Jan

25

Spencer Lindsay and Paul Reynolds on Gamers on Game

Artist Interviews / Gamers on Game / Podcast
Screen shot 2012-01-10 at 1.42.09 PM

On January 16, 2012, Game developers and collaborators, Spencer Lindsay of Lindsay Digital – 3D and Paul Reynolds of Blast Off Games Software came into the KZSC radio station to talk about their current work at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, their working process for creating interactive 3d animation.

Spencer and Paul are two technologists and entrepreneurs that have worked together for many years. They met in the early 90s in San Diego as neighbors. At the time, they were both working in game industry (Spence at RockStar and Paul at EA), a time dominated by the “console” platform. Now, they are working in the augmented reality, interactive mobile market that is far more conducive for independent developers.

Over the years and projects together, they have worked out a system for their collaboration. Spencer makes the art (3D modeling in the Maya) and puts it into the game engine/interface application (Unity) and Paul does the software for the digital interactivity, touchy feely stuff.

We talked about various new technologies such for game engines, touch displays, creating smart phone and table apps, and playing around with augmented reality. We discussed the Paul’s two businesses, Dog Treat Bakery, BakersDog.com and MYR.SC, a Digital Magazine for Myrtle Beach based around hyper-local citizen journalism.

If you missed any part of our broadcast and want to hear it in its entirety, please click the gray ‘play’ button below:

Listen to Paul Reynolds & Spencer Lindsay

You can also watch the video of our interview:

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Jan

10

Spencer Linsday on Gamers on Game

Gamers on Game / Podcast
Screen shot 2012-01-10 at 1.42.09 PM

Local Digital Artist & Game Developer, Spencer Lindsay, of Lindsay Digital – 3D, came onto Gamers on Game on January 9, 2012 to talk about the gaming industry.

We had a great talk starting with Spencer’s new discovery, the search engine, Duck Duck Go that breaks through the filter bubble, created by Google and others that are saving your preferences and giving you the search results it thinks you want. Duck Duck Go uses information from crowd-sourced sites and an emphasis of privacy and not recording user information. It took under a minute to add it to chrome and have it up and running.

We talked about Spencer’s experience working for large game companies such as Atari, Midway, Angel Studios, and Rockstar. We also talked about his current his interactive educational projects with the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Spencer has a video on his Vimeo Channel showing the plankton from all angles. On his channel, you can his great demo reel.

Spencer will be on again next week to talk about future technologies. This show will be different. We’re inviting people to call in and ask questions.

To hear our broadcast in its entirety, please click the gray ‘play’ button below:

Listen to Spencer Lindsay

Here’s a little video we took right after the show:

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Jan

02

Mike Treanor

Artist Interviews / Gamers on Game / Podcast
Screen shot 2012-01-02 at 5.47.41 PM

On January 2, 2012, PhD student at UCSC’s Games and Playable Media Center, Mike Treanor, came into KZSC to talk on Gamers on Game for the first show of 2012.

Mike is a game developer and theorist researching in the Expressive Intelligence Studio which is dedicated to exploring the intersection of artificial intelligence, art and design. Their goal is to create compelling new forms of interactive art and entertainment that provide deeply autonomous, generative and dynamic responses to interaction. A major thrust of this work is advanced AI for videogames

We started off the interview talking about his graduating project as a Digital Arts and New Media, Reflect. In 2008 and right after graduating wtih his MFA, Mike began studying in the Computer Science department. We talked extensively on his curent work with:

- Prom Week

- Cartoonist

- Videogame interpretation (the “proceduralist” perspective).

To hear our broadcast in its entirety, please click the gray ‘play’ button below:

Listen to Mike Treanor

Here’s a little video we took right after the show:

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Dec

19

Phoenix Toews with Evita Huapaya

Artist Interviews / Gamers on Game / Podcast
Screen shot 2011-12-17 at 10.36.22 PM

Artists Phoenix Toews and Evita Huapaya came into the KZSC studio to talk with Nada Miljkovic on December 17, 2011. We had an insightful conversation concerning augmented reality and live streaming.

This is the third time that Phoenix has been on the sister shows, Artist on Art and Gamers on Game. It is hard to know which show to put him on. He is the perfect cross-disciplinary artist that can speak to both art and game making. Among his many talents, he is an augmented reality guru having worked in the field a decade before smart phone technology came into being. As an artist, he thinks conceptually. If there is not a platform or container to actualize his idea, he invents the media. For instance, Phoenix invented the augmented reality friendly and open source programming language, Palimsest, to create  his MFA graduating project, Palimpsest.

Phoenix graduated from the UCSC’s Digital Arts and New Media program this past June 2011. His graduating piece entitled, “Palimpsest: Augmented Reality Theater,” is an open-source augmented-reality browser capable of layering media over specific landscapes viewed through the iPhone. By employing a simple, yet powerful, scripting engine, the browser enables the creation of socially mediated narratives contextualized by geographic location, games that interact with the physical environment, and artistic performances and installations that are virtually attached to a real-world physical space. A participant may explore one of several experiences and narratives, and may navigate and interact with virtual objects such as images, 3D models, and sounds which are located at physical gps coordinates.

