Three Thing Game Gets Cracking

This is most of the students at the start, lets see how many are left at the end.

We got cracking with Three Thing Game this morning. Great things are being done, or at least thought about. Just about everyone has turned up, which means that we have around 100 students in the department for 24 hours or so, trying to finish off a game.

There are loads of pictures on Flickr, some of them even have captions. Find them here.

Lab Assignments Now Available

If you want to find out who you will be working with, you can download the team lab assignments here. Note that they have all been given suitably spooky names….

XNA Session Content

You can find the content from the XNA session (along with lots of other stuff) here:

http://www.robmiles.com/demos

Here are links to the code we developed in the session, plus a bonus “coloured cloud” version.

• Single Moving Cloud
• Lotsa Clouds
• Coloured Clouds

The presentation was firsts given at Mix 11 in Las Vegas earlier this year. You can find a video of the presentation here.

You can get a free XNA book from here.

About Three Thing Game

Three Thing Game is a student development competition that we run in the department. It originated with an exercise in 2010 called Destruction Golf in which a number of student teams had a week to create a game. We ended the week with a 24 hour development session where the games were finished and a winner judged. The event was the basis of a really good article in 360 magazine. You can find out more here.

We give each team of students three “things” around which they can base a game. The things are suggested on the web site in the weeks leading up to the event. We have students from all years taking part, in the October 2011 event we have around half the teams from the first year. The competition is as much about project management and planning as it is about game design, coding and assets. An approach based on getting something working and then iteratively adding features has been found to be much more successful than those based around a “grand plan” with lots of “great ideas”.

You can keep coming back to this site to find out more about the competition, and how the teams are doing.

Three Thing Game “Things” Picked

[Warning: this is a graphics heavy post. But worth it]

These are the things, who knows what magic they hold.

Three Thing Game October 2011 started today. We have 25 teams and 75 things to give out.  So let’s get on with it.

 

Ergo Studios: Scott Smith, John Firmin and William Mason
”Giant Sniper of Doom”

 

Tactical Nuclear Penguins: Josh Crowther, Alex Beamer and Dan Burns
”Funky Robot goes underground” 

I chose this weekend over Battlefield 3: Lindsay Cox, Devon Hansen, David Hart and Michael Bumby
”Gun toting volcano in space”

Double A's: Anthony Quinn and Aaron Ridge
”Extreme hamster in the graveyard”

Bottled Games: Steve Muir, Leigh Boynton, Simon Johnston and Marc Cutsforth
”Fairground mouse jungle quest”

ALE: Ermin Huremovic, Luke Young, Anthony Church and Adrian Smith
”Jelly werewolf ghost story”

Drop Table Team;: 'Tom Forbes, Joe Smith, Ben Coveney and Mat Bajer
”Skateboarding Chicken Hospital”

Team Thunderhead: Toby Russell, Rob Bedding, Jonathon Rich and Tom Proctor
”Skeleton Fridge at School”

The Honey Badgers: Keelan Jenkinson, Jacob North, Scott Sanderson and Bektas Ozer
”Alien Dog with a Banjo”

Smoking Hashtables: Sam Cutler, Dan Endersby, Louis Deane and Alex Mann
”Bearded Frankenstein Fighter”

Aeonian Arts: Arron Martin, Willliam Grey, Sam Healand and Caine Martin
”Faster than Light  Zombie Desktop”

The Four Horsemen: Nick Case, Alex Hatton, James Czerwitt-Hampshire and Mark Dyer
”Heatseeking Vampire of Stealth”

Fez Productions: Heather MacDougal, Thomas McPherson, Matthew Narey and  Miles McGann
”Reality TV Star Pies Crypt”

Rage Against the Turing Machine: James Taylor, Joe Wilson, Dominic Rihaldi and Josh Twigg
”Spandex Banker Overkill”

The Unlikely Alliance: Scott Neil, Daniel Karkin, Waseem Akhtar and Alex Pringle
”Summoner Bomb Speedboat”

The Infamous Two Sirs: Christophe Lionet and Robert Marshall
”Tomb Ninja Travelodge”

Troll: Robert Campbell, Tim Chadwick, Lawrence Worrell and Samantha Henstock
”Bungalow Dragon of Death”

What's That Coming Over the Hill: Joshua Moon, Andrew Flatters, Abdul Muzammil and Emily Bradshaw
”Cheese Penguin Apocalypse”

Vapour: Johannes Van Rig, Ben Outram, Steven Bul and lTom Kingston
”Magic Mum Comic”

4Play: Alex Chard, Sam Harrison, Shuef Khan and Niall Hammond-Blackburn
”Disco Killer Doodle”

Ad-Hoc Productions: William Dann, David Armstrong, Nathan Hickling and Katherine Fielding
”Orchestral Assassin  Butcher”

Team Awesome: Stephen Foster, Sean Mackan, Callum Elshout and Danny Alan
”Frankfurter  Badger  Canal

Scribble: Alex Tanser, Luke Harrington, Steve Davis and Ben Allison
”Curry Dinosaur City”

Nerd-Tacular: Grant Lodge, Codie Collinge, James Croft and Tim Roth
”Long haired mummy on safari”

Jaybodanto: Jamie Crossman, Robert Bailey, Thomas Smith and Daniel Moorhouse
”Galactic Vegetable Dragon”