The NYU Game Center will exhibit four games starting May 7—and challenges the public to give them a try.
The NYU Game Center, an independent multi-school center at New York University for the research, design, and development of games, established in fall 2008, will exhibit four games—three commissioned by the Game Center—and challenges the public to visit, play, and enjoy. The exhibition, entitled No Quarter: An Exhibition of Games, will open May 7 and remain on view through June 30.
No Quarter: An Exhibition of Games is an experiment in the creation of independent games designed specifically for a shared social environment. “One of the goals of the NYU Game Center is to support the New York game scene and to encourage experimental and innovative work by local independent game designers,” said Frank Lantz, interim chair. “To pursue this goal we intend to commission small-scale games on an ongoing basis. It’s common for institutions to commission works like paintings, sculptures, or performances, but the idea of commissioning a game is somewhat new. We believe that games, like these other creative forms, can thrive outside the context of commercial development.”
The commissioned works are: Raging Hadron, a two-player competitive game that combines swashbuckling swordplay and 8-bit psychedelia by independent game designer Mark “Messhof” Essen; Deep Sea, an audio-only game about the terrors of deep sea diving by sound designer Robin Arnott; and Recurse, a manic game of twisting bodies, quick reactions, and iteration by game designer Matt Parker. The exhibition will also feature 16 Tons, a four-player game of strategy and negotiation by the team of game designer Eric Zimmerman, instructor in the NYU Game Center, and Nathalie Pozzi, architect.
No Quarter: An Exhibition of Games opens May 7 and will remain through June 30, 2010. The games will be on display and available for play Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.- 7p.m., in the NYU Game Center, located in the Tisch School of the Arts at 721 Broadway, 9th floor. For information, visit the NYU Game Center.
About the Designers
Robin Arnott, NYU film alumnus, works independently in Austin, TX as a sound designer, and chairs the IGDA Audio Development and Implementation SIG. He is best known for his work on the popular Source mod, Curse and the Make Something Unreal Contest finalist, Steam Racers. With the IGDA, he is facilitating improved dialogue between developers and audio providers.
Mark Essen, game artist, recently received a BA from Bard College. His games have been shown at music venues and art festivals around the world and are known for their odd control schemes, masochistic difficulty, and nonsensical humor. He is currently in production on an independent title about a flying stick that changes color.
Matt Parker, a game designer and new media artist, is a resident researcher at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunication Program. His work has been displayed at the SIGGRAPH Asia, the New York Hall of Science, and Sony Wonder Technology Lab. He and his team created the game Lucid, which was a finalist in Android’s Developer Challenge 2 and was featured in T-Mobile’s Top Picks channel.
Nathalie Pozzi is an architect whose projects cross the boundaries of art installation, architecture, and landscape. Trained in Venice, Stockholm and Helsinki, Pozzi explores the classical design of space and light and the elegant use of materials, while also incorporating social and ethnographic elements into her work. Her projects expand the possibilities of architecture from building beautiful structures into a global and cultural act.
Eric Zimmerman, a game designer, entrepreneur, author, and academic, has been working in the game industry for more than 16 years. He was the co-founder and chief design officer of the game development company Gamelab. His game design work also includes the critically acclaimed SiSSYFiGHT 2000 as well as the PC games Gearheads and The Robot Club. He is the co-author with Katie Salen of Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals.
The NYU Game Center is housed in the Skirball Center for New Media at the Tisch School of the Arts and is an all NYU collaboration of the Tisch School, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, and Polytechnic Institute of NYU. The Center is supported by generous grants from an anonymous donor, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Sharon Chang and the TTSL Charitable Foundation. Visit