Game Development

Oculus Rift Integration

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There is a good article on FastCoLabs: What’s The Big Problem With Developing Oculus Rift VR?

It seems it is not that hard to integrate into a game. Team Fortress 2 has an Oculus Rift interface now. Valve, the owners and operators of Steam, helped create the interface.

Joe Ludwig, one of the Valve programmers behind the Rift implementation, said, “Figuring out how to combine mouse and keyboard input with head tracking was not very well explored territory, so we had to break some new ground there.”

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SyFy Defiance Show & Game

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You may have seen the trailers on the SyFy™ and other channels or may be YouTube. If you were curious and started looking, you probably found a ton of stuff generated by a massive advertising campaign. This is not just the release of a game and a TV show. There are incentives in the game to watch the show. In the show we will likely see incentives to play the game. I am sure they will be promoting it. The current commercials promote the game and show together.

This is a synthesis of marketing ideas I’ve not seen before. I think I understand that top players will be able to influence the show’s storyline. The show will add glory to the top game players.

Warning: Violent Content

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One of the major costs of any TV show is the union writers. If the idea of pulling in role players can be implemented and used to replace writers it could provide a huge savings. Much like what happens with reality shows. So, just as computer games are using players/users to provide content at phenomenally low prices, this may be a similar attempt for TV content.

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Xing – The Land Beyond

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I check the Myst Online community every other day or so. I found they are talking about and excited about the Alpha/Beta releases of a game called Xing (pronounced zing) The Land Beyond (more videos and pictures here). For those of us familiar with the Myst worlds the game is very similar. Several reviewers have already made the connection. Xing’s big claim to fame for Myst fans is, like Myst, its non-violent, so it is a great parent-child activity to share.

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The creative team behind Xing is White Lotus Interactive. John Torkington and Koriel Kruer started the Xing project as a classroom project in early 2012. The first 4 levels became one of the top ten finalists in the IEEE GameSig competition at Chapman University. In a completion judged by industry professionals they took second place. Then in late 2012 James Steininger joined the team.

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