Technology is continuing to change the way humans live and interact with each other on a daily basis. UC Santa Cruz alumna Rupa Dhillon has contributed to this change in a way few others have done before with a video game for both blind and sighted gamers.

Dhillon designed “Rock Vibe,” accessible both to the sighted and to the blind. Dhillon came up with the idea when she noticed a “Rock Band” controller while brainstorming for her thesis in a human-computer interactions course, part of her master’s program at UCSC.

“To play the game, you put on a wearable device that contains four or five vibrating motors,” Dhillon said. “Each motor would represent a color band you would respond to if you were playing Rock Band. So if you felt a vibration on the far left side of the device you would know that you would need to press the far left button on the guitar controller or keyboard.”

Research for the game was published by the Association for Computing and Machinery after Dhillon presented the game at their national conference.

Rock Vibe Belt Prototype

Sri Kurniawan, UCSC computer engineering professor and former instructor for Rupa’s human-computer interactions course, said “Rock Vibe” is an inclusive gaming model.

“‘Rock Vibe’ is a much bigger scheme,” Kurniawan said. “We are looking to modify mainstream games that interact with both sighted and blind people.”

Kurniawan’s research is in games for health and healthy living, including assistive technology for people with disabilities and people with low social economic and educational backgrounds.

“There are quite a number of games that can be played by people who are blind,” Kurniawan said. “However, there are fewer games that a blind person and a sighted person could play together.”

Traditional board games like chess and Battleship allow sighted and visually impaired players to interact together, she said.

While there are options, Dhillon said they are limited and not attractive to the average player.

“Most games are really simple — they don’t do much, and aren’t very fun,” Dhillon said. “There are many games available for both sighted and blind people, but again, they’re too simplistic to be taken into the mainstream.”

While the game has only been played by game testers, Dhillon is hoping to give access to the community through centers for the blind and visually impaired.

Sharon Hudson has been working as an associate director and teacher at the Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired for 28 years. Hudson said current technology hasn’t been as inclusive of the blind community as it can be.

“Things like the iPhone and computers have been great in general, but they continue to make them more visual,” Hudson said. “They’re producing more devices with icons and touch screens … things that aren’t accessible to the visually impaired.

Hudson said “Rock Vibe” could be something her students will enjoy.

“I know a lot of our students are interested in music, so anything that would make them connect with others would be great,” she said.

“Rock Vibe” is hoping to receive most of its funding from the online pledge website, Kickstarter. Kickstarter opens a pledge system for projects to raise funds and sets a goal the project must reach in order to receive any of the pledge funds. Dhillon has until Feb. 25 to raise $16,500 or the project won’t receive any funds. As of Feb. 1, over $12,000 has been pledged toward the project. The Kickstarter project can be found here.

“It is possible to create games that can reach a wide range of people, regardless of their capabilities,” Dhillon said. “It is possible to bring people together, no matter their differences. And I hope that ‘Rock Vibe’ can show people that.”

Peter Hunter, a founder of Team Krinoid and designer of “Syz: E.G.,” shows off the multi-touch technology that allows players to simultaneously control both how their spaceship flies and the direction in which it fires. Photo by Toby Silverman.

You are zipping through the cosmos in the Syzygy, a hyper-advanced starship boasting an array of weapons, all manned by seasoned specialists. You jet past asteroids and stardust with relative ease, engaging in friendly banter with your crew, until suddenly you’re ambushed by a fleet of enemy fighters. What was once an empty starscape is suddenly filled with cascading laser beams of every color of the rainbow. Only your commanding expertise and lightning-fast reflexes can save you from a gruesome death in the vast vacuum that surrounds you.

Thus begins “Syz E.G.,” the first installment in a series of space shooters produced by Team Krinoid, an independent game development studio founded by three UC Santa Cruz alumni. In addition to a fully voiced cast of characters and an invariably slick soundtrack, “Syz E.G.” boasts a number of other distinctions that set it apart from your typical iPad game, like an innovative multi-touch targeting system and a compelling story.

“Most iPad games are ‘sit here’ or ‘touch that,’” said John Peters, CEO of Team Krinoid. “But I feel that the platform has much more potential than that.”

Work on “Syz E.G.” began in the summer of 2010. It was then that Peters moved in with fellow students (and avid gamers) Peter Hunter and Max Weinberg. The trio soon discovered they shared an interest in gaming, and between them they had the skills necessary to begin developing a game of their own. By the time the school year started, the team already had a solid foundation upon which to build. In the interest of time management, Peters made the game his senior project, allowing the team to recruit seven other programming students and expedite the process.

“A team of that size helped balance things,” Hunter said. “We had one team member working on Lynn’s shields for three months.”

By the end of the school year, the group had produced a polished, innovative and wildly entertaining mobile game, one that ultimately won them the grand prize at the UCSC 2011 Sammy Awards, a prize awarded for the best games created by students in the program. Since graduating, Peters, Hunter and Weinberg have spent their time establishing Team Krinoid as a legitimate game development studio, allowing them to market the game and pay their fellow programmers royalties. After jumping through all the legal hoops necessary to form a company, “Syz E.G.” was released on the iTunes app store at the end of September, and has since yielded a steady stream of sales.

Team Krinoid has already begun work on their next venture, a side-scrolling platformer called “Bunny Run,” which they plan to release on every mobile gaming device they can. They are simultaneously working to make “Syz E.G.” compatible with Blackberry’s Playbook.

“Mobile gaming is becoming a much more influential part of the gaming industry,” Weinberg said. “We want to make the games that we want to play. If there’s a game we want to play that doesn’t exist yet, we’ll make it.”

