While it wasn't clear whether the IGDA's Education SIG would take up the issue, DigiPen's Comair says that a policy change is not out of the question. "Students come to DIT to learn and get the most out of their education, not to ship a game they created at school for profit," he says.

"We are a school, not a production house, and therefore our goal is for the students to gain the knowledge and experience they need to be successful in the field. We may lose students based on our IP policy, but this is not as important to me as is maintaining the quality of the education.

"I am not saying that we will not change in the future," he adds. "But, in order to do that, we need to talk to the industry to see what they feel would be best. Our program advisory committee is made up of the best of the best companies in the world. So far," he says, "they are very happy with our policy."

The commercial aspect adds some special challenges, but there's something that rubs me the wrong way about schools retaining the IP of student work. The idea that students shouldn't have control over their own work because 'it was a homework assignment' really strikes me the wrong way, probably because plenty of my fellow graduate students have and will publish work that was a 'homework assignment' (a very, very big homework assignment). As long as the policies are clearly spelled out, no one has much room to complain for current projects, but it seems like something that deserves to have a second look.

Controversy In The Classroom: Whose IP Is It Anyway? [Gamasutra]

We believe that multi-touch will be everywhere in a few years, already seeing it now with Jeff Han's Perceptive Pixel, Microsoft's Surface, and the iPhone. When the multi-touch platform develops further and end in the hands of more consumers, they would want to play games on it. Oculusia is one exciting example of how these can be designed and implemented.

In case creating the game wasn't enough of an achievement, Thomas notes that they also built the table itself. Damn fine work gentlemen!

DreamSpark is simple, it's all about giving students Microsoft professional-level developer and design tools at no charge so you can chase your dreams and create the next big breakthrough in technology - or just get a head start on your career.

Who can get this right now?

We are kicking this off in 11 countries/regions, giving DreamSpark to millions of students in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Germany, France, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium. If you are not residing in one of the countries listed keep checking back, we will be adding more countries throughout the year.

There's more information over at the DreamSpark website, plus you can find out if you're eligible and all that good stuff.

Hush offers a glimpse, as it were, of how vignette might be used successfully in games. As an exploration of the potential of the style, the game is a success. And as a vignette of a situation in mid-90s civil war-torn Rwanda, the game is compelling, if perhaps simplistic and overly mawkish.

The anxiety of literal death contradicts the core mechanic's demand for calm, but in a surprising and satisfying way, like chili in chocolate. The increasingly harsh sound of a baby's cry that comes with failure attenuates the player's anxiety, further underscoring the tension at work in this grave scenario.

The game itself is very short, somewhat successful (Bogost wonders if the designers had ever rocked a child to sleep, since the actual game mechanic can be somewhat jerky and on the opposite end of the spectrum from the soothing activity of singing and rocking a child to sleep), but interesting — they are successful in conveying a sense of rising panic with the need to stay calm. The game is available for download in Windows and Mac formats.

Videogame Vignette [Gamasutra] & Hush [Jamie Antonisse]

2008 IGF Student Showcase Competition

Who Is Eligible: Open to all student game developers worldwide, including student mod makers (see student-specific rules).
Competing For: 12 'Student Showcase' winners for top game ($500 travel stipend), and for the second year, an overall 'Best Student Game' ($2,500 cash prize).
Entry Fee: None.
Submissions Due: October 15th, 2007 at 11:59pm PDT - submit here.
The IGF's Student Showcase, for which the entry deadline is October 15th, 2007 at 11.59pm PDT, will highlight a total of twelve games this year.

IGF Student Showcase Winner ($500)

In addition, for the first time this year, there will be a prize for best overall IGF Student Game awarded as part of the IGF Awards, with the finalists comprising all of the Student Showcase winners:

Best Student Game ($2,500)

The jury for the IGF Student Showcase is headed by student-experienced game veterans, and consists of a number of indie experts committed to picking the best student games, given that games created for educative reasons often have a different emphasis than commercially released titles. [Please note that both games using middleware engines and mods of existing games are both eligible this year, but the judges will take whether the engine was coded from scratch into account when judging.]

I understand that exams and the weeks surrounding them are stressful. I went to Michigan, I remember it (it wasn't that long ago). A couple of UMich students decided to break some of the stress of studying with a Pac Man plus Ghost zerg through the Undergraduate Library and one of the campus' computer labs. It's captured on shaky-cam here.

Thanks Woodwater

The Pac Man hijinks