So what do you think of the new website? Pretty badass, huh? If you are experiencing problems viewing the page please, PLEASE e-mail us at support<at>firehosegames[dot]com so we can fix the bug. Please include what browser and version you were using when you saw the bug (you can find out by clicking in the top bar on Help, then About to find out what browser version you’re using), and a screenshot would be super useful too. Thanks!

This week has been packed with talks. On Tuesday I was part of a panel at Northeastern on business and making a name for yourself in gaming. Some of the highlights? The most game changing innovation in gaming in the past 5 years has been the advent of social networking in games (and games in social networking), that new UIs will be one of the main changing forces in the next 5 years, and that the iPhone is a complete shit platform for developers without major IP to make real money (although the business model of a 70/30 split with the distributor is a pretty good one). The panel was a bit pessimistic about one’s chances of “making it big” in the games industry given how fragmented and hit driven the industry is, but that’s with good reason! Think how many studios are shutting down nowadays, and how many people try to make games and never get off the ground.

The AI talk at Boston Post Mortem on Wednesday was a bit more technical, and featured a high powered panel of AI designers for major titles like Halo 2/3, Bioshock, and F.E.A.R. . The panelists discussed some of the problems with making “intelligent” AIs (“Ray casting is the bane of my existence”), and there were lots of interesting anecdotes. One panelist pointed out that it is more important for characters to NOT look stupid than to look smart, since people may not notice an AI that is coming up with a neat plan but will definitely notice a character trying unsuccessfully to walk through a wall. Another good point was that many people won’t notice AI when they are desperately trying to survive, but that if you put the game on god mode all of a sudden you can see all sorts of little bugs you might not have normally noticed. The panel was really great, I hope future post mortems are of the same quality!

Last night MIT’s annual battlecode competition had it’s final tournament, with the top teams squaring off against each other for the title of baddest ass programming team. After a long arduous battle that lasted the better part of the evening, team g2g ice skating lessons won in a nail biting come-from-behind victory. Steve Bartel, Spenser Skates, Randy Shults, and Karen Sun had apparently spent the entire past month quarantined in their rooms writing AI scripts in their bid to win. Steve is actually an ex-GAMBINO, having worked on Muzaic this past summer. Congratulations team!

Follow the link for a quick synopsis of the competition.

Each round of the competition was a best of three match up in which teams who were eliminated early on move down to a loser’s bracket, with the winner of the loser’s bracket having a chance for redemption if they can beat the winner twice in a row.

Each match up was fought one of a set of several simple 2D maps which featured variable terrain and obstacles. Within each map were a few randomly placed “flux” (i.e. points) mines, and a team could win by gaining much more flux than their opponent. Flux mines needed to be controlled by a team in order to collect flux, and therefore these points were often the focus points of skirmishes due to their high value.

Each team started with a set of 6 flying, non-replaceable, self repairing archons which were the most valuable units in the game. Archons couldn’t attack directly, but could spawn other disposable attack units like soilders and cannons. These attack units were useful as they could be used to attack (and potentially destroy) archons, tipping the tide of the game.

Several strategies were employed in the game, including having archons mass together and attack as a unit while ignoring flux in an effort to destroy the opposing team early. Another strategy was to split up and mine flux like crazy, hoping to survive enemy onslaughts. One of the more creative stratgies (employed by Greg from Rob Miller’s HCI group at CSAIL) involved sending gigantic messages to enemies which would actually overload their message handlers, causing their scripts to fail in a sort of information warfare. The most successful teams would adapt to their enemies between match ups within rounds to exploit what they learned in the previous match up.

Team g2g ice skating lessons was one of the early favorites but got knocked out in an early round and went to the loser’s bracket. Team I for one welcome our new 207 overlords did a great job dominating the winner’s bracket. The final match up between the two teams was tremendously exciting, with each team getting in great shots and taking wins in heated battles. The final match up was especially dramtic, with g2g having a 9 -0 flux lead for the majority of the game (most games have 10,000′s of flux points) and it seemed like the slight different might decide the day.

G2g won, but there were lots of stupendous efforts and everyone who participated deserves congratulations. I’d especially like to say good job to the top 16 teams, I was really impressed with the various stratgies employed.

And of course, all contestants are invited to visit Fire Hose and check out what we’re up to!

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.