How the studio behind ‘Prey’ reimagined space history

Talos I is a beautiful nightmare. The privately-owned research facility, suspended in space above the Earth, offers a captivating blend of science and art-deco design. Its offices are filled with tall, geometric art prints, red leather sofas and maho...

US renews five-year gaming education grant for Becker College

To maintain its interest in gaming education, the US Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration renewed a five-year grant this week with Becker College in Worcester, Massachusetts. Becker College is the home of MassDigi, an academic...

Someone made a giant Rubik’s Cube in ‘Fallout 4’

It seems there are two types of Fallout 4 gamers: those who want to do nothing but take out bad guys, and a very patient few who painstakingly create some incredible stuff. Case in point, this giant floating Rubik's Cube. User "Theowest" spent a wh...

The freedom to explore most open-world games is a lie

Open-world games aren't going away anytime soon, but more often than not when we play them we're being led around by a breadcrumb trail instead of actually exploring. Sometimes even quite literally. The reasoning for that is because it's much easie...

‘Uncharted’ borrows from cinema to sidestep clunky game design

Developer Naughty Dog's games have always had a flair for the cinematic and that's due in large part to their presentation. The studio takes a minimalistic approach to how it delivers information to the player, eschewing ugly on-screen means of dir...

The Engadget Interview: Cliff Bleszinski on next-gen gaming, Oculus Rift and the always-on console

The Engadget Interview Cliff Bleszinski on nextgen gaming, Oculus Rift and the alwayson console

What's life been like for the outspoken Gears of War designer and former design director of Epic Games since his departure last fall? Well, a lot of taking it easy. Cliff Bleszinski (or CliffyB to many) may not be manning the design reins of an upcoming game, but he's still quite active -- especially in chatting up the blooming dev community around Raleigh, N.C. We caught up with Cliff after his keynote at the recent East Coast Games Conference to talk next-gen, annualized game franchises and anything else we could think of. Join us on the other side of the break for the full discussion and some unabashed love for the Tarheel State.

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Microsoft’s Kodu challenge invites the younger generation to design games

Microsoft's Kodu challenge invites the younger generation to design games

As part of its encouraging Imagine Cup, Microsoft is giving young ones that are aged between 9 and 18 the chance to enter a game design challenge dubbed Kodu. With a renowned Xbox controller being used as the main interface, Kodu will allow kids and teens to create games on a PC or Xbox "via a simple visual programming language" -- which allows them to virtually layout anything from sculpted landscapes and decorated trees, to creating their own scoring system, gameplay and, of course, characters. The Imagine Cup Kodu Challenge, as it's more formally known, is now open and will remain this way until May 17th, with the eventual finalists set to be awarded a trip to the event in St. Petersburg, Russia. The winners, meanwhile, could end up taking home a range of prizes, including grants, cash and other goodies -- but, perhaps most importantly, also the utmost respect of all other challengers present.

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Via: Forbes

Source: Microsoft

Valve announces Steam for Schools, helps teachers create educational Portal 2 levels

Valve announces Steam for Schools, helps teachers create educational Portal 2 levels

Who ever said being a scientific guinea pig couldn't be educational? With Steam for Schools, teachers can now use Portal 2's level editor to create lessons focused on boosting critical thinking, spatial reasoning and problem solving skills. Announced at the Games for Change festival in New York City, the educator edition of Steam comes with a free copy of Portal 2 and the Portal 2 Puzzle Maker. Students and teachers alike can use the tools to create puzzles, but distribution is handled by teachers alone. (That's right, kids -- no level sharing unless the teach says so.) An accompanying website serves as a gathering place for teachers to collaborate, and aims to provide sample lesson plans centered on science, technology, engineering and math. If you're an educator who can't wait to bring a Portal-assisted physics lesson to life, see the links below to sign up for the ongoing beta. Now if you'll excuse us, we're off to "study."

Valve announces Steam for Schools, helps teachers create educational Portal 2 levels originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jun 2012 05:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Crytek’s CryEngine 3 makes it easier than ever for devs to build games as pretty as Crysis

Crytek's new CryEngine 3 makes it easier than ever for devs to make games as pretty as Crysis

It's not every day you get to speak with the folks who make one of the most advanced game engines in the world, but today at E3, Crytek (you know, the folks responsible for Crysis) let us in on some of the secrets behind its latest game platform, CryEngine 3. We sat down with Kirthy Iyer, an animation technologist at Crytek, and had him walk us through some of CE3's tools that are enabling publishers to build games for any platform -- including PC, PS3 or Xbox 360 -- faster and better than ever. Among the highlights are a "multi-layer navigation mesh" that automates the movements of AI-controlled game characters, and super realistic water rendering technologies. We could go on singing CryEngine's praises, but instead we'll let you get all the details from Mr. Iyer in the video after the break. Enjoy.

Continue reading Crytek's CryEngine 3 makes it easier than ever for devs to build games as pretty as Crysis

Crytek's CryEngine 3 makes it easier than ever for devs to build games as pretty as Crysis originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jun 2012 22:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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