Yesterday evening (June 10), I attended the “Visions for the Future of Game Design and Digital Media” event put on by Santa Cruz Design and Innovation Center and UC Santa Cruz Baskin Engineering (Computer Game Design Program).  Held at the Digital Media Factory, which is in the old west-side Wrigley’s building, the event featured UCSC Computer Game Design graduated student’s projects, UCSC professors and gaming industry experts.

Note:  The event was filmed by the Digital Media Factory, so when a link is available, I will post it.

In short, this was a great event example of how UCSC can help the Santa Cruz game design industry grow and how the industry can help keep brain power in town to help establish a viable growth industry.  I was even happy to see a Santa Cruz city official there.

Highlights (as least as I saw them!)

Graduated Student Projects

There was about 15 or so displays of the work that is being done and let me tell you, there was some very advanced work.  All of the projects deserve some mention, but I will highlight just one of the projects

For me, the Game-Based Emergency Response Training done by Kenneth Hullet and Michael Mateas has immediate market demand and profit potential.  They are developing a training game for teaching collapsed structure rescue skills to members of the emergency response community.  It is a multi-player game based on the Garage Game engine.  They have created a scenario generator that could generate and endless collection of unique training scenarios.  The scenarios generator incorporates AI (Artificial Intelligence) planning techniques and naive physics knowledge to create unique scenarios tailored to specific training goals.

UCSC Professors

“I want to go back to school!”

There are some cool classes being offered now that I wish I could attend.  Oh why were they not offered when I was in college - I know, I know, back in the stone age….

Both professor presentations were mind expanding, relevant and reminded me that there are great resources in Santa Cruz and that I should never forget the joy of collaboration, exploration and education.  Once again, I was reminded that I was NOT the smartest person in the room.  More likely, I was on the bottom 10% of the bell curve!

Professor Michael Mateas spoke on the future of games and digital media as well as the USCS game design degree program and research.  The highlights of the talk included discussions on research being done on Autonomous Characters, Drama Management, and Language & Interface.  This work is being done at the Expressive Intelligence Studio at UCSC.

This talk highlighted how a University can take the time to do the research which those in the gaming industry can not.  If I was EA Games or Blizzard, I would be sponsoring this research.

Professor Warren Sack spoke on the why digital media and game research is important for our country and society.  I was happy to see that a discussion of economic issues our country is facing and loss of privacy issues and the role tat digital media and game design will play.

Panel Discussion - Industry Experts

The panel assembled were an outstanding collection of local game design talent who each gave very thoughtful and personal answers about game design industry and market directions.

• Andrew “Tiki” Webster, Santa Cruz Games
• Josiah Pisciotta, Chronic Logic
• Don Daglow, Stormfront Studio

I had a question for the panel, but unfortunately time ran out.

Overall it was a great event and hopefully we will see more of these in Santa Cruz.