How does one celebrate Towel day?

Bring in a towel and carry it around with you through the day.
If you want to overachieve, you could also wear a robe over normal clothing to complement your towel. Slippers, Fez or other attire of the like are also encouraged.

Towel Day celebrates the life of the author Douglas Adams. Adams was the author of the most excellent Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series of books. I've met him personally in the first year of my pro game dev career and he was indeed a righteous dude.

-D. Clingman

(for more on this, go to:  http://towelday.org/ )

Extra towels brought in for Towel Day will be donated to Pet Rescue by Judy.

Some exciting changes are happening at ZeeGee Games! Just this past week we moved into our spacious new offices located in downtown Orlando. Our new space gives us plenty of room for the creative juices to flow, and some much needed room to grow. Check back soon as we will be posting some photos after all the boxes are unpacked! 

Dustin began his project management career in the performing arts industry after studying both theatre and fine art in Colorado and abroad.  

Kristin has been interested in games since she was little, and grew up playing Wolfenstein 3D and Quake with her Dad.

There are always those days when you find yourself sitting at your desk having a day dream about relaxing at the beach listening to the slow crash of waves on the sand while a soft breeze lulls you into your fourth nap of the day. Then you wake up, snap back to reality, and get back to work. While most of us here at ZeeGee Games work and live about an hour and a half away from the beach we decided since we have to work rather than go to the beach we would just bring the beach to work! This day was specifically designed to give our CEO, Dustin Clingman, a relaxing day at the beach... in his office. 

So on Monday March 26th with a scuffle of sand toys, a wading pool, a beach chair equipped with the necessary umbrella, and the obligatory beach ball ZeeGee’s offices were transformed into a beachside paradise for the day. The ZeeGee family of course dawned their swim attire, and was prepared with a plethora of towels, sunscreen, and beach gear for the workday ahead.  

By: Jay Powell

I’ve been attending GDC since 1999 (I think) and it’s always a refreshing change to see the developers in our industry in their own element.  This isn’t E3 where marketing and noise rules supreme, it is a concentration of the folks that truly make the games we love.  I spent my days in San Francisco bouncing between meetings and catching up with what’s new on the business side of the coin and it all seemed wildly familiar.  The game industry rolls on, platforms change, business models change and the companies change, but we’re seeing another cycle now.  

We are on the front end of another big boom for the industry.  I spoke to several companies who are now having the same discussions we had five years ago (in a good way).  Successful games in the mobile and social space now require real marketing efforts, licenses in some cases, and true polish.  One could argue that this is going to push us into the same derivative work we see with sequel after sequel in the core space and that’s not a horrible argument but it simply is not true. The option always exists for a small group to come together and release something fantastic.  Having “publishers” (and yes the quotes are intentional) are going to help promote and create some really jaw dropping games such as Infinity Blade Dungeons, but you also have small studios like Imangi Studios releasing Temple Run.  The mobile world is not closed off like the PC retail market or console games.  You can still release something new and original but that bar is getting higher and higher each week.

The next few years in this industry are going to be fun.  I’m thrilled to be working with a studio who is sitting on the front end of this wave!

As another GDC begins to fade into the haze, I find myself poring over things I was exposed to during the conference, as usual. I know it was a good conference when I come away from it hungry to do research into some new area of knowledge or some new idea that hadn't come my way before. Of course the parties were fun (if over-visited by scantily clad gymnastic women). Of course it was great to visit with old friends and colleagues. I found the Expo floor to be more like Epcot with banners for Newfoundland, Scotland, Norway and Germany among others. It seemed like it should have been Beers of the World more than the place to get great swag for coworkers and kids alike.

As for the sessions, ostensibly one of the reasons why we go the GDC, I attended some very interesting ones this year. I was unsurprised to see a wealth of sessions on the workings of Social Network games in many different aspects of them. There were also some notable sessions on story, including a good session on narrative and an excellent one by Richard Rouse on using classic cinematic techniques for developing characters (I always applaud his exhaustive research to find examples of games that employ the techniques he discusses).

For me, however, this year's banner session was Jason VandenBerghe's session on the 5 Domains of Play. Using O.C.E.A.N. modeling, he equated the motivational aspects of this model to gaming, realizing in his research that he could predict player's preferences of games based on their personality profiles according to the Big 5 model. While this is not necessarily revolutionary material, especially if you were previously acquainted with the Big 5, it is another great tool to put into my game design toolkit, something I always appreciate.

So, as I pore over my notes and work my way through my stack of collected business cards, I will ponder the latest ideas about the games I'm working on and how I can make my games better. And anticipate next year's GDC.

ZeeGee Games is proud to announce that they are working with 519 Games on a new project for iPad, Kindle Fire, and the Nook tablet.  "Campaign Story" will be coming to a tablet near you this spring.