All times are listed in Central Standard Time (CST)
FRIDAY APRIL 14 SCHEDULE
| TIMES | TITLES | PRESENTERS |
|---|---|---|
| 10:00 AM-4:30 | CSG EXHIBIT HALL | |
| 10:00 AM | CSGC – Opening Remarks & Welcome Message | TU Provost George Justice |
| 10:15 AM | KEYNOTE: How Big Is Your Dream? | Sheri Garner Ray |
| 11:00 AM | My Unity Pathways Journey: Mastery Through Microlessons | John Alexander |
| 11:30 AM | LIVE! LOUD! CARTOONIST! | Carl Antonowicz |
| 12:00 PM | CSGC 2023 Competition Showcase | CSGC Hosts |
| 1:00 PM | Crossing XR Streams: A Clash of Film Production and Game Development | Michael Lister |
| 2:00 PM | Securing Your Game: Protecting Source Code and Ensuring Online Integrity | Sebastien Spirit |
| 2:00 PM | Meet and Greet with Krypto the Robo Dog | Exhibitor Hall Stage |
| 3:00 PM | Game Industry Careers | Linden Reid |
| 3:00 PM | WORKSHOP: Getting Started with Unity | Coleton Wheeler Exhibit Hall |
| 4:00 PM | KEYNOTE: The Nature of Order in Game Narrative | Jesse Schell |
Session Descriptions
Welcome Remarks from Provost Justice
[Friday, April 14- 10:00 am]
George Justice is one of the nation’s leading thinkers on issues facing universities and a long-time columnist for The Chronicle for Higher Education. Much of his work focuses on the opportunities for collaboration between faculty and administration – particularly during times of crisis – and the importance of arts and humanities. He is the author of How to be a Dean from Johns Hopkins Press, a consultant on faculty development projects and a scholar of Jane Austen and 18th-century English literature, particularly women’s writing and the relationship between the publishing industry and authors.
Provost Justice will be giving the welcoming remarks for the 12th annual Computer Simulation and Gaming Conference.
KEYNOTE: How Big Is Your Dream?
[Friday, April 14- 10:15 am]
How Big Is Your Dream? Sheri Graner Ray will be presenting on the topic of passion and inclusivity in the game industry and why it is important to make sure your dream is big enough to survive.
Sheri Graner Ray has been designing computer games since 1989. She has worked for such companies as Electronic Arts, Origin Systems, Sony Online Entertainment, and Cartoon Network, and has worked with such licenses as Star Wars, Cartoon Network, Ultima, and Nancy Drew. She is author of the book, “Gender Inclusive Game Design-Expanding the Market.” In the late 1990’s, she founded both the IGDA’s Women in Games SIG and Women In Games International and served as executive director for each for many years. She has been recognized internationally for both her game design work as well as her activism. This includes the 2005 IGDA’s Game Developers’ Choice award. Sheri currently lives in Austin, TX where she and her husband Tim spend their weekends participating in auto sports.
My Unity Pathways Journey: Mastery Through Microlessons
[Friday, April 14- 11:00 am]
John, a Sr. Instructional Designer, was initially intimidated by, but also curious about Unity. After all, this game engine has been used to create some of the most engaging and dynamic 2D, 3D, and VR games. Would it make sense for someone with an education background but no game development experience to even ponder trying to learn Unity? John decided he wanted to challenge himself and expand his skillset, so he downloaded Unity Personal Edition and enrolled in Unity Pathways. The focus of this talk will involve lessons learned from John’s Unity Pathways journey.
LIVE! LOUD! CARTOONIST!
[Friday, April 14- 11:30 am]
How can comics reach a wider audience? How can live theatre connect with the burgeoning nerd community? What do jeweled skeletons have to do with it? Acclaimed graphic novelist Carl Antonowicz discusses comics, stage performance, and the fusion between the two. Clips from his comics performances will be shown in this short lecture.
