SDE Student Hired at Firaxis Games

Brit Steiner, Summa Cum Laude January, 2007 graduate of the program, has started work at Firaxis Games as a Technical Artist. This new designation was created to provide a liaison between the 3D artists and the programming staff. Brit joins another such technican in a department of two that is expected to grow in the future. Brit will be teaching Usability in Game Design at UB in the SDE program as an adjunct professor in spring 2007.

SDE Student to Present His Research in Annapolis

Damian Hart, another Summa Cum Laude January 2007 graduate of the program, will present his research on his Honors project to design, document, create, and deploy a new game. He created the prototype of a new Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) called Gateways. He studied the MMORPG engine Realm Crafter, and the 3D modeling program GameSpace, then built the prototype. This is part of the Univeristy Sysytem of Maryland Student
Research Day in Annapolis on January 24, 2007. Damian will be teaching Interactive Multimedia and Applied Simulation at UB in the SDE program as an adjunct professor in spring 2007.

IDIA Student Hired at BethSoft

Larry Waldman, a graduate of Montgomery College who is taking SDE classes as part of his studies for the MS degree in Interaction Design and Information Architecture, has been hired as a full-time play tester at Bethesda Softworks. Larry previously worked at the company as a testing intern.

SDE Students Present Projects at IDGA Baltimore Chapter Meeting

On November 15, in an Independent Games Festival format in the game room at Firaxis Games in Hunt Valley, ten SDE students demoed their recent projects and answered questions from Maryland games industry professionals as the developers played the students’ games. Seniors Anthony DeMoss, Jay Kloss, Brit Steiner and Nick Allen explained their groundbreaking work with the new Microsoft game engine XNA Games Express while the gamers played the team’s “Castle Wars.” Senior Damian Hart showed his genre twisting mod of NeverWinterNights, “The Wild Hunt.” Graduates Paul Elliott, Jon Muse and Rob Dentry displayed their capstone game “Abducted.” Senior Roger Levy discussed his work on developing game building tools for the Nintendo Game Cube. Rita Leiby, SDE student at CCBC shared her award winning casual game "Primary Confusion." Reaction from the professionals was quite positive and the students enjoyed being asked their opinions by the game developers.

SDE Graduate Joins Big Huge

In November, 2006, Paul Elliott, one of the first two graduates of the SDE program, accepted the position of Web Developer at Big Huge Games in Hunt Valley. Paul thus becomes the first SDE graduate to obtain a full-time, career position in the game industry. Paul commuted from the Eastern Shore to complete the degree, often driving up to six hours to attend classes. In 2004, he and fellow graduate Jon Muse won a national Web design competition sponosored by the National Christmas Tree Association.

SIAT, Juxtopia, CCBC, and Montgomery College Submit NSF Grant

On October 12, UB's School of Information Arts and Technologies, in collaboration with Juxtopia L.L.C., the Community College of Baltimore County, and Montgomery College, submitted a proposal to the National Science Foundation for approximately $750,000 over three years. The grant would support the Xtreme Learning Games project, to develop learning games designed to help high school students pass the math section of the Maryland High School Assessment exam. Juxtopia would design the overall game system, with students from UB, CCBC, and MC building and testing modules. The grant program is highly competitive, so prospects of funding are uncertain, but the proposal has generated strong interest in further collaboration among the partner institutions.

SDE Students Win MTVu Games Contest

MTVu held a game contest and several students from our articulated programs at Montgomery College and The Community College of Baltimore County as well as students from UB entered. Three were selected. Their games are displayed at http://www.mtvu.com/games/

• Jig - Stuart Buppert - University of Baltimore
• Primary Confusion - Rita Leiby - Community College of Baltimore County, Essex
• Robot Invasion - Alexander Tran - Montgomery College, Rockville

Congratulations to these students.

SDE Faculty to Speak at Society for Applied Learning Technology (SALT)

SDE professor Kathleen Harmeyer and Juxtopia, LLC CEO, Jayfus Doswell will deliver their paper, Industry/University Collaboration in Developing Serious Games at the January meeting of the SALT in Orlando Florida. Dr's. Doswell and Harmeyer worked with SDE students to develop a prototype for a video game to teach math and science skills to middle and high school students. SDE students who contributed to the project were

• 3D Artist Colin Fitzhugh
• Game Programmers Dorion Tynes and Jason Lampkin
• Level Designer Paul Elliott
• 3D Animator Derek LeBrun
• 3D Modeler Nick Allen
• Audio Ryan Tippett

All of the students participated in the design phase.

SDE Students Test at Firaxis

The SDE program was invited to provide testers for an upcoming product from Firaxis games. Several students applied. John Friese and Jeff Rosen were selected and carried out the tests.

Moulthrop to Speak at Carnegie Mellon ETC

SDE professor Stuart Moulthrop has been invited to the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University in November to meet with students and speak on narrative and games. ETC is as a world leader for graduate education in experience and interaction design.

More SDE Students Join Absolute Quality

Matt Girdley and Michael Kotey have joined Jason Frederick at Hunt valley's Absolute Quality, a leading testing and quality assurance company. Internships at AQ have been the starting point for many careers in game development.

SDE Students Launch XNA Project

A team of students working on Independent Studies with Prof. Harmeyer are researching and testing the new XNA and XNA Express resources during the fall term, 2006. Participants will build several test games, as well as tutorials and resource compilations for use by future classes.

SDE Students Intern at BethSoft

Since June, seven current students in the SDE program have been working at Bethesda Softworks, the multiple-award-winning game development studio based in suburban Washington. Several are continuing through the crucial product development cycle this fall.

Collaborations Continue with Juxtopia, L.L.C.

The SDE program continues its close association with Juxtopia LLC, the Baltimore-based researcher and developer of advanced solutions for learning. SDE interns working with Juxtopia are creating new platforms for educational games, and recently became involved in a project to create animated 3-D models based on models in the Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore.

Fifth Annual Game Day at CCBC-Essex

Save Saturday, March 31, 2007 for the next fun filled day of computer game activities. For more information contact Doug McNamara or Kathleen Harmeyer (410/837-5473).

BigHuge Tests at U.B.

During the week of September 11, BigHuge Games worked in the U.B. Usability Laboratory to test a product due for release in the fourth quarter. SDE students served as testers, with graduate students from Interaction Design and Information Architecture providing technical support in the lab. BigHuge called the project a clear success.

Microsoft Presents XNA at U.B.

Representatives from Microsoft visited the university on Wednesday, September 13 from 1:30-3:30 for presentations about their company's products, focusing on the XNA game development framework.

Level Designer to Speak

The presentation by Erin Margolis, a level designer at Kaos Studio, originally scheduled for September 25, was canceled due to illness. Ms. Margolis will be the keynote speaker for the upcoming Computer Game Day, March 31, 2007.