GAME : ON a cyber games festival started today in the Digital Hub with an Industry seminar, Talk Digital: Social networking in games. Speakers at the event included John Breslin – DERI, NUI Galway, founder of Boards.ie, Mark Taylor – Head of Content, Eircom, Jamie McCormick – Operations Manager Xbox Live Gaming Centre, Peter Lynch – CEO, Eirplay Games and Joe Drumgoole – CEO, Putplace.com. Unfortunately, due to illness, I wasn’t able to attend but I’m really interested to see how the topic was received and what people had to say…

As part of the festival there is a showcase featuring the games developed by the two Irish teams who competed in this years Dare to be Digital competition. I was part of the Southern Irish team this year and will be around, along with the rest of our team zerO.One, from 2 – 4pm, Saturday 15^th September. We developed a 2D puzzle platformer Heaven2ocean which is available to download free from heaven2ocean.com. Members of the Northern team, AE Games, will also be there showing off their game, Bathroom Buccaneers.

The Digital Exchange is where the events will be taking place, the address is Digital Exchange, Crane Street, The Digital Hub, Dublin 8. Crane Street is just off Thomas Street, near the Guinness Brewery.

Interviews were held in InterTradeIreland in Newry this week and I’m happy and proud to say that (my) team Zero.One are representing the Republic of Ireland for the 2007 Dare to be Digital competition. (Dare to be Digital Ireland)

Darragh Coy and Adrian Murphy are both BSc. Games Development students from Carlow IT and have collaborated with Scott Bryan, Kieran McCabe and myself, BSc. Multimedia DCU, and have been working hard over the last few months to form our team and develop our game concept and application for the competition.

Running for several successful years, Dare to be Digital is the largest video games competition in the UK and Ireland and is growing with teams as far as China and India participating. The event is usually hosted by The University of Abertay Dundee but is being co-hosted this year by Queens University in Belfast. So from June we’re packing up and moving to Belfast to begin development on our own game in our own studio for 9 weeks, after which we’re flown over to Scotland for the Dare Protoplay where the teams showcase their work.

It’s such an amazing opportunity to gain experience and meet people within the industry. Ireland hasn’t taken any prizes in the competition to date so we have our sights set high and we’re going to continue to push ourselves and see how far we can go!

I’ve always wanted to jump out of a plane, just one of my many things on my ‘must do list’. When I heard about the jump for charity I couldn’t think of a better reason to do so…My jump is in aid of the blind, which has a very close link to one of our services; Web accessibility. By putting it out on the Blogsphere I’m hoping to raise the sponsorship I need to pay for the jump.

All the proceeds from the 11,000 foot Skydive go to the National Council of the Blind of Ireland. At least €600 (£406 / $800) needs to be raised before I get my hands on a parachute. Everything above that is a much appreciated bonus for a very worthy charity.

Thanks for the help! I’ll make sure the photos get posted if I make it back in one piece. (Paul Walsh says – “I’ll post more photos if his shoot doesn’t open).

For anyone interested in jumping themselves visit the charity jumps Web site for all the information and to register.