CSGC 2023 Competition Showcase
[Friday, April 14 – 12:00 pm]
CSGC also hosts acclaimed competitions in Game Development & Design and Simulations & Graphics, open to students K-12, college, and indie professionals. These competitions include Digital Games, Physical Games, Game Assets, Simulations, Animations and Digital Art. The competition Showcase will feature a few of the submissions for this year’s 2023 conference.
Crossing XR Streams: A Clash of Film Production and Game Development
[Friday 14- 1:00 pm]
With the growing use of LED Volumes and Unreal Engine on film productions, the lines between film production and game development have begun to fade. Learn about the advantages & challenges of a rapidly evolving industry, where innovations in new technology are changing the way content creators approach storytelling. Find out how two worlds began to collide, how these budding technologies are changing film productions, giving creators more freedom on-set, and look to the future as we continue to develop and push the technology further here in Oklahoma at our XR studio in the Cherokee Nation.
Securing Your Game: Protecting Source Code and Ensuring Online Integrity
[Friday 14- 2:00 pm]
One of the biggest issues with online games, most people can agree, is cheaters: people whose main goal is to gain an unfair advantage against legitimate players. Sebastien discusses the issue of cheating in online games, with a focus on the Unity Engine, a popular game engine among indie developers. He explores the flaws and entry points that malicious actors abuse to load their own code into a game, creating an uneven playing field. Sebastien provides insight into different practices developers can employ within their game development life cycle to mitigate the risks and damages of cheaters, as well as ways to prevent cheaters from even breaking into a game in the first place. He also demonstrates how assets can be extracted from Unity games, and how to protect a game from actors who work to steal these assets, known as data miners.
Game Industry Careers
[Friday 14- 3:00 pm]
This lecture paints an overview of the business of game development, with a focus on how that affects your career as a game developer. Linden Reid, an industry veteran who has worked with over a dozen studios, shares both practical definitions of and his personal experience with freelance and full-time work, AAA and indie studios, and breaking into the industry. Students and early-career developers will benefit from understanding why game studios operate the way they do and how that affects job availability and pay for different disciplines.
WORKSHOP: Getting Started with Unity
[Friday 14- 3:00 pm | EHXIBITOR HALL]
Are you new to game development and not sure where to begin? In this bring your own computer and follow along workshop game developer Coleton Wheeler, introduces you to the Unity game engine and how to get started making your own games.
Reserve your spot in this in-person workshop here.
KEYNOTE: The Nature of Order in Game Narrative
[Friday 14- 4:00 pm ]
One of the fondest hopes of any game writer is to create an interactive story experience that stays: something that people will want to play over and over, and love so much that they will pass it on to their children. How can we create something that persistent? Architect Christopher Alexander defined fifteen patterns which characterize all persistent entities in the universe. These patterns are present in everything that stays: atoms, molecules, electricity, star systems, tools, buildings, and all living things. Is your game narrative supported by the fundamentals of the universe? Come find out.
Games, interest, and motivation: How games can spark interest
[Saturday 15- 10:00 am ]
Games can trigger interest and motivation in learning unlike many other tools. Even young children dive deep into learning the various formulas to build tools in Minecraft or the effectiveness of different weapons in Fortnight, without anyone “assigning” them these tasks. The power of intrinsic motivation leads us all to accomplish tasks that may have never been considered if that first spark had never occurred. How to trigger that initial spark and what efforts are necessary to go from spark to internal drive.
This triggering of interest can be used in many different areas, from the classroom to the conference room and beyond. We will talk about the four phase interest model, expectancy value theory, and ways to incorporate these concepts either into the game itself, or using already created games to help players not only enjoy the game more, but explore the worlds the game opens.
Pigments and Pixels: A COVID Love Story
[Saturday 15- 10:30 am ]
Sam Washburn presents the story of how the major event of our lifetime, the COVID-19 Pandemic, sunk him to the depths of creative despair, made him change the way he made art, and ultimately reignited a passion for video games, design and illustration.
