Where Would You Think

Time for another bash. We had a good turnout, even though it was the last but one day of the session and lots of folks had headed home for free food and drink.

We had our first Unreal Tournament Bot programming event at a bash, which was fun although next time I’ll hopefully have a bot that does something more than stand in the corner.

I took the big camera, and got some happy snaps. There are more on Flkickr, tagged with 2009Hullsummerbash.

Subtle product placement?

A useful prize for a change?

Rock Band gets some hammer (that mysterious black blob at the left side of the picture is my camera case…)

Adam looks superior, as well he might…

March 25th was the day of the Mad March Bash. This follows on from the Christmas bash we had at, er, Christmas, and has pretty much the same format. With a treasure Hunt too.

We had to use a different lab for the FragFest, but this did mean that we could have more systems, with 32 players taking part in mammoth Counterstrike action.

Network Gaming Action – but the only things moving are mice and keyboards

We tried using the Buzz quiz, and that was a great success.

Getting the Buzz

The food was the usual Pizza, fizzy drinks and afters. Including  (of course) Easter eggs.

Meat Feast was still the most popular…

We also ran a Treasure Hunt using Microsoft Tags. These were spread around the department and you had to use your phone to read the tag and match it to the clue. The team “The Nuzzling Badgers” managed to find every single cunningly hidden tag. Even the very high one.

Now, that’s a prize worth winning.

The Dance Mats were popular as ever.

..as was Rock Band.

There are some more pictures on Flickr. They are tagged with hull2009madmarchbash.

On the weekend of 21st March four of our students went over to Derby to take part in the X48 Marathon gamecamp.  The idea was to create a game from scratch using C# and XNA 3.0 based on a particular theme. So it was that Harry Overs, Rob Eagle, Rob Hubbucks and Craig Dickman from our second year headed over to Derby to rub shoulders with lots of fellow game developers, many of whom were students from Masters levels courses.

Our lowly second years actually did quite well for themselves. The theme was “evolution” and by the simple technique of not sleeping for a day and a half they managed to come up with “Evo Fighter” a beat-em-up that merges arcade punching action with an exposition of the ideas of Darwin.

Part of the very funny start screen….

Evo Fighting Action

This managed to walk off with the “Cheesiest Game Award”. When the cheese arrives from Derby, I’ll put up a picture of the team with their prize. I’m very proud of them, and like to think I have taught them well. You can find out more about them here.

Apparently Channel 4 were there filming, so there might be some TV coverage too.

I’m hoping that the competition will become an annual event. I’m tempted to dress up as a student (some say I already do) so that I can take part if it runs again. Many thanks to everyone at Derby, Microsoft and Pixel-Lab for setting it up.

Rob Miles has been giving lectures in rhyme at the university in aid of Comic Relief for a very long time. This year was no exception, as students turned up to find out about Objects and Components. He did rather well on the day, taking over 250 pounds in cash from those daft enough to turn up.

Rob in “Red Nose Day Jacket”.

With online pledges, this means that we raised over 500 pounds. You can find out more, and even contribute, at Rob's blog.

If you can track down a copy of this months “360” magazine it is worth the effort. They have a lovely article about XNA in it, with some quotes from me and from Tom as well.

You can even win a free copy of my book by entering a contest they are running. There are some other good stories in there too, and the price is very nice at only 2.79.