Since graduating, Phoenix has created several other projects, so as Pyrite which is a fully immersive and reactive AR environment that lets you transform your world into unique, photographic sculptures. He built Pyrite through the new company Augmented Mountain that was co-created with two other recent UCSC graduates, Meredith Drum and Mitch Miller. Pyrite is an application for the iPhone and iPad available at the Apple App Store. Pyrite is currently being used at the Scope Art Festival in Miami.

Joining in on our conversation was Evita Huapaya.  Evita is a artist, designer and videographer currently involved with live streaming technologies. You can see her work at EvitaHuapaya.com and SandSpitMedia on UStream.

To hear our broadcast in its entirety, please click the gray ‘play’ button below:

Listen to Phoenix Toews w/ Evita Haupaya

Here are two excerpts of the interview that will not be broadcast.

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Dec

07

Rupa Dhillon on Gamers on Game

Gamers on Game / Podcast

On December 5, 2011, digital artist, programmer, musician, inventor, educator and DANM alum, Rupa Dhillon, came onto Gamers on Game to talk about her current project, Rock Vibe. Rock Vibe is a Rock Band-like game that can be played by sighted and blind gamers. Instead of using a screen to deliver information, it uses vibrations. When a player feels a vibration on a certain spot, such as the index finger, she must press a certain button on a Rock Band instrument, computer keyboard or MIDI instrument to increase her score.

Rupa created Rock Vibe with two other colleagues as a school project for the Human Computer Interactive class at UC Santa Cruz. The original game allowed blind gamers to play a version of Rock Band on their PCs by responding to vibrations on their arms. Game testers and people who’ve experienced Rock Vibe  say that they would like to see the game fully developed. Rock Vibe was recently launched on Kickstarter which is a new founding platform focused on a broad spectrum of creative projects.  There are quite a few rewards available to people who donate to the project. Check out Rock Vibe on Kickstarter and help this project happen.

We also talked about her previous work particularly her 2009 piece, Listen. This immersive listening space in which sound is experienced by the body, ears, and eyes was exhibited at the Santa Cruz MAH. The installation’s purpose was to redefine the term “listening” by calling attention to the multisensory nature of sound by allowing it to be heard, felt, and seen. At the core of the installation was a ten-channel speaker system consisting of six subwoofers placed inside a purpose-built bed, with four additional speakers surrounding the space. This large bed allowed visitors to feel the sounds through their bodies and a visualization of the soundscape is projected directly above it. The effect was that of a full body surround sound experience. It is one of my all-time favorite museum installations.

To hear our broadcast in its entirety, please click the gray ‘play’ button below:

Listen to Rupa Dhillon

Here’s the video of our broadcast:

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Nov

29

Chelsea Larson-Andrews of design3

Gamers on Game / Podcast

Chief Marketing Officer for design3, Chelsea Larson-Andrews came on to Gamers on Game for the November 28, 2011 live radio broadcast. We’re lucky to have her come into the studios. Even though design3 is a local Company, Chelsea lives in Southern California.

This was the guest appearance from design3 on Gamers on Game.  Production Lead and local Santa Cruzian Ben Mears, Production Lead for design3 was on the show at the end of August.

design3 is a local Santa Cruz Company that has been in existence for 6 years, first as Noesis Interactive, whose mission is to help people learn game design. They have over 2000 tutorial video. Some are free on the design3 channel. Others are accessed on a subscription basis to the entire library. These education video plans teach all aspects of Game Design from, Unity, Source, UDK, 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage, Photoshop, and more with new tutorials added weekly.

design 3 takes a person from beginning to end with instruction for every aspect of video game design from concept to marketing the finished product.

From Dec 1st – 31st design3 will be offering 50% Off all memberships. That means only $10 for 1 month, $50 for 6 Months and $90 for 12 Months. Also, they are giving away over $2,500 in prizes to our Facebook Fans throughout the month of Dev-ember (December). All you have to do is “Like” the design3 facebook page, and you are entered into a random drawings.

Here’s the video of our radio show:

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Nov

22

Jane Pinckard on Gamers on Game

Gamers on Game / Podcast
Screen shot 2011-11-22 at 3.59.18 PM

On November 21, 2011, Associate Director of the Center for Games and Playable Media, Jane Pinckard, came into the KZSC studio to talk about her work and past and current work as well the upcoming IFOG talk by Richard Lemarchand.

Jane has a very interesting background studying History at UC Berkeley, playing a in a rock band, Dealership, and writing for her long-running and internationally known blog Game+Girl=Advance, which explores games and art in a broader cultural context.  She comes to Santa Cruz from Foundation 9 Entertainment, where she worked in business development.  She has written as a games journalist for many different publications. An expert in gaming, she has lectured at universities and conferences. She is the current Vice Chair of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA).

Jane and I talked about her position, that she took in March 2011, as associate director of the Center for Games and Playable Media and upcoming events including the IFOG (Inventing the Future of Games) Speaker Series.

