PhD openings in the Exertion Games Lab at RMIT in Melbourne, Australia

The Exertion Games Lab (exertiongameslab.org) in Melbourne, Australia, is seeking exceptional PhD candidates to research the future of exertion games and play.

The Exertion Games Lab is a new lab that researches the future of gaming in order to understand how to design better interactive experiences, in particular games that require intense physical effort from players. We call it the intersection between gaming and sports. Our research is focused on the merging of play and the active human body, drawing from research streams such as interaction design, human-computer interaction and computer games research.
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Talk: Harry Ravenswood – Multiplatform Producer at the Australian Broadcasting Commission

 

Using the skills developed in a career as a lead designer at games developers such as Krome Studios Australia, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and Kuju Games, London, Harry is now working with the Australian Broadcasting Commission helping them reshape the way they communicate with their audiences and defining the role that games play in this vision.

Time: 12.30pm-1.30 Tuesday – 27th September
Place: Building 14, level 11, Room 37

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Talk: Conor O’Kane: Tips and tools for small teams developing games on iPad

Date:: Tuesday 20 September
Time:: 12.30 – 1.30pm
Place:: Building 14, Level 11, Room 37 (Games Studio)

Title: Developing DroneSwarm Command for the iPad

Conor will discuss the challenges of developing a game on your own
and offer tips and tools for small teams. The presentation will also cover
techniques for promoting your game, working with a publisher (in this case
Chillingo) and testing.

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Talk by Simon Joslin from The Voxel Agents

Date: Tuesday 13 September
Time: 12.30
Place: RMIT, 14.11.37

Simon Joslin from The Voxel Agents explains the lessons they have
learnt about the business of indie games design.
How they funded their set up, the choices they made and the things that
they may have wished to do differently if they knew then what they know
now.

The Voxel Agents are developers of original hand-crafted games for
“on-the-go” fun times.  They are an independent team with five
core members and four part-time helpers.  They are one of the most
exciting indie teams in Australia, and are situated in the game
development hub of Melbourne.  Creators of the smash hit Train Conductor
series, The Voxel Agents are proud producers of addictive game
substances for millions of players worldwide.
http://www.thevoxelagents.com/

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Talk by Wouter Walmink and Eberhard Graether

Wouter Walmink will talk about his company Studio Ludens and Eberhard Graether about the Marble Run, the in-browser game that won the Mozilla Game On Challenge.

Date: Tuesday 6th September

Time: 12.30
Venue: 14.11.37

Wouter Walmink (walmink.com) just joined the Exertion Games Lab
(exertiongameslab.org) at RMIT, coming from the Netherlands; he has
previously worked at CSIRO in Canberra. He is an award-winning
interaction designer who creates design tools that help you “make
beautiful things”. He helps designers to work together with their users
in creating customized products (without ever meeting in person) and
allowing the general public to experience the joy of creating
firsthand. Wouter’s talk will focus on 2 points:
1. What have I learnt from 5 years of designing for creative
experiences? (examples & findings)
2. How can you make better games / interfaces that use creativity for a
general public? (linking it to the field of gaming)

Eberhard Gräther is student of MultiMediaTechnology at Salzburg
University of Applied Sciences. He is a visiting researcher at RMIT’s Exertion Games Lab.
Eberhard will talk about his study and his projects including Marble
Run, the in-browser game that won the Mozilla Game On Challenge.

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Flora Salim speaks

Flora Salim from the Spatial Information Architecture Lab at RMIT will talk on Tuesday 30 Aug 2011 at 12.30 in 14.11.37. Talk abstract:

Coding, hacking, and prototyping are fun, as well as playing, interacting, and social gaming! Can we insert the “fun” from gaming experiences into collaborative design projects solving real-world problems? Dr. Flora Salim (http://florasalim.com), a Research Fellow at Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory (SIAL), RMIT University, is interested in enabling transdisciplinary design teams to work collaboratively to produce exciting outcomes. With background in Computer Science, she is interested in applying computational approaches, particularly distributed and mobile computing, data analysis, augmented reality, and tangible interactions to architecture and urban design problems. She initiated the development of UbiMash (http://ubimash.com), an open source software platform for designing between physical and digital, enabling data exchange between physical and digital models using  game consoles, microelectronics, sensor devices, social networks, and the Web.

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Hugh Davies

Hugh Davies will be in the lab from Monday onwards working on his PhD on the alternate reality game The Darkest Puzzle. Hugh has produced alternate games for the ABC and has extensive international experience in the games research arena from Europe as well. Welcome Hugh!

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Wouter Walmink joins the lab

Wouter Walmink is an amazing designer who has done fascinating exertion systems and games in both Australia (CSIRO) and in the Netherlands, where he co-founded Studio Ludens that attracted prestigious clients such as Philips and TUE. He will be joining the Exertion Games Lab on Monday, working on a distributed exertion game for teenagers. Welcome Wouter!

 

A word from Wouter

Hi there!

I am super-excited to be part of the Exertion Games Lab as of today (29-8-2011). A quick introduction: I’m an interaction designer with a passion for physical interaction. I love empowering people and helping them discover their own talents. In the past 5 years I have been running my own company studio:ludens with Alexander Rulkens, developing online design tools and products in the emerging market of mass-customization. Last year we created an interactive installation called ‘Flosculus’ with Philips and Little Mountain (watch the video).

Among others we developed a pattern-making tool called Repper. An early online version of this tool generated over 100.000 patterns made by people all over the world, browsable at ColourPatterns.com. Have a go at it yourself with the latest version in the online demo.

In the next months my aim is to develop an exertion game that will knock your socks off. I’ll try and merge new interaction styles into exercise gameplay, mingle new themes with old-school fun and make magic happen.

This project is all about making something amazing —> more brains involved = more amazingness. So if you’re in for a brainstorm session, want to share your wisdom with me or join in, contact me at wouter@walmink.com.

See you at the Exertion Games Lab!

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Hanging off a Bar: new version!

Last night we created a new and improved version of “Hanging off a Bar” in a 1-night hackathon. The goal of the game is to “hang on” as long as you can, not letting go and falling into the virtual river below you. There are some rafts coming by from time to time, on which you can jump to rest, but you have to be quick, as they keep moving and you have to jump back up onto the bar. Winner is who can hang on the longest. We will show this game at the Open Day and use it afterwards to explore the relationship between exertion investment and particular game elements.

 

Continue Reading →

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Brainstorming ideas for peace.facebook

Thanks for contributing to today’s brainstorming session for the peace.facebook initiative, it was great fun!
Attached is a picture of the board where we posted all ideas. They will now be summarized and put forward to the peace.facebook initiative and then we’ll turn them into some great student projects.
Thanks again for participating, very inspiring!
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User Experience in Games

In the User Experience in Games lecture organized by the Exertion Games Lab, students were challenged to redesign the hand-dryer experience in a playful way. They came up with some amazing ideas on how to turn a task-focused activity (how can we dry hands faster and more effectively?) into an engaging play experience, see the pictures.




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