After losing the artist’s greatest ally (time), Sam shuttered his studio but then stumbled upon an iPad, which exposed him to a new world of image making possibilities and applications like Procreate, Adobe Fresco and Pixaki. This coincided with the one activity he actually had a little more time for: video games! A resurgent interest in character design, branding and world creation lead to an exciting (and award-winning) renewal of his career as both an illustrator and an educator.
Introduction to Shaders and Materials in 3D
[Saturday 15- 11:00 am ]
Wanting to take the look of your game to the next level? Chaining the way textures and lighting are rendered can create visual interest. How does one achieve these types of effects? With shaders! This talk provides a general overview, followed by a quick demo of how shaders and materials work in a variety of programs.
CSGC 2023 Exhibit Hall
[Saturday 15- 12:00 pm ]
The Computer Simulation and Gaming Conference (CSGC) will feature a variety of exhibitors as well as public showings and demos for many of the competition entries. This session will be a highlight of the exhibitor hall and all the fun activities that in-person attendees can expect to participate in.
Ultimate Sim & Critical Art Games
[Saturday 15- 12:30 pm ]
Entertainment reinforces conventional narratives, behaviors, and systems, while contemporary art challenges these conventions, behaviors, and systems, offering speculative alternatives. How do contemporary artists use games, as a subject matter and medium, to provide a poetic and critical lens on society? This session will present a history of critical art games and introduce the artist’s project Ultimate Sim, reinventing SimCity2000 to play/test climate change solutions for real world environments.
Boost your Skill CAP
[Saturday 15- 1:00 pm ]
The session will showcase how esports can be used to boost your real life skill CAP, taking you through a journey of gaming, self-realization and development of skill through immersive game based content.
WORKSHOP: Introduction to Shaders and Materials in 3D
[Saturday 15- 2:00 pm | Exhibitor Hall ]
Brand Reed continues his talk about how shaders and materials work in a variety of programs with this hands-on workshop.
Reserve your spot in this in-person workshop here
Breach Protocol – Making a VR Co-op Game
[Saturday 15- 2:00 pm ]
A gameplay showcase and developer Q&A over Breach Protocol, an episodic 4 player co-op VR game with an emphasis on teamwork. Breach Protocol is in development by a team of computer science and computer simulation and gaming students at The University of Tulsa. The development team will discuss their processes and inspirations for making a VR co-op game, as well as answer questions from the audience.
Making Your Sound
[Saturday 15- 3:00 pm ]
This presentation will have two main focuses: music and audio production.
For the music production end, multiple concepts that have intimated newcomers to begin will be covered as well as composition, sound design and arranging. Concepts regarding mixing and mastering will be introduced but not focused upon.
For the audio production portion, the intention is that those who attend will be able to leave with a better idea of either how to describe the sound they’re looking for or how to make what they envision. This will include concepts related to sound effect design, voice processing and recording.
WORKSHOP: A Crash Course on Tabletop Modding
[Saturday 15- 3:00 pm | Exhibitor Hall ]
Ian Riley will be providing a follow-along workshop on writing a first mod for tabletop. Participants are encouraged to bring their own laptop capable of running tabletop simulator if they would like to follow along. The presentation will guide participants through importing assets, scripting components, using the tabletop API, and saving and exporting mods.
Reserve your spot in this in-person workshop here
Teach Your Game to Play Itself: Adventures in Automated Testing
[Saturday 15- 4:00 pm ]
Automated testing and test-driven development are foundational must-haves for large-scale pieces of software. In essence, it’s all about training your code to protect itself against bugs, which enables you – the developer – to concentrate on other things. But can it be implemented for video games too? This session will go over the principles of automated testing and demonstrate how a testing harness can be implemented for a running game. It will also cover tips and tricks for designing good tests, as well as how to optimize your tests to run as quickly as possible. The game engine used will be GameMaker Studio, but the principles can be applied to any game engine. Audience members should have a moderate amount of software development experience to follow along.
YES, you can finish your game.
[Saturday 15- 4:30 pm ]
Top 10 tactics used by the speakers to finish thier games. This talk will cover the ups and downs of finishing a project. This talk is for anyone that hasn’t finished their first game for sale but wants to.