Boston Gears Up for the 2012 Global Game Jam, January 27-29!

2012 is here at last, and with it comes a really special weekend for game developers across the spectrum and across the globe.  From amateurs and students to professional game developers, all will unite for a few days of Jam-packed developing!  The event is the 2012 Global Game Jam, a project of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), taking place Friday January 27 through Sunday January 29.  Just to drive home how big this event really is, the 2011 Global Game Jam, which ran January 28-30, was the largest yet, gathering 6,500 participants at 169 sites globally, and these developers created over 1,500 games!

The premise is simple.  Complete a video game in 48 hours.  Often a Game Jam will provide a theme to design around.  However, that is where the simplicity ends.  The goal of developing a game in that time period poses a number of challenges. The time to come up with an inspiring concept is limited.  Finding the right people to do the job may be tricky.  Working within the theme of the game jam itself can pose problems.  Keeping the scope of the project scalable for the amount of time you have is tough.  The list goes on and on.

However, with all of these challenges and adversities comes the joy of the whole thing.  The challenge is there, but the reward is that, at the end of an insanely short amount of time, you have a game under your belt.  You’ve also had the chance to interact with others who share your passion for game development.  Who knows what these kinds of “in the trenches” networking experiences can lead to down the road, or even what can result from the ideas generated during that weekend!

A great local success story comes from Boston’s own Owlchemy Labs.  They held a game jam led by Darren Torpey of Boston Game Jams, and from the game created during that weekend, Owlchemy launched the continued development of their (some would say infamous) Smuggle Truck (i.e. Snuggle Truck on iTunes).  So, what started out as an idea inspired by personal experience and a few friends blossomed into a high quality product.

 

If the 2012 Global Game Jam sounds like something you would like to be a part of, you can find all of the locations here to determine which site will work best for you.  Space can be limited, so act fast!

You’ll find that there are four convenient Boston-area locations.  I hope to see you at the MIT location, where I will be participating.  For more information, visit the Global Game Jam Wiki.  Join in, and Jam on!

Guest Blogger Bio:

Caleb is a game producer at Part12 Studios.  The Part12 web site is being completely updated, so there isn’t much to see right now.  In the meantime, you can check out his blog and follow Part12 on Twitter.  Part12 develops games and more for Social Networks, Web and Mobile platforms.  He just celebrated his first year in Boston with his family and is excited about the year ahead.

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Would you like to share your IT experiences and expertise?

If you are an IT Professional looking to blog, please contact Krista D’Amico at Krista.DAmico@BridgeTechnicalSolutions.com to express interest and for more information.

Holiday Tech Gift Guide 2011

Overwhelmed with holiday shopping?  Missed out on cyber week?  Not to worry – the Bridge Team put together some tech gift recommendations for this holiday season!

iPhone 4 – While everyone has been scrambling to buy the new iPhone 4S, the iPhone 4 is now cheaper than ever!  Sure, Siri is pretty cool, but at the end of the day, we’re pretty sure any iPhone will make a great gift!

SanDisk Sansa Clip Zip – For under $50, you can give someone the closest equivalent to the iPod Shuffle on the market today.  This player also comes with a screen, FM radio, voice recorder and 4GB of storage!

Kindle Fire – While this tablet doesn’t feature the full capabilities of the iPad 2, you can’t beat the Kindle Fire with prices around $199 if you’re looking for a tablet with basic but effective functionality.  This may not be the best tablet for apps, since there aren’t many created for it yet, but it’s great for browsing, shopping, reading eBooks, and social networking.

Jawbone UP Band - This bracelet comes paired with an app for your iPhone and encourages you to live a healthier lifestyle.  The band monitors your sleeping habits and activity, while the app poses challenges and suggestions to keep you on your toes, literally! Sounds like good timing for New Year’s resolutions!  The bracelet is $99, and the app is free.

Bose Headphones – Give someone the gift of “less noise and more music.”  Bose’s noise cancelling headphones can make such a difference in how you enjoy music. These are priced at $300 – $350.

We hope these suggestions help you (and the lucky people who get to unwrap them) make the most of this season and the coming year!  If you have any tech gift suggestions please share!

Happy Holidays from the Bridge Team!

Designing a Mobile App That’s a Keeper

The saying goes, “There’s an app for that!” – but does “that” really need an app?  Mobile applications seem to be the new Web page; everyone seems to want one, but only a few may really need one.  In fact, it appears that businesses are afraid to be the last guy on the block without one.  Before you invest time, money or both in a mobile application, consider the following:  research has shown that only twenty percent of free apps are viewed the day after they are downloaded, and only five percent of users keep an app beyond 20 days, less than half of that after 60 days.  The average mobile app is abandoned after only 20 views.

So what makes an app a keeper?  In his book Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps, Josh Clark suggests that the urge to open a mobile app boils down to three mindsets:  1) “I’m microtasking,” 2) “I’m here,” and 3) “I’m bored.”  To give your mobile app staying power, make the content relative to time and place.  Durable apps, from weather and stock reports to horoscopes and, of course, driving directions, provide information that is time and/or location sensitive.  Apps with data content as essential as price lists or as trivial as movie and lyric databases provide quick answers and also tend to be keepers.  Finally, quick entertainment that is unique can make for a popular mobile hit.

As a procurer or a designer, take advantage of the mobile device’s services, such as GPS, data networking, and graphics capabilities, and make the application easy to use, interesting, and time- and location-sensitive – then it will be a keeper!

-BRIDGE Guest Blogger, Jim Sheusi

Jim Sheusi has been a freelance database and application developer for fifteen years and currently has three apps on the Android market.  Jim’s book on Android application development is due to hit bookstores in February 2012.  Jim is also an Associate Professor and Department Chair of Computer and Information Science in the School of Technology at Johnson & Wales University in Providence.