I just got back from GameCamp Toronto 2, a sort of development showcase for gaming in Canada. This was hosted at the University of Toronto, funded mostly by Microsoft Canada and ran from 10am to 6pm. There was a similar event at my university last weekend that was solely on XNA, but I was not able to attend. There were many speakers, their times ranging from 30 minutes to an hour and including Mare Sheppard and Raigan Burns from Metanet Software (the creators of N+), David L. Blazetich from Bedlam Games, and Jean-Luc David from Microsoft Canada. It was a relatively small event, with about 100 people, mostly comprised of students. It was a great event with plenty of not-yet-released games were shown, some that aren’t coming to Xbox Live Arcade and some that are.
Microsoft gave us with some interesting news and announcements, that as far as I know, were heard here for the first time. First up was the “Canadian Zune.” For Canadians, this has been a highly anticipated product that we so far have had to get from the US. Well no more: Microsoft just announced that Canadians would be seeing the Zune here in stores starting in Spring 2008. Jean-Luc did remind us that “Spring” ends in June, so this will be coming really soon! Next up was XNA Community Content, which we did get a sample of during and bit after GDC 2008, but we found out that it’ll be coming to us in December 2008!
Also, one of the games that was specifically said to be coming to Xbox Live Arcade was XNA Racer. We were shown a really short gameplay video, but it still looked really fun! Microsoft also talked about a couple of other games, and we’re hoping to get a hold of the people making and developing them for some juicy details. All of us were also treated to a free 1 year membership to the XNA Creators Club, which, judging from the applause, was very welcomed by all.
This event was a nice treat from Microsoft, and it was great to attend. There was much to learn, and we were even shown how to “Build a 3D Game in 60 Minutes!” The game looked really nice, but since Jean-Luc only had about 25 minutes to actually build the game, it wasn’t very sophisticated. Overall however, the event was a great success. You can find the schedule of the event and any other details on the GameCamp Toronto website. A huge thanks goes out to all the speakers and Microsoft! I look forward to attending more events like this one!
Take a look at after the break for a whole ton of links we were supplied with and a lone picture from the event.
Update: The organizers also wrote up an aftermath of the event!
Links:
Beglam Games
Metanet Software
ToJam.ca
IADT.ca/
J2Play.net/
CanDevs.ca
http://blogs.msdn.com/cdndevs/
http://creators.xna.com/beginnersguide/index.html
GoMental.ca
Creators.XNA.com
http://www.casuallyhardcore.com/
IGDA.org/indie
IamIGP.org
MovieStorm.net
Picture:
