The Game Development Lab in Hagenberg is now an official member of the Sony Playstation Portable Academic Development Network. The Glab has its very own PSP development kit and the first projects are currently underway. This is a landmark event for the Digital Media program, as it will allow students to develop their own games for the PSP console.

After serious redesign, the new GLab celebrated its re-opening party yesterday. Around thirty people came to see the lab improvements such as new synthetic leather chairs, a new carpet to cover the once orange (!) floor, new furniture and network architecture and – not to forget – the all new wall and ceiling color: ultramarine blue. You can see the lab (before the actual opening) on the interactive 3D panorama at the .

The evening was started by two short speeches of Roman Divotkey  and Jeremiah Diephuis who also opened the buffet. After that, several student projects from the past semesters were shown to the interested crowd which consisted not only of master-students with computer games major but also of students with other majors and from the bachelor’s program.

Later on a big part of the crowd moved to one of the nearby computer labs to indulge in this semester’s first Gamers Night. Not less than 24 players filled a private Team Fortress 2 server and fought for about 3 hours for the domination of control points or tried to steal the other team’s objectives.

After all the GLab opening was a huge success. The Gamers Nights will of course continue in a bi-weekly schedule with the next showdown on November 5, 2008 at 18:30.

Here are some pictures of yesterday’s event.

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Here are some (chronological but otherwise random) impressions of our visit to the Games Convention 2008 in Leipzig.

It was a great time, we got to see a lot of new and interesting games and technologies and some of us even had the chance to attend the Games Convention Developers Conference (GCDC). Expect more about this soon but first – the pictures. You will also notice a few images showing the GC Freestyle Campsite and the Video Games Live Concert. Enjoy!

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Ten members of the GLab will attend this year’s Games Convention 2008 in Leipzig. Arriving on August 19 we will start off with the trade vistor day on August 20 giving our students and especially the newly graduates a unique chance to get in touch with some of Europe’s most important players in the gaming industry.
From 21st to 22nd we will visit the regular GC exhibition and get a glimpse on the lastest innovations and releases on the game market.

Visiting the Games Convention as trade visitors is a special offer for students participating in the computer games development branch of the Digital Media program. A successful education in computer games has to be tied closely to the industry and the well renowned Games Convention is an ideal opportunity to achieve just this.

We are happy to announce the the GLab in Hagenberg has officially joined the Valve SourceU program. SourceU provides educational institutions in the field of game development with the necessary applications to develop games and mods based on Valve’s Source Engine. Most importantly the bundle includes the Source SDK but also number of current and classic Valve software titles such as Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike and the critically acclaimed Garry’s Mod. All applications are accessible for students and lecturers via multiple accounts of the Steam client.

We are looking forward to developing exciting applications and of course using the provided titles for our lab-internal gamers nights.