Participants from UCSC work furiously to design a game in 48 hours for the Global Game Jam. At the end of the competition, games are rated on the Global Game Jam website. This year marks the biggest Jam thus far, attracting 6,500 participants from 44 different countries. Photo by Nick Paris.

The Baskin Engineering lecture hall is filled with 69 students, brought together by their passion for game design. The room grows quiet as the students discover what they will be spending the next 48 hours creating.

“This year’s theme is extinction,” UCSC event organizer Teale Fristoe said.

So began Global Game Jam 2011.

Global Game Jam is a worldwide game design and creation event. Now in its third year, the contest attracts students from universities around the world, with participating countries including China, New Zealand and Denmark. Students compete to create the best original game — either video or board — in just 48 hours.

The Game Jams are becoming increasingly popular. Participants this year doubled in number from past events. UCSC entered 13 teams, adding to the 6,500 participants from 170 locations in 44 countries that produced some 1,500 games.

Among the veteran game designers speaking at the opening ceremony on Jan. 28, was British programmer Graeme Devine. Devine, an experienced video game enthusiast, offered words of encouragement for those embarking on the 48-hour design challenge.

Devine encouraged the designers “to scope your designs — focus on the play mechanic you most treasure — your passion, if you will.”

As the 48-hour deadline drew closer, students grew fatigued.

The students, fighting off sleep by downing whole cans of energy drinks, huddled around glowing computer monitors. In the background, the sound of people arguing over whether or not to include pirates, ninjas, zombies or space-marines in their games made the air buzz. Slowly but surely, finished designs began to appear.

Reproduction — a single-screen, brightly colored strategy game — featured a small herd of pixelated moose competing for meat, mates and survival.

Tower of Corpses set the player to the task of creating and climbing a tower of alien corpses. Despite being the brainchildren behind the game, even the creators had no idea what truly lay at the top of the tower, just that defeating it would somehow save the Earth.

By 4:30 on Sunday afternoon, 48 hours after they had begun, the 13 teams met to demonstrate their products in the hope of being crowned the winner of the UCSC 2011 contingency.

All present were allowed to vote for their three favorite UCSC games.

While some games grabbed the attention of all, some voters were critical.

“Some [games] are really impressive — some are just a step away from another game,” said graduate student and spectator John Murray.

Murray was critical of many of the titles he reviewed, saying some of the content was overly outrageous, and “pushed the boundaries of what can be considered a game.”

On a global scale, four of the 10 grand winners were Finnish, with others from locations like China and New York City. Despite not making the top 10, the UCSC team Sock Puppet Cabaret took solace in winning the local prize, a gift voucher for the Bay Tree Bookstore.

The winning title, computer game Generate Exterminate, in which two players compete to first nurture planets, before destroying them and dragging what remained into constantly moving wormholes.

“Think of it as a tug-of-war with planets,” one of the team’s programmers said.

One of the team’s five programmers, Ryan Loeb, was stunned, saying that it was his first time participating in Game Jam. Loeb said his team recognized sleep as a critical aspect and tried to get a lot of it. Their tactical move, along with general collaboration, resulted in their winning the contest.

In just 48 hours, 69 UCSC students proved just what could be achieved with small teams of developers who come together through their passion for game design.

As the contest came to a close and the tired programmers began to return to their lives, former contestant Kevin Meggs reflected on the event.

“I did it last year — it was a lot of fun,” he said. “If it’s something you’re passionate about, when the weekend rolls around you can step back and say ‘I helped
create this.’”

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

The Porter College Fall Brawl is a video game tournament being held at the Porter Dining Hall on Saturday Nov. 20. All the proceeds will go to Child’s Play, a charity that donates DVDs, video games and toys to hospitalized children during the holidays.

For just $5, participants can end up spending up to 12 hours playing either Super Smash Bros: Brawl or Super Street Fighter IV. The organizers of this event have found a way to make donating time and money easy, rewarding and fun.

This is a superbly innovative and positive way to give back to the community.

The “gamer” community has various negative stereotypes, such as being antisocial or lacking a sense of reality — but these thoughts are untrue and this event proves it. It’s bringing together a gaming community that realizes that there’s more to the world than high scores and bonus levels. Video games have always been considered communal. Their origins are firmly entrenched in the arcades of yesteryear, and, though it was once seen as a only hobby for children and men, it is now becoming fully realized that everyone plays video games.

Video games are one of the fastest rising of art and entertainment mediums, rivaled closely by comic books. It’s smart and modern to take this pastime and find ways to utilize its entertainment factor to contribute to a good cause.

Maybe you have no interest in playing video games, or maybe you have homework, like the majority of the student body. That’s understandable. But if you’re interested in the cause, you can donate on the Fall Brawl website: www.portervgf.org/fallbrawl.

Follow the links, go to the event and feel good about yourself.

The 2010 Global Game Jam, an annual indie game competition that challenges teams from across the nation to develop an innovative game in just 48 hours, is going on right now. Yes, like right now.

Even better, UC Santa Cruz has a delegation representing the good ol’ Banana Slugs. Yay! You can head over to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/global-game-jam-santa-cruz to watch them live. UCSC is just one of 138 locations across the globe participating in the event.

With so much competition, they need our support! So head on over and cheer ‘em on. The jam ends at 4 p.m. Sunday.

If you’re curious to learn more about the GGJ and to watch teams across the world live, check out the links below.

Global Game Jam at UCSC [UCSC SoE]
Global Site for the GGJ [IGDA]