Gaming University Student Projects

July 22, 2006 1:18 PM

Student Projects from DigiPen, a computer game college. A few I've tried and approve include Narbacular Drop, which is very short, more of a tech demo, but contains the idea and some of the people behind Valve's upcoming Portal^, Orblitz, a get-the-ball-to-the-goal puzzle game with extremely calming graphics and music, and Bontãgo, a weird combination of RTS, Tetris, and Jenga.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim (19 comments total)

It asks for your name and e-mail when you go to download, but it doesn't check that the e-mail is valid or even properly formed.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 1:19 PM on July 22, 2006

Just say no to caret notation!
posted by delmoi at 1:19 PM on July 22, 2006

"FP-FS is a First Person Shooter where the levels are built from the folder structure of the player's computer."

Wasn't there a game exactly like this a number of years back? I played Narbacular Drop when I first heard about Portal (see, like that!) and although it was buggy as hell and unpolished, the basic principal is a lot of fun, meaning I can't wait for Portal.
posted by Orange Goblin at 1:43 PM on July 22, 2006

Yeah, what is with that caret, anyway? It's very confusing, and completely unnecessary. I think people understand hyperlinking by now.
posted by gd779 at 2:20 PM on July 22, 2006

Yes, please stop with the carets.
posted by Gator at 2:28 PM on July 22, 2006

On topic, I actually remember reading about this place ten years ago when I had a subscription to Smithsonian Magazine, and thought it sounded like an awesome place. (I really need to re-subscribe, God knows what other cool stuff I've been missing out on.)
posted by Gator at 2:33 PM on July 22, 2006

Yeah, let's totally ignore the content of the post, and focus on the important matter at hand - disciplining users for posting in a style that we do not like.
posted by Afroblanco at 2:36 PM on July 22, 2006

They developed Bontago? Man, my friends and I used played that at LANs, great game. Anyone want to play a game? I've started a server 71.138.138.64 port 5001.
posted by litghost at 3:08 PM on July 22, 2006

Yeah, let's totally ignore the content of the post, and focus on the important matter at hand - disciplining users for posting in a style that we do not like.

We will do it until they stop. It's really been working well for the Israelis!
posted by blasdelf at 3:19 PM on July 22, 2006

man, narbacular drop is TERRIBLE. i'm all set to love it -- and i do love the premise -- but the implementation of the puzzles is just miserable, and it's buggy beyond hell. it really would have been nice if they had just modeled it after the incredible machine, and given you a sandbox in which you could lay portals at your own leisure.

anyhow, i have full faith that valve will steer them on the right path with "portal". stepping stones, and all that
posted by jimmy at 3:50 PM on July 22, 2006

oh, and caretpedia links are stupid. please don't use them ever again.
posted by jimmy at 3:51 PM on July 22, 2006

It's pretty obvious that he was intending to poke fun at the Wiki caret links. He used five regular links and one caret... and folks are going off sideways. Sheesh! It was a JOKE, people.

Narbacular Drop is indeed buggy as crap, but it's FUN. I think Portal is gonna rock, at least if they debug it. You can get very clever indeed with portals....

Bontago is also great fun. It's very worth downloading.

I've gotta go get some dinner now, but I'll try to log onto litghost's server later on.
posted by Malor at 4:05 PM on July 22, 2006

^no^ ^more^ ^goddamned^ ^carets^
posted by cellphone at 4:25 PM on July 22, 2006

Narbacular Drop does have a sort of sandbox mode, its just a room with various models in it.
posted by Orange Goblin at 4:58 PM on July 22, 2006

litghost: I can't get Bontago running on my main machine, so I don't think I'll be showing up. :( It just... mysteriously... doesn't run. I've tried everything I can think of. It installs fine, doesn't complain... but when I run it, it just doesn't do anything. I have no idea what's wrong.
posted by Malor at 5:07 PM on July 22, 2006

Weird, I have a tiny digital camera with a "DigiPen" brand name on it.
posted by BillsR100 at 6:33 PM on July 22, 2006

I'm enjoying Zombie Farmer, it's a little like the base-building / resource management bit of an RTS game. Sombrero Ninja looks cool put I keep falling through the ground and dying.
posted by whir at 6:35 PM on July 22, 2006

Why are you guys linking to the Wiki entry to Portal?

I know we're all too cool for YouTube, but you have to see this game to believe it. In case you missed it, Portal Portal Portal
posted by sixacross at 7:10 PM on July 22, 2006

It's pretty obvious that he was intending to poke fun at the Wiki caret links. He used five regular links and one caret.

Apparently you missed what the caret links were about. You're only "supposed" to use them when linking to wikipedia itself, so of course it wouldn't make sense to use them anywhere else in the post, because there's only one wikipedia link.
posted by odinsdream at 7:36 PM on July 22, 2006