Tag Archives: gaming

Orange County Library System opens 1st game jam

The Orange County Library System on Thursday hosted the opening of its first-ever video game jam, as roughly 15 local gamers and developers opened the four-day event.

The group will spend the weekend through Sunday morning building a video game from scratch at the library’s high-tech downtown Orlando Melrose Center.

Melrose Center’s Juan Rivera said he launched the game jam after attending others in the city, including one hosted by the independent video game group Indienomicon.

“The idea of everybody working together to make a game within 48 hours, that builds the community,” he said.

Overall, six games were pitched on Thursday, with those in attendance splitting into teams that will work on them throughout the weekend.

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Full Sail grad, ‘Ratchet & Clank’ vet Shaun McCabe sought chance to explore amazing worlds, characters

When Shaun McCabe joined Insomniac Games near the end of 2003, shortly after he earned a degree from Full Sail University, he jumped into a game that the company hoped would recapture the magic it had discovered with its popular “Spyro the Dragon” series.

McCabe became the sound programmer on the adventure game “Ratchet & Clank,” the story of a Lombax named Ratchet who traveled around with a robot companion named Clank.

Several “Ratchet & Clank” titles later, McCabe continues to build video games for the studio as its head of technology.

“On the technical side, our good friends at Naughty Dog offered to let us use components of the ‘Jak & Daxter’ engine as a foundation for a demo,” he said. “The rest, as they say, is history. It speaks to the true nature of creativity. Great products are often the result of constraints and culture rather than resources and strategy.”

McCabe was recently named to Full Sail University’s Hall of Fame and granted The OVG an interview to talk about his career and his time in Orlando.

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Watch: Final Fantasy VI medley by The Returners at Ongaku Overdrive

Want to hear a rock band perform a medley of Final Fantasy VI songs?

Of course you do.

The Returners are a rock band from Austin, Texas, that specializes in covers of video game songs.

They have done their treatment on game music from titles including Legend of Zelda and Ico.

On Saturday, they were one of four bands to perform at The Abbey in Orlando during Ongaku Overdrive, a salute to Final Fantasy music.

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Watch: the Orlando guy who builds video games into wine caskets

Darrin Yesbeck’s idea for a video game machine embedded into wine casks was popular on Saturday, when the Orlando entrepreneur showed off Barrel of Kong at Maker Faire Orlando.

His exhibit saw a steady stream of visitors and passersby couldn’t seem to pass by without at least commenting about how cool they thought it was.

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REPORT: Orlando man makes video game machines out of wine, whiskey barrels

Donkey Kong would be proud.

An Orlando man will be part of the annual Orlando Maker Faire this weekend showing off video game machines he has made out of wine and whiskey barrels, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

Darrin Yesbeck, 45, got the idea after staying up late with his daughter while on vacation playing Pac-Man.

He enjoyed the bonding so much, he built his first cabinet when he returned home.

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From Atari 2600 to rapping about Final Fantasy VII. A chat with Mega Ran.

It started with the Atari 2600.

A young Raheem Jarbo sat in his living room in Philadelphia, gobbling up pellets in Pac Man and jumping pits and running the jungles of Pitfall.

That became an obsession with the Super Nintendo and then PlayStation, which ultimately led to Final Fantasy VII, as it often did.

Now, Raheem Jarbo, AKA Mega Ran, travels the country performing his rap songs based on the giant video game franchise.

In a far-reaching interview, we talked about his obsession with the game and some of his rap influences.

Continue reading From Atari 2600 to rapping about Final Fantasy VII. A chat with Mega Ran.

Game-a-thon at Full Sail sails past $10K goal for Arnold Palmer Hospital

Extra Life’s Full Sail University event raised more than $10,000.

WINTER PARK – A charity video gaming event at Full Sail University sailed past its $10,000 goal on Saturday evening and exceeded $12,000 raised for Arnold Palmer Hospital.

More than 500 gamers spent a portion of a 25-hour period that ended at about 8 a.m. on Sunday playing video games after soliciting donations from fans and friends.

“We are grateful for any support we can get but this taps into a group of individuals that sometimes get overlooked,” Stephen Dinon, Arnold Palmer Hospital’s manager of corporate partnerships, told The OVG. “We are excited that they have engaged and are just going with it.”

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Florida’s new Call of Duty League team: The Mutineers

The Florida-based team of the brand-new Activision-Blizzard Call of Duty League will be called the Mutineers, the outfit announced on Monday.

The team will host official events for the league starting in January at a yet-to-be-announced home facility.

The Mutineers, which announced Saturday on Twitter that it would announce its rosters soon, are a product of the Misfits Gaming Group, an Overwatch League team based in Orlando and Boca Raton.

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Mega Ran to bring video game rap to The Abbey

Performing in Orlando will be nothing new to Raheem Jarbo, the Philly-born rapper who goes by the stage name “Mega Ran.” The 41-year-old has been spitting his video game-related rhymes to Central Florida audiences for nearly a decade.

During that time, he has seen the genre of so-called nerdcore music expand.

“We have an interesting thing going on,” Mega Ran said in an email interview with The OVG. “We’re too experienced to be called a new genre, yet not accepted or noticed by the mainstream, but I’m able to come to cities like Orlando and see packed houses for our concerts. It’s pretty amazing. (It’s) very special to return and see old and new faces rocking out.”

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Magic Gaming’s summer tourney earns NBA recognition

The Orlando Magic’s esports outfit took home hardware in two of the league’s four categories of its end-of-season awards last month. The team received the Partnership of the Year award for its integration with Orlando Health and Local Activation of the Year for hosting one of the league’s major events at Full Sail University.

It was part of the league’s NBA 2K League Team Business Awards, handed out during the league’s NBA 2K League workshop in Indianapolis.

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