Summer School Game Research: Pressure Cooker!

Summerschool Multidisciplinary Game Research 2016 @ Dutch Game Garden

During the last week of the Utrecht Summer School, from 22 - 26 August 2016, 42 students from 20 different nationalities gathered in Utrecht for a jam packed week of Game Research lectures and workshops and a pressure cooker workshop in Game Programming. 

On Monday we kicked off the week with lectures from the first track: Game Development: Designing games by analysing the intended experience & Analytical Game Design. During the week the (late) afternoon was reserved for the game programming workshop in which students learned the basics of programming in JavaScript, working in groups of three towards the development of their own game at the end of the week.

On Tuesday the track Game and Play started the day with an outdoor workshop on playing as researching and a lecture on the Let's Play Method. This lecture was followed in the evening with a visit to AwesomeSpace. In the afternoon, students were tied up in the track: Game Technologies: Crowd simulation in games and applications.

Motion Capture Lab

On Wednesday morning  there were more lectures in Game Technologies: Natural interaction followed by a visit to the Motion Capture Lab. The afternoon took off with a lecture from the last track: Applied Games: Motivation and curiosity in (serious) games. 

Thursday provided two more workshops from Game and Play Studies: Creating dynamic game soundtracks, and the participants went outside to experience Utrecht-based mobile games. In the evening, the Game Research Summer School Dinner was followed by ice cream and more Utrecht-based mobile games.

Friday's workshop in the track applied games handled Persuasive games, and the afternoon brought a visit to the Dutch Game Garden, where all students were to present their progress in the development of their game and prizes were handed out to the top 3 chosen by a professional jury from the Dutch Game Garden. 

We want to thank all the participants of the Multidisciplinary Game Research Summer School for a fantastic week and we hope to see many of you again!