Games Fleadh

Games Fleadh (Irish for "Games Festival"), is a 2-day mid-week convention held each year in LIT-Tipperary (formally Tipperary Institute), usually held in early March, for computer games enthusiasts and developers to showcase their talent and programming skills.^[1] It is part funded by LIT-Tipperary's Centre for Entertainment & Game Technology Research. Each year, there is a major gaming theme, usually to do with an anniversary of a game.

Origins

Games Fleadh was originally a competition called RoboCode Ireland Challenge, which was an artificial intelligence programming language challenge for first year college students. Teams of students designed a robot that would compete against another colleges robot, and with the robot with the best algorithm receiving the Robocode Marshal title. As this competition grew, Games Fleadh was established as an overarching event. Games Fleadh started in 2008, by the festivals driving force Philip Bourke, a lecturer of Games Design and Development at LIT-Tipperary, when he saw no other strong festival for the growing Irish Games design industry. It started off small, with a small number of colleges being invited to participate. RoboCode is now an event inside the convention of Games Fleadh.

Philip Bourke, a lecturer of Games Design and Development at LIT-Tipperary, Seen here at Global Games Jam 2011.

Competitions and challenges

• Games Fleadh now plays host to several different competitions.
• Microsoft XNA Game Studio Ireland Challenge – students are set a task of designing a game in Microsoft XNA Game Studio using the C# programming language. This game is judged on game play and originality around a specific theme.
• Microsoft DirectX Ireland Challenge – Students are asked to design a game scene(s) using DirectX 11 SDK. Competitors are judged on how well their game scene looks and their DirectX based engine can deal with model from StarterKit.
• RoboCode Ireland Challenge – first years from different colleges and universities from around Ireland fight for supremacy over everyone with their robot.
• Various Games Tournaments – Various Games tournaments, including the annual inter varsity team tournament Counter-Strike:Source known as the Christian Martin Counter Strike:Source Memorial Cup.

Judging panel

The challenge competitions are judged by 3rd party industry professionals. Previous Judges have been from Microsoft, Havok, Playfirst, NeverMind Games, and OpenEmotion Studios.

Themes

Over the years, There has been a number of different themes

• 2013- Robot Tank
• 2012– Chopper Command.
• 2011– Frogger.
• 2010– Pac-Man.
• 2009– Asteroids.
• 2008– Space Invaders.

Honours list

Robocode Ireland Challenge Champions^[2]

• University of Limerick (2016)
• University of Limerick (2015)
• University of Limerick (2014)
• National University of Ireland, Maynooth (2013)
• Dundalk Institute of Technology (2012)
• Dundalk Institute of Technology (2011)^[3]
• University of Limerick (2010)
• Trinity College Dublin (2009)
• Griffith College (2008)
• Dublin Institute of Technology (2007)
• Cork Institute of Technology (2006)
• LIT-Tipperary formally Tipperary Institute (2005)
• Waterford Institute of Technology (2004)

XNA Game Studio Ireland Challenge/Game Studio Ireland Challenge

• Institute of Technology, Carlow (2015)^[4]
• LIT-Tipperary (2013)
• Queen's University, Belfast (2012)^[5]
• Dublin Institute of Technology (2011)
• National University of Ireland Galway (2010)^[6]
• Dublin Institute of Technology (2009)

DirectX Ireland Challenge Honours List:

• LIT-Tipperary (2013)
• LIT-Tipperary (2012)
• National University of Ireland Galway (2011)

GamesPro talks

Another Highlight of Games Fleadh, is GamesPro. GamesPro, is a panel of games and software developers, and companies, highly respected in industry, that give small talks on a specific point from their prospective. GamesPro ends with all the representatives, sitting down together to answer questions or queries students may have.

Games Fleadh:GGJ

Global Game Jam GGJ brings together thousands of game creation enthusiasts around the world, all with a common purpose of building computer games in forty eight hours. Game developers create games during Global Game Jam and exhibit during Games Fleadh.

Games Fleadh:Evolved

New in the 2012 convention will be the introduction of Games Fleadh:Evolved.^[7]

Support

Every year Games Fleadh is supported by (but not limited to): Microsoft, PopCap Games, Demonware

Games Fleadh:Expo

Games Fleadh:Expo is a new addition to Games Fleadh 2012. Games Fleadh 2012 is purported to include Ireland’s first Digital Game Expo. The exhibit is expected to include indie developer titles.

Game Developer Awards

Engineers Ireland Game Developer Awards which acknowledges the best games which are developed in Ireland.^[8]

References

1. Harrington, Conor (3 November 2011). "Games Fleadh 2011". Gaming Practice for the Real World. New Tech Post. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
2. "Robocode Ireland". Robocode Ireland Challenge Honours List:. Games Fleadh. 2011. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
3. "Games Fleadh". DIT team wins first place at Games Fleadh 2011. Dublin Institute of Technology. 11 March 2011. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
4. Tierney, David (22 March 2015). "Games Fleadh 2015: Event Wrap-Up". Games Fleadh 2015: Event Wrap-Up. Power Up Gaming. Retrieved 10 August 2015.
5. "Games Fleadh 2012 win". Students Score Top Points in Ireland's Biggest Games Competition. "Queen's University, Belfast. 14 March 2012. Retrieved 11 April 2012.
6. McArdle, Deirdre (11 March 2010). "News in Brief". Daily Digest. ENN.IE. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
7. "What's On: Games Fleadh Evolved & Game On/Renewing Media". LIT presents Games Fleadh Evolved. The Source Arts Centre. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
8. "Thumbs up to the 'era of the geek'". Thumbs up to the 'era of the geek'. Irish Times. Retrieved 29 March 2012.

• Queen's students leapfrog to success in computer game competition. PhysOrg.com, 25 May 2011.

External links

• Official site