Flashback to the ‘80s: Parsons School of Design Partners with Atari for ‘RETRO
REDUX’ 24-hour VIDEO Game JAM
New
York-Area Students Challenged to Create New Games Based on the Atari
Technology Behind Such Classic Hits as Asteroids®, Missile Command®,
Pong® and Centipede®
Winning
Game to be Featured in Upcoming Version of ‘Atari ® FlashbackTM
Game Console’
NEW YORK, April 4, 2005 – Parsons School of Design, a division of New School
University, announced the winners of its first 24-hour game design event,
“Retro Redux,” held in collaboration with Atari, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAR) at an
award ceremony held today. Taking place April 2-3, Retro Redux challenged
teams of students from New York-area colleges and universities to design games
that would withstand the test of time using technology comparable to the
original Atari 2600, which gave rise to such classic games as Asteroids®,
Missile Command®,
Pong®
and Centipede®.
The resulting games were judged in the categories of top overall game, most
innovative game design, best sound, and best visuals, with the top overall
game to be considered for inclusion in an upcoming version of the Atari®
Flashback™ Game Console.
“Retro Redux provided students with the opportunity to test their creativity
and design skills by re-inventing classic games from the birth of the video
game era,” said Katie Salen, the director of the MFA Design and Technology
Program at Parsons and a professional game designer. “By bringing together
students from the leading university game design programs in the New York
area, Parsons’ goal was to showcase the tremendous talent to be found in the
region.”
Nine teams of recent and current students from Parsons, Mercy College, New
York University, Renssaeler Polytechnic Institute, and the School of Visual
Arts – approximately 40 students total – participated in the game jam, which
began Saturday, April 2, at noon and proceeded until 1 p.m., Sunday, April 3,
taking into account daylight savings time. Following the conclusion of the
jam, the resulting XX games were reviewed by a panel of three judges – Carl
Goodman, Curator of Digital Media, American Museum of the Moving Image; Alex
Galloway, founding member of the software development group RSG; and Graham
Leggat, game columnist, New York Daily News and FILMMAKER Magazine – who
evaluated the games based on quality of game play, visual design, sound
design, and experimentation.
“Our partnership with Parsons for its first 24-hour game jam underscores
Atari’s commitment in inspiring and supporting future game designers,” said
Wim Stocks, executive vice president of Sales and Marketing for Atari. “We
were excited to see the results of the competition, and especially impressed
by the skillfulness displayed by all of the participants.”
The following were the award-winning games:
Top Overall Game: “Ninja Garden,” Team “Club Awesome” (Matt Brant, Evan
Harper, Raymond Zablocki, and Theodore Watson), Parsons School of Design
This two-player game features a red and a blue ninja who must blast their way
through a garden of cherry blossom trees in order to reach and destroy the
enemy’s temple.
Honorable Mention:
“Princess,” Team “Flashsmack” (Ward Childress, Cory McWilliams, Sunbir Gill,
Luis Barriga), Renssaeler Polytechnic Institute
Inverting the archetypical videogame, the princess is the hero who saves
herself from a series of increasingly challenging scenarios that cleverly
allude to classic video games.
Most Innovative Game: “Princess,” Team “Flashsmack” (Ward Childress, Cory
McWilliams, Sunbir Gill, Luis Barriga), Renssaeler Polytechnic Institute
Honorable Mention:
“Cats + Mice,” Team “Show No Mercy” (Cynthia Arbore, Mike Bonifacio, Adam
Deyglio, Chris Whittaker, Steve Zuccara)
A puzzle-solving game where a mouse makes it way through a series of mazes
eating one type of cheese to make it big enough to break through walls and
invulnerable to cats, and another type to make it small enough to fit through
mouse holes.
Best Visuals: “Bull Run!” Team “Pixel Pirates” (Travis Griggs, Andres
Hernandez, Nelson Ramirez, Samuel Roldan, Mason Staugler, Brea Taylor-Munro),
School of Visual Arts
A bull makes its way through Spain’s famed “Running of the Bulls,” attempting
to gore runners while avoiding running into obstacles placed along the route.
Best Sound:
“Piranha Massacre,” Team “Superfriends” (Austin Chang, Aric Cheston, Jason
Corace, Victoria Fang, Mattia Romeo), Parsons/New York University TischITP
A piranha moves it way through waters filled with prey and predators,
attempting to score points by eating its prey while avoiding being eaten by
its predators.
Game Design at Parsons School of Design
Located in the heart of New York City, Parsons School of Design offers
graduate and – starting in fall 2005 – undergraduate studies in game design,
the fastest-growing sector in the new media industry, through its BFA and MFA
Design and Technology programs. As part of New School University, Parsons
students are encouraged to identify new forms of games that go beyond the
traditional entertainment sector, collaborating with other divisions such as
the Parsons Institute for Information Mapping (piim.newschool.edu) Eugene Lang
College, and the Graduate Faculty to design games with learning outcomes and
ideological agendas. Emerging technologies and practices related to haptic
interfaces, motion capture, mobile technology, and micro-controllers provide a
context for research on alternative interfaces and for games that take
advantage of connections between social technologies, community practices, and
public space.
“At Parsons, students learn to think critically about the role technology
plays in the design, production, dissemination, and use of games,” said
Colleen Macklin, Chair of the Design and Technology Program at Parsons. “The
tremendous success of our MFA-level concentration in game design made it clear
to us that there was a demand for academic training at the undergraduate level
as well. To meet this demand, we are launching a game design concentration at
the BFA level this coming fall.”
For more information about Retro Redux, visit
http://retroredux.parsons.edu.
For information about game design at Parsons, visit
http://games.parsons.edu/games.html.
More information on the Atari Flashback Game Console can be found online at
www.atari.com.
A full list of Retro Redux teams and resulting games below.
Retro Redux
Game Jam
Presented by
Parsons School of Design in collaboration with Atari, Inc.
Participating
Teams and Resulting Games
Mercy
College
Team “Bawls”: Brian Clarke, Steven Goer, Jon Lopez
“Bawls”: A two-dimensional game that simulates movement through a
three-dimensional space, where the player hits a ball to destroy objects
impeding its passage through the space
“Heart and Castles”: an exploratory game where a heart makes it way through a
series of castle chambers
Team “Show No Mercy”: Cynthia Arbore, Mike Bonifacio, Adam Deyglio, Chris
Whittaker, Steve Zuccara
“Cats + Mice” –
Honorable Mention, Most Innovative:
A puzzle-solving game where a mouse makes it way through a series of mazes
eating one type of cheese to make it big enough to break through walls and
invulnerable to cats, and another to make it small enough to fit through mouse
holes.
New York
University/TischITP
Team “QED”: Amos Bloomberg, Jason Golubock, Matt Slaybaugh
“Cart Joust”: the player navigates a shopping cart through an aisle of a
grocery store hitting as many passersby as possible
“Family Jewels”: a cops and robbers maze game where the player is the cops who
attempt to jail the robbers while preventing them from stealing bags of loot.
“Dots Dash”: the player is a dot making its way to the top of a minefield,
avoiding increasingly faster moving mines along the route
Parsons School
of Design, MFA Design and Technology Program
Team “Phatari”: Kaho Abe, Donnie Bugden, Prithvi Virasinghe, Samuel (Jenks)
Whittenburg
“Squirrel Jam”: a sound-sequencing game where the player climbs up and down a
tree trunk attempting to hit flying squirrels a proposed order to complete a
tune.
Team “G Bunch”: Rob Boudon, Emily Gobeille, Masha Ioveva, Brett Jackson
“Luigi Dies and Goes to Australia Heaven”: A car collects luggage to get into
heaven while avoiding flying snakes and other perils.
Parsons School
of Design, BFA Design and Technology Program
Team “Club Awesome”: Matt Brant, Evan Harper, Uken Huang, Theodore Watson,
Raymond Zablocki
“Ninja Garden” –
Top Overall
Game:
a two-player game featuring a red and a blue ninja who must blast their way
through a garden of cherry blossom trees in order to reach and destroy the
enemy’s temple.
“Run Rabbit Run”: A rabbit makes it way through a forest to its rabbit hole,
collecting carrots and avoiding predators along the way.
Parsons School
of Design and New York University/TischITP, recent graduates
Team “Superfriends”: Austin Chang, Aric Cheston, Jason Corace, Victoria Fang,
Mattia Romeo
“Piranha Massacre” –
Best Sound:
a piranha moves it way through waters filled with prey and predators,
attempting to score points by eating its prey while avoiding being eaten by
its predators.
Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute
Team “Flashsmack”: Luis Barriga, Ward Childress, Sunbir Gill, Cory McWilliams
“Princess” –
Most
Innovative and Honorable Mention, Top Overall Game:
Inverting the archetypical videogame, the princess is the hero who saves
herself from a series of increasingly challenging scenarios that cleverly
allude to classic video games.
School
of Visual Arts
Team
“Pixel Pirates”: Travis Griggs,
Andres Hernandez, Nelson Ramirez, Samuel Roldan, Mason Staugler, Brea
Taylor-Munro
“Bull Run!” –
Best Visuals:
A bull makes its way through Spain’s famed “Running of the Bulls,” attempting
to gore runners while avoiding running into obstacles placed along the route.
About Atari,
Inc.
New York-based Atari, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAR) develops interactive games for all
platforms and is one of the largest third-party publishers of interactive
entertainment software in the U.S. The company’s 1,000-plus titles include
hard-core, genre-defining games such as
DRIV3R™, Enter the
Matrix™, Neverwinter
Nights™, Stuntman™,
Test Drive®,
Unreal® Tournament 2004,
and Unreal® Championship;
and mass-market and children’s games such as
Backyard Sports™,
Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues™
and Dora the Explorer™,
Dragon Ball Z® and
RollerCoaster Tycoon®.
About
Parsons School of Design
Located in
the heart of New York City, Parsons School of Design, a division of New School
University, is one of the largest degree-granting colleges of art and design in
the nation, with more than 3,000 students in degree programs, and 2,500
non-degree students from all 50 states and approximately 60 countries. The
School’s Dean is Paul Goldberger, the Pulitzer-prize winning design critic and
writer. Parsons has been a forerunner in the field of art and design since its
founding in 1896. Internationalism has always been an essential ingredient of
Parsons’ success, with affiliate schools in Paris; Kanazawa, Japan; Seoul, South
Korea; and Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic. Parsons’ rigorous programs
and distinguished faculty embrace curricular innovation, pioneer new uses of
technology, and instill in students a global perspective in design. Areas of
study include Architecture, Communication Design, Critical Studies, Design and
Management, Design and Technology, Fashion Design, Fine Arts, the History of
Decorative Arts, Illustration, Integrated Design, Interior Design, Lighting
Design, Photography, and Product Design. For more information, visit
www.parsons.edu.
