getting through all of your submissions now, and will respond to each of you soon. Thanks for your patience!

photo (c) Adam Parrish 2008