Interactive Games and Media

IGM's own Professor Elizabeth Lawley had the pleasure of presenting some of our work on the Just Press Play project to a crowd of over 500 at PAX East this year! In addition, several of our students were out and about at the conference. We hope you all had fun!

IGM is currently featured in two stories in the RIT University Magazine Spring 2012 issue! The first is an article on StoreWorld, a Facebook game that explores economic education through management of an online storefront. The second is a feature article on the Just Press Play project. You can read the articles online at the RIT University Magazine website, as well as the overall cover story that highlights these stories as well as others in a theme of games and academic technology.

The School of IGM and the RIT Lab for Social Computing are delighted to host Professor Dan Hunter of the New York Law School. Dr. Hunter will be on the RIT campus Friday to speak on the controversy surrounding gamification, its current state and debated future. The talk will be held from 3-4pm on Friday, 3/30/2012 in the Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences. Additional coverage is provided by the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle in this article.

RIT GCCIS New Media Alumna Katie Linendoll just kicked off her new show on Spike, All Access Weekly | Tech, Gaming and Comics! You can view the first show here. Many congratulations to Katie from all of us at RIT. In addition, you can follow her blog and online presence entitled Talk Nerdy To Me. In addition to her new show, Katie is an Emmy award-winning TV personality and technology expert, appearing on CNN and the CBS Early Show and regularly contributing her expertise to magazines like People, People Style Watch, Marie Claire, Shape and Fitness.

We're excited to announce that this year PC Gamer magazine (April 2012 issue) is reporting the Princeton Review rankings for 2012. This year the undergraduate GDD program was ranked #6 in the country, and the grad program was ranked #2 (both improvements from last year). We're excited and humbled that folks are recognizing nation-wide what we've known for a while: we have an incredible School, a wonderful faculty, talented advisors and staff, and amazing students. We look forward to celebrating with you at the GDC 2012!

The New Media students from GCCIS and CIAS were hard at work today showcasing their team projects in the first of several venues this year. There were several interesting projects, including interactive stories for parents and children, interactive music devices, and many more! Many teams made use of Kinect hardware for custom motion-controlled apps, and pads, mobile devices, and other gadgetry was on display, as well as software from several vendors. Many thanks to professors Adam Smith (NMDI/CIAS) and Nancy Doubleday (NMID/IGM) for their work in co-teaching the course; see you at ImagineRIT!

Be our special guest! Once again IGM will be hosting an alumni event on Thursday evening of Game Developer's Conference, which this year is Thursday, March 28, 2013. The event will be held from 6:00 PM - 8:00PM PST, and registration is required at the alumni website. The evening provides a wonderful opportunity to catch up and network with fellow RIT alumni, current students, faculty and staff. Professor Andy Phelps will update guests with the latest news, projects, research, scholarship and student achievements taking place within the School of Interactive Games and Media, as well as RIT's new Center for Media, Arts, Games, Interaction and Creativity (MAGIC). (NOTE: Students attenting the conference that wish to attend to meet our alumni and guests will also need to register.)

The School of IGM is delighted to announce the winners of this weekend’s ‘Microsoft Choice’ award at the Microsoft Hack-A-Thon: Vivian Liao and Priscilla Yin! They created a prototype game entitled ‘Block Block’ in a mere 12 hours for the Windows Phone. Their prize for winning the contest were a Windows Phone and an XBOX 360 with Kinect. They then entered the game in the Big App on Campus challenge and are now in the semi-finals, and later plan to enter the Imagine Cup contest with a new title.

The JPP team has been hard at work over the past little bit re-building and fixing lots of little things, adding new chievos, making (ahem) quests.... fixing interface glitches, etc. There's tons of new stuff and, don't worry, your older stuff is there as well. Follow the newsletters/emails for more clues, quests, and happenings! It's finally winter and it's a great time to play, so head on over to play.rit.edu!

On January 20th, 2012, Associate Professor Adam Smith (Program Chair of New Media Design) and Professor Andrew Phelps (Director of the School of Interactive Games & Media) were recognized by the Adobe Educational Leaders (AEL) program as having won the 'Contribution of the Quarter' award. This award is a small recognition of the work we presented with Associate Professor Doubleday from New Media Team Project, as well as several other contributions that occurred over the past few months in working with our partners at Adobe. Congratulations to Adam, Andy, the New Media program, and to RIT in general on this recognition! The award includes a small stipend and a plaque.