Tech Olive

One thing that rarely occurs in Oklahoma is anything related to gaming, especially with game development. So when I heard that there was an electronic expo in town and some of the main speakers were involved in game creation, I was stoked needless to say. The Oklahoma Electronic Game Expo was this past Saturday and I must say, I’ll be returning next year.

Things kicked off at a bright and early 10AM, disregarding having to be out of bed at 4am to drive there.

The main floor consisted of some retail agents ranging from the large corporations like Best Buy to local shops like New World Comics. Several freelance authors, artists and of course, game developers were there as well. In some side conference rooms were different workshops including:

Getting Political about Games
-By the Entertainment Consumers Association to bring awareness of some bills currently in congress that would classify games similar to pornography!

Designer’s Panel
-Ranging from small developers to large CEO’s was a general Q&A of the business.

Game Pipelines Studios
-Featuring one of their newest games involving of all things physical fitness.

Tips and Tricks of Photoshop CS4
-Like the title says…

Collecting Classic Arcade Games
-I believe the main speaker was Rob O’Hara and his book.

Making Flash Games
-Once again, simple title.

Do to time constraints, I was only able to attend one and I chose to attend the Designer’s Panel. I must say I was quite impressed. It was mainly a showcase of works from 3D animation to advertisements and how to direct a class choice, college choice, life choices and others to get into the field. Tips were even given on how to “legally borrow” type fonts to give your resume that pizazz.

The most popular booth was Best Buy, who was featuring their newest several hundred inch TVs connected to the latest systems and games like Guitar Hero: Metallica, Mario Kart, several DSs and others.

For the older gamers, it was nostalgia heaven. Brett Weiss and Rob O’hara, both authors, had booths of games for systems like the FamCom, Genesis, Atary2600 and others.

The only booth, sadly to say, that I saw having a developers game that you could actually play was sponsored by Oklahoma City Community College and the local weather station. You played as a 2D helicopter taking pictures of “stormy clouds” and avoiding tornadoes. It sounds pretty lame and it had glitches, until you learn that the development team was only given 5 days before the deadline and it had to be small in size for easy downloading.

Surprisingly there was also some artists there ranging from the very talented to Alain Viesca:

To some sketch book artists, Zeyhab Taghavi:

What I found interesting was each were giving the others tips and tricks. In particular, Alain recommended that Zeyhab try some tool or another in Photoshop, which Zeyhab didn’t have nor could afford. I pitched in stating Gimp, which is free and almost as powerful, would be a great place to start.

Finally, something I didn’t mention in the beginning was the video game tournament! Unfortunately, once again do to time, I wasn’t able to enter or even get a chance to watch.

In recap, I felt it was a fun event, but could be geared slightly different. However, it is Oklahoma, and the fact that it’s here in the first place is enough.