FanGo Software Systems: FanGo produces an iPhone app and mobile commerce ordering system that allows fans at stadiums and arenas to order concession food and drinks directly from their iPhone app. Food is then delivered to the fan’s seat, allowing fans to avoid long lines at food stands in stadiums. The startup is already in progress of negotiating deals with professional sports stadiums across the country.

Noblivity: Noblivity aims to bring trade shows for small boutiques and manufacturers online. Its online marketplace aims to connect small brands to small specialty stores to order jewelry, clothing, and home goods for their stock. It’s similar in theory to to Etsy, but aims to be more of a B2B platform.

PVPower: The startup simplifies the installation of solar power projects by developing a productivity tools for solar installers. The web-based application allows any contractor or installer to source solar panels, learn the best practices for installation and more.

Tap Me: Tap Me’s advertising platform iComplishments hopes to bring advertising revenue to game developers with an in-game advertising technology. The technology allows developers to reward gameplay with advertiser branded points and virtual gifts.

WeGather: WeGather’s goal is to offer religious institutions a custom based software to create a community website to engage participants. The SaaS platform helps increase donations, improves volunteer participation, centralizes e-communications, and helps create calendars.

TransFS: TransFS is a comparison shopping site for credit card processors. The startup aims to help merchants save money on credit card fees and also conducts reverse auctions to solicit competing bids from credit card processing companies. Merchants can then review each proposal and select the bid that saves the most money.

EduLender: EduLender, which has yet to launch, is a comparison search engine for student loans. You simply enter your name, location and financial information, and EduLender will show you all of the lenders serving your area that offer student loans, requisite interest rates, and