Game Center MFA: Apply Now!
We are happy to announce that the application process for the NYU Game Center MFA is now live. You may submit your application at nyugamecentermfa.slideroom.com. You can read more about the MFA program and details about the application process at gamecenter.nyu.edu/academics/graduate/apply.
New York Videogames Critics Circle Awards Show
The New York Videogame Critics Circle in conjunction with New York University’s Game Center is happy to announce the host and entertainment for its first annual awards ceremony on February 2 at 7:30 p.m. at the Cantor Film Center.
Logan Cunningham (the voice of The Narrator and Rucks in Bastion) will host.
Bastion’s Darren Korb and Ashley Barrett will perform music from the game during the event.
“Bastion is not only a terrific game. It features pitch perfect acting by Logan Cunningham and what should be Grammy-nominated music by Darren Korb and Ashley Barrett. We are just extremely proud to have them as part of the program,” says Critics Circle founder Harold Goldberg.
In addition, Bill Plympton, the legendary, twice-Oscar-nominated animator will present an award.
Plympton’s most recent full length masterpiece is “Idiots and Angels.” He was nominated for an Oscar for Short Animation in 1987 for “Your Face” and in 2005 for “Guard Dog.” In the 1990s, Plympton’s work was the subject of a computer game called “Take Your Best Shot.”
Dan Radosh, the Emmy award-winning comedy writer for The Daily Show, will also be one of the presenters.
Radosh himself has written about videogames. One of his last pieces as a journalist was an insightful piece in the New York Times Magazine about Beatles Rock Band. Prior to his stellar work with Jon Stewart, Radosh worked for the groundbreaking Spy magazine and published stories in The New Yorker.
Finally, various members of the Critics Circle themselves will present awards at the ceremony. “It’s one of those times where I can honestly say that a splendid time is guaranteed for all,” says Goldberg.
A limited amount of tickets to the 1st Annual New York Videogame Critics Circle Awards will be presented for free. For a free ticket, RSVP at http://bit.ly/Ay44c7 .
Contact: Dana Whitney, dana@oneprstudio.com
Courtesy of http://nygamecritics.com/
Game Center Masters Program Information Sessions
Are you considering applying for the Game Center MFA? Join Director Frank Lantz and Game Center faculty for a series of open Q&A sessions to answer all of your questions about our new MFA program in Game Design.
Read all about the program at http://gamecenter.nyu.edu/
RSVP required only if you will be attending the information session on-site.
Game Center MFA Information Sessions
721 Broadway, 9th Floor Lobby
New York, NY
Streamed live at: http://www.twitch.tv/nyugamecenter
January 31, 2012 at 7PM – 9PM
RSVP Here
February 13, 2012 at 10AM – 12PM
RSVP Here
February 24, 2012 at 3PM – 5PM
RSVP Here
Global Game Jam 2012
NYU Game Center is hosting a Global Game Jam site where students and local developers will be challenged to create a game in only three days!
The Global Game Jam (GGJ) is the world’s largest game jam event occurring annually in late January. GGJ brings together thousands of game enthusiasts participating through many local jams around the world. GGJ is a project of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA).
Last January, the Game Center was proud to host a very successful location for the Global Game Jam 2011. We were one of the largest game sites in the world, bringing in folks from all around the New York area to meet the challenge of making a game in 48 hours. In addition to this success, one of the games made at the Game Center, Ned, You Really Suck the Life Out of the Room was selected by Gamesauce as one of the top 10 games from the 1,487 games made. We look forward to another great year!
More than one hundred people have already reserved a spot for the event so be sure to RSVP right away!
RSVP here: http://bit.ly/xjod4y
Metagame Available to Purchase
Professor Eric Zimmerman and his colleagues at Local No. 12 have put the Metagame on the market! For those uninitiated, The Metagame is a card game where you argue and debate about culture. The original videogame edition and the new culture edition are simple to learn and fun to play with small groups of friends or with hundreds at a party or event.
For those interested in learning more about the game, head over to http://www.metaga.me/ where you can learn how to play, add yourself to the Metagame mailing list, or even buy your own deck!
The Kill Screen Dialogues
Fri, Dec 16, 2011
7:00 PM
New Museum Theater (directions)
Part of New Silent
$6 New Museum Members, $8 General Public
When are games more than games? When they are communicating with others?
Although videogames are bigger than ever, they are often perceived as cultural silos and not in conversation with other art forms or cultures. In conjunction with videogame arts and culture company Kill Screen, Rhizome invites you to an evening of conversations between game designers and new media artists. Divided into three mini-conversations, the talks will explore three areas: artificial intelligence, with Dave Mark and Mary Flanagan; the feeling of digital objects, with Tabor Robak and Katherine Isbister; and games as space, with Casey Reas and Andy Nealen.
Post courtesy of newmuseum.org.
Announcing MFA in Game Design Fall 2012
NYU Game Center to Offer MFA Degree in Game Design
Beginning Fall 2012
New York University has announced that the NYU Game Center, one of the world’s leading academic game programs located in Tisch School of the Arts, will offer a new Masters of Fine Arts degree beginning in Fall 2012. MFA students will explore games as a creative art form as they design and develop games within a context of rigorous scholarly study in the two-year program at the NYU Game Center.
The curriculum includes game design, game programming, visual design for games, and game criticism. The program is distinctive in looking at games across a wide variety of media, from consoles and PCs to smartphones and social networks. Over the course of two years, students will find their voices as creative practitioners working on individual and group projects, as they study the theoretical and cultural aspects of games, all within the thriving community that is the NYU Game Center. For more detailed information, visit: http://gamecenter.nyu.edu/academics/graduate.
“Games are the defining cultural form of this century and the NYU Game Center MFA is dedicated to exploring their potential,” says Director Frank Lantz, “There are places to study the technical and business aspects of games, but the Game Center MFA has a unique creative focus on games for today’s platforms.”
The NYU Game Center features a roster of world-class faculty, including:
- Director Frank Lantz, well-known game designer and successful entrepreneur, an instructor at NYU for nearly two decades
- Katherine Isbister, acclaimed researcher whose work on players was cited in Forbes, Wired, Scientific American, and NPR’s Science Friday this year
- Jesper Juul, leading game scholar and theorist whose most recent book was selected by New Yorker magazine as one of the 5 essential books on games
- Eric Zimmerman, veteran game designer who recently exhibited work at MoMA and co-authored the most widely-used textbook on game design
The NYU Game Center houses one of the world’s largest collections of videogames, and offers a busy schedule of exhibitions, tournaments, and lectures, including the annual PRACTICE: Game Design in Detail conference.
The Game Center MFA was created by Tisch School of the Arts in close affiliation with NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, and NYU Poly. Together with efforts like the Games for Learning Institute and the NYU Poly Game Innovation Lab, the Game Center MFA makes NYU a global leader in games.
Apply now: http://gamecenter.nyu.edu/academics/graduate. Deadline March 1.
Nationwide Angry Birds Challenge
Want to show off your Angry Birds skills and win prizes? Enter the Nationwide Angry Birds Challenge! It’s simple:
Add the “NYU Game Center” to your circles, and starting on Tuesday (12/6) and lasting until Thursday night (12/8), play as much Angry Birds as you can to garner the highest score. To qualify, reply with your scores as you complete each level as a comment on this post.
That’s it! The top 10 players will then qualify for the final round, where they will duke it out for the highest score. Get playing!
Game Center at NYC Gaming Meetup
Every month the General Assembly hosts a NYC Gaming Monthly Meetup. This is a space to meet and collaborate with New York’s top game designers, developers, business people and creatives across multiple platforms — mobile, PC, console, social and more.
The Game Center is proud to recognize both a start-up composed of our recent graduates, Blacktorch Games, and a Game Center sponsor, Game Star Mechanic, will be showing their games at this month’s meetup! We have had a few recent grads show their personal and company games at this event before, including Nicole Leffel and Professor Eric Zimmerman’s work at FreshPlanet on Dreamland and Robert Meyer’s personal project, Chip. This is an excellent way to get your game shown to local game developers so we highly encourage you all to get involved!
The Decemeber Meetup will be held on Monday, December 12th from 7:00 to 10:00pm. Tickets can be purchased at the following link and we hope to see you all there!
Build An International Startup From Your Dorm
The NYU Entrepreneurs Speaker Series (NYUESS) for 2011 ends this Thursday, December 8 with a bang when Joshua Kushner leads a talk entitled “Build an International Startup From Your Dorm“.
For those of you who are not familiar with Joshua and his startup and VC exploits, Joshua is one of the more successful college entrepreneurs in recent memory (after that Zuck guy). While at Harvard, he co-founded Vostu, now the largest social gaming company in Brazil (think Zynga in one of the fast growing markets in the world). As CSO, he helped Vostu raise over $15m in venture capital from top VC funds including Intel Capital, General Catalyst, Accel Partners & Tiger Global, and grew the company to around 600 employees throughout the Americas.
In 2009, Joshua founded Thrive Capital, a NYC-based early-stage venture fund, while also simultaneously attending Harvard Business School. Thrive has backed hot startups, mostly in NYC, including Hot Potato, Art.sy, Paperless Post, Sailthru, Bank Simple, OnSwipe and GroupMe. This year, Thrive raised its second fund with investors including Princeton, Wellcome Trust and Peter Thiel.
Please join us, meet Josh and help spread the word. We have plenty of space left and would really like to pack the house for this unique opportunity.
RSVP required at http://nyuess16.eventbrite.
