"Do you know the land where the lemon trees blossom?" German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe asked in the late 18th century. For most of his German readers growing lemon trees then was as exotic as the making of computer games seems today. While Germans spend 1.8 billion Euro on games every year, only 5% of this money is spent on games Made in Germany. 

Marc Jan Eumann

An interesting article in the weekly "Welt am Sonntag" titled "Im Land der Computerspiele" ("In the Land of Computer Games") now describes how the government of Northrine-Westphalia wants to change that: "The state government will foster and expand NRW as a location for the games industry", says state secretary Marc Jan Eumann. "We consider this, still young, industry one of the key building blocks for the future of this state."

The economic success, however, depends on more and better funded academic offerings. "Only with adequate support", says Prof. Jörg Müller-Lietzkow of the University of Paderborn, "can Germany change from a developing country to a country of developers."

At the Cologne Game Lab we are looking forward to the new initiatives of the state government hoping only for the best ...

Geposted von Gundolf S. Freyermuth

Argentinian animation shop L'Orange Gutan recently presented the prototype for an amazing new animation series called "Gluko + Lennon". As we look at todays vital animation scene, we find a lot of inspiration for our nonlinear projects and as you can see here, not only in terms of audiovisual design! Tomas Dieguez kindly answered some of my questions and made clear that these guys truly follow the good old DADA way...

First - can you tell us a bit about L`orange Gutan?

Tomi D: L'Orange Gutan is a content production company formed by chimpances and bunnies. So bananas and carrots are all they need to aknowledge hi end results, as you can see. They are thousands and the population keeps growing without any paperwork. Sometimes it get smelly, that's true, but that's when "Bubbly Friday " comes in tone: L'Orange Gutan is filled up with soap and water and music and the employees do the rest. These animals used to work in advertising and now they want to do something that actually can be helpfull form someone.

You used 2D techniques as well as 3D animation, puppeteering etc.. Could you shortly explain the process of developing and producing gluko + lennon?!

Tomi D: The word "Chaos" is very familiar to LOG crew. We feel really comfortable swiming in the high waves of chaotic misunderstanding. But I will try to get some highlights out for you. First, of course, the script. The script is mostly recomended and it should give us all the clues for us to solve any problems that can emerge from the depth. If there are doubts, an amazing hand drawn storyboard should be enough. Then, the voices. Voices and acting are very important and gives the tone of it all. So be sure there's some one on the crew that had already worked with actors, they are mean and will be always trying to make you stumble with stupid ideas. So smile, and pretend they are saying something genious, then edit what you think is best. This are mainly two very important issues to develop Gluko & Lennon. Of course you have all the other things you may know: illustration, music, riggin, animation, textures, art direction, etc..

The whole setup of gluko + lennon is quite radical. Whom are you adressing with this series and will it be distributed via internet or are you focusing the classical TV universe?

Tomi D: We dream about Cartoon Network that has allways been pushing the boundries of cartoons. We think G&L is radical but not aggresive nor violent. So we are addressing it to either kids or grown ups, or both together. Cool 35 years old dads who loves good music and art, and his little 8 years old that loves the shapes and the sounds and the characters...

In terms of character design and animation (also the sound design) there are many aspects that remind of video games! Do you see relations and inspirations that come from the games yourself?

Tomi D: It's all just a fake, our main goal is toa achieve a game from it...this is the final goal. The series are just necesary, you know. For me is the same process to create a game than a series or a movie. You have to create this whole backing universe that gives the game some sense of depth and so with the series. So if you want to develop some idea for the game, your welcome!

How is the current state of the project? Are you looking for funding? Any ideas of bringing the linear format into the non-linear world?

Tomi D: Money money money...come to daddy...yes, we are in conversations with some networks, hopefully they will make it happen. And no, we have not been thinking about the nonlinear world yet, but as I told you before, we are all ears!

Geposted von Björn Bartholdy

Everyone wants to be a star. On today´s mission Katharina discovers the new guitar controllers for Rockband 3 and secretly dreams of becoming a vitual rock guitar heroine one day.

Geposted von Tim Fehske

Celebrate the Games - that is the motto of this year´s gamescom. In the name of research and science CGL investigates and reports from Europe´s biggest trade fair on digital games.

With great expertise from Linda Kruse, who soon will be joinig CGL as a student of our master´s program "Game Development and Research" the CGL staff jumped into the boxing ring.

The candidates: Kinect vs. Move

Here´s the video (German):

Geposted von Katharina Tillmanns

„The better you know one medium the better you understand the other“, states Prof. Lisa Gotto of ifs internationale filmschule at the opening of our GDC Panel „What Game Education Can Learn From Film Education (And Vice Versa).“ Gotto, who has been teaching at film academies for the last ten years, recognizes the urgent need for a new all-media-education.

„Both educational programs – and not only those - all creative industry educational programs are in crisis“, says Julian Kücklich who has been working in media research for many years and has also taught extensively: „This is not surprising considering that the industries themselves are in crisis.“

Due to the accelerated growth of the games market, new educational programs in the field of game studies are popping up frequently. At GDC Europe Prof. Gundolf S. Freyermuth therefore invited experts in Games and Film Education to an open roundtable.

The Panelists were:

Prof. Lisa Gotto, PhD (ifs internationale filmschule köln)

Prof. Björn Bartholdy (Cologne Game Lab / Köln International School of Design)

Christian Kluckner (Chimera Entertainment)

Julian Kücklich, PhD (playability.de)

Here´s a sneak-in video on their discussion:

 

Geposted von Tim Fehske
12.08.2010

Get Lamp

Jason Scott recently finished his newest project, the documentary Get Lamp.

The documentary is about text adventures. It features an excellent selection of interviewees. It is quite a niche topic and there are not too many people dedicated to preserve material and resources on that particular subject. Get Lamp is certainly a precious source for research and reference.

Jason Scott is a well-known Internet activist. He made a BBS documentary, he is the creator and maintainer of Textfiles.com, he has the most popular tweeting cat in the world and his website features a large collection of fascinating presentations on various computer and computer games related topics.

You can order the documentary here as in an exclusive 2-DVD special edition. We have ordered a copy for the Cologne Game Lab and we are anxiously awaiting it's arrival. We hope it contains clues how to get past the cyclops in Zork.

Geposted von Krystian Majewski
 
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