We are excited to announce a new scholarship program which we are offering in partnership with IndieCade the international game festival and conference. The NYU Game Center IndieCade Scholarship will offer $25,000 towards our Game Design MFA program to an individual whose game has been selected for inclusion in the IndieCade festival.
Games are currently undergoing radical evolutionary growth – transforming into an important cultural domain with complex and mature formal and expressive power. One of the main engines driving this evolution is a thriving indie development scene. This scholarship is an affirmation of our commitment to this new generation of smaller-scale, passion-driven, experimental game development.
This scholarship also reflects our recognition that the IndieCade festival has become an important institution within the indie scene and is working to identify and support talented young developers who are doing groundbreaking work and taking creative risks.
Anyone who worked on a game that has been chosen as an Official Nominee or an Official Selection of an IndieCade festival past or present is automatically eligible to apply for the scholarship.
If you have any questions about the scholarship, write us at gamecenter@nyu.edu.
The NYU Game Center will be at IndieCade 2013 with a booth, “Is Game School Worth It?” Panel, an impressive selection of games, and plenty of opportunities to play games, meet, and hear from our faculty, students, and alumni. [EXPAND Click here to read more about the NYU Game Center at IndieCade 2013.]
Visit our booth!
Interested in what’s being made at the Game Center? Visit our booth in IndieCade Village to play student, faculty, and No Quarter games.
Program Coordinator Dylan McKenzie will be there to answer questions about the scholarship, program, and application process.
Follow our twitter for more information on special events, tournaments, and opportunities to meet the student developers!
Is Game School Worth It?
GameU Panel, Festival Session B
IndieCade Village
Sunday, 1pm
A spirited debate on this controversial question. Chris Hecker, long term skeptic of higher education will be arguing for, and Frank Lantz, Chair of the NYU Game Center will be arguing against.
Wait, what? Yeah that’s not a typo. Chris and Frank will be reversing their expected positions in order to explore new ways of thinking about this important issue.
Come find out who will win this reverse psychology battle of wits!
Official Nominees and Selections
Congratulations to our graduate and undergraduate students, alumni, faculty, and No Quarter commissions whose games have been selected at this year’s IndieCade! Our IndieCade Playtest paid off, so you’ll see all these games from New York City at IndieCade. If you’re at the festival, be sure to play these NYC games!
- SlashDash
- Get on Top
- Bennett Foddy’s Speed Chess
- Killer Queen Arcade
- Kulak
- The MetaGame
- Color Zen
- Pulse of the Samurai
- There Shall Be Lancing
- NIDHOGG
Game Center Faculty Panels
For more opportunities to hear from the Game Center faculty along with other industry leaders, check out the following IndieCade panels:
Authenticity
Panelists: Frank Lantz, Eric Zimmerman, and Robin Hunicke
Being true to ourselves as individuals and as game designers is a struggle, especially for those in the commercial sphere. Our desire to create beautiful works, to follow our own path, to create playable objects we are deeply proud of, sometimes comes into conflict with the demands of publishers, platforms and players who expect something different which, in our minds, results in something less. Other times, we create our own conflict, trading our truth for dreams of a financial windfall. In this panel, four game developers discuss this divide, talk about the choices they made and how it affected them.
Critical Condition
Panelists: Mattie Brice, Ian Bogost, Tim Rodgers
Moderator: Frank Lantz
This panel brings together some of the most important voices in contemporary game journalism to take a close look at the state of game criticism. What are the best and worst features of contemporary game writing, and what is its impact on the indie game scene? Do great games require great critics or vice versa? Are we lacking the criticism we need, or are we getting the criticism we deserve?
Visit the IndieCade site for more information on schedule and panels.
Interference
Last year, NYU Game Center Professor Eric Zimmerman and collaborator Natalie Pozzi took home the IndieCade interaction award for their game Interference. Five paper thin walls act as vertical gameboards for a game in which players steal from each other as they play.
The U.S. opening of Interference leads off IndieCade on Wednesday, Oct 2 at 8:30pm at Track 16 Gallery. If you are in Los Angeles, please come by for drinks, DJing, and gameplay.