This Wednesday, November 23, 2011, Lead Game Designer of Naughty Dog, Inc., Richard Lemarchand will give a presentation entitled, Beauty and Risk: Emotion, Indie Games and Uncharted.  It takes place at 11:00am to 12:00pm at Engineering 2, Room 180 (The Simularium). In the talk, Richard will share some of the experiences he’s had at Naughty Dog  as Lead Designer on the Uncharted series, and how profoundly the ideas about game design that he uses every day have been affected by indie games.

Post note: Richard Lemarchand has a great lecture. Stay tuned.  I’ll be posting his talk in the next few days.

Here’s the video of his lecture:

Here’s a video of our show:

To hear our broadcast in its entirety, please click the gray ‘play’ button below:

Listen to Jane Pinkchard

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Nov

16

Avron Barr on Gamers on Game

Gamers on Game / Podcast

 For the November 14, 2011, Gamers on Game show, featured Artificial Intelligence, E-learning and Serious Games expert, Avron Barr.

Avron  is a longtime researcher and implementer of advanced virtual learning systems, an independent consultant for software businesses, writer, director, and DARPA advisor. We discussed the nature and breadth of what’s going in the emerging area of “Serious Games.”

Game technology has been applied to serious activities since teachers discovered they could dramatically impact student involvement in the classroom by replacing flash cards with a Jeopardy-like game. Especially if there was some reward for the winner. Modern game technology, consisting of an expanded collection of tools and methods, is being applied quite seriously to education, corporate and military training, clinical psychology, marketing, rehabilitation therapy, and even social
and political discourse.

To hear our broadcast in its entirety, please click the gray ‘play’ button below:

Listen to Avron Barr

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Oct

31

Chris Osborn

Gamers on Game / Podcast
tracergames

Halloween 2011, Santa Cruz local multi-media digital artist, musician, techno DJ/producer, experimental game developer, Chris Osborn was the guest for the Gamers on Game radio show.

Chris came into the KZSC station to talk about his recent presentation on the History of Games in Santa Cruz that he produced for the monthly E-Games Gathering at NextSpace and his new company and adventure, TRΛCER Vision and TRΛCER Games, that he created this past February 2011.

TRΛCER is the alias of Chris Osborn. His work is equally suited for the dancefloor, headphones, or interactive experiences. TRΛCER echoes lo-fi cyberpunk fantasies and jacking paranoid surrealism. He is available to be booked for DJ gigs as well as contracted for programming on creative art, music, and game projects.

Exploring the intersections of psychedelic dubstep, dark techno, and experimental video games, TRΛCER draws inspiration from Richie Hawtin, Trentemøller, Deadbeat, Scuba/SCB, Kryptic Minds, Burial, and Mark Essen. This project is the evolution of Chris’ previous work as the programmer for Gaijin Games’ critically-acclaimed synesthetic music game series BIT.TRIP (Wii, PC/Mac, iOS).

Chris has over 10 years experience DJing around the SF Bay Area and Philadelphia plus countless years spent coding games for various companies. Currently, he is working on a mixtape series called echo.x as well as several unannounced art/game projects.
You can hear his music at Soundcloud/Tracergames.

To hear our broadcast in its entirety, please click the gray ‘play’ button below:

Listen to Chris Osborn

Here’s the video of our show.

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Oct

24

Ira Liss

Gamers on Game / Podcast
Screen shot 2011-10-31 at 10.36.58 AM

Game creator Ira Liss of AOK was the guest for Gamers on Game On October 24, 2011, to talk about his company AOK that came together to create the AOK game and iPhone/Mobile App.

AOK is a “social game for good,” recognizing and inspiring a new kind of kind, where players share, and become aware of, Acts and Observations of Kindness (or, “AOKs”). Players can then donate their points to real world causes, while also leveling up within the AOK community. It’s a game for the whole family that is helping create a better world.

My family and I, highly recommend this game. It took us minutes to register, download the app and start capturing acts of kindness. My son was helping my daughter with her math homework. She immediately put up his act of kindess, along with my husband’s and my acts of kindness. Immediately, it was a competition as to who had the most acts of kindness points. All this happened within ten minutes of me explaining the game at the dinner table. It is that easy and fun to play AOK.

Ira and I had a great conversation about how AOK came into being through founders Ludlow Kingsley, Natron Baxter Applied Gaming and Gameful.org. We spoke about the number of people playing the game, changing people’s perspectives through playing the game, and how much real money, Cause Currency, AOK has given out and to what end.

For instance, every AOK Point earned in October to mid-November is a penny of Cause Currency donated to the Global Green I AM campaign to combat climate change. Global Green is a leader in the fight against some of the greatest ecological challenges we face today, such as the climate change threatening our world’s beloved coastal cities. Through your Acts and Observations, AOK is pleased to support their efforts toward greener cities, greener schools, and a sustainable future for all.

Beginning November 16th and running through the year end, AOK will be funneling the AOK Cause Currency funds to the Anti-Bullying movement.

To hear our broadcast in its entirety, please click the gray ‘play’ button below:

Listen to Ira Liss

Their blog is super fun. This is where you get to witness and comment on acts of kindness. Here’s a video about AOK.tv.

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