Thursday, March 20, 2008

RETRO hit 2008 GDC anndddd...a New Business Card!

Although a bit after the fact, my RETRO Lab cohorts and I took our serious game, NSF funded, research product MMOG with integrated Flash minigames designed around classic Newtonian physics, Lunar Quest to the 2008 Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, CA last month. Our partners in technology and distribution Multiverse provided a demo kiosk for us on the Expo Floor in their booth. Thanks to their public relations generosity, we made great waves and came away with good meetings and some odd but super fun press.

First, Belgian filmmaker Steven Dhoedt emailed me after the conference stating that he would like to incorporate our project into his upcoming creative documentary about the virtual universe or, The Metaverse. So we thought it was cool and are in talks with him currently (we's gonna be in a movie!). We also were mentioned-name dropped if you will-during an interview with Developer Ryan Creighton on an online Toronto TV show called The Agenda with Steve Paikin. The only bummer there is he said the University of Florida was developing Lunar Quest when in fact we are the University of Central Florida, but what do the Canadians care? Lastly, our game designer Tim Holt Skyped the following link to us in the lab in Orlando from his home in Oregon from MMORPG.com giving us props for making physics information into a more "digestible" form for learning.

Currently, we are wrapping our Phase 1 of development as our research/usability testing portion of our grant contract will begin in the start of summer. To see/read/watch more about Lunar Quest, visit www.lunar-quest.org or read our development blog at lunarquest.blogspot.com

----> IN OTHER NEWS
A business card I designed for Dynamic Dimensions, a custom tile sublimation company, went off to the printers yesterday. I have slowly come to grips with simple graphic design over the years, but I feel really good about the style and organization of this piece.