At the end of the weekend, the students’ games will be judged by knowledgeable figures in the tech and gaming world, including Founder of ThatGameComapny Jenova Chen; CEO of Indiecade Stephanie Barish; USC Interactive Media & Games Division Associate Chair Richard Lemarchand; and Head of Web and New Media Development at the Getty Jack Ludden.
We are hoping that Getty/USC Game Jam will help advance the Getty’s existing development of museum-related games, and explore how gameplay can create new experiences for visitors of all ages both onsite and online," says Elizabeth Escamilla, acting director of education at the J. Paul Getty Museum. "The games that were developed last year really helped build a solid foundation for the expansion of the Getty museum gaming experience, and we hope that this year will move us forward.
The students from USC’s Game Program will have the rare experience of camping out at the Getty Center for a 32-hour marathon of designing and building game prototypes. After being given a tour of the Museum, the students will be given the task of deepening visitor engagement with the collection via gaming. At the end of the competition the teams will give rapid-fire presentations of their game prototypes before a panel of judges.
The phenomenon of the Game Jam is not new, but this version is unique in that it takes place in an art museum and focuses on museum collections as the focus of game development. It also offers a model of collaboration between top institutions from the gaming world and non-profit arts,” says Rebecca Edwards, education specialist at the J. Paul Getty Museum. “Joining forces with people who think deeply about the power of games over the last two years has been an enlightening experience, and we feel it has helped us to expand our thinking about the possibilities for future development of games related to our collection and the museum goer’s experience
The Getty/USC Game Jam is part of a longtime effort to use digital games as a tool for investigating art. The Getty Museum has developed a variety of online and gallery-based digital games, including a collection of Getty Games online, and exhibition tour games like The Art of Food Mobile Tour, which leads players on a journey through two exhibitions at the Getty Center.
For our students to be the best possible developers, it’s absolutely vital that they be exposed to art from across the spectrum,” said Tracy Fullerton, Director of the USC Games program. “By partnering with the Getty we are able to provide them unparalleled access to one of the greatest collections in the country, pushing their boundaries, and we hope, the boundaries of the form itself.
About USC Games
USC Games is the flagship collaboration offered jointly by the School of Cinematic Arts Division of Interactive Media & Games and the Department of Computer Science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. This unified brand allows press, industry, students and faculty to discuss the overall efforts at USC in games and simultaneously clarify the important distinctions between the offerings of the various programs.
The program at the School of Cinematic Arts focuses on both the design and production of interactive media and games. Students emerge as creative media leaders, fluent in many forms of visual expression and storytelling, with the sophistication to design and develop innovative interactive experiences that expand the state of interactive art and play across the domains such as entertainment, education, health care and social action.
The Computer Science Games program at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering provides students with a grounding in the fundamentals of computer science and a cross-disciplinary background in game development. Students emerge with an engineering-oriented game-programming skill set, with an understanding of key technologies and the ability to lead complex technical teams in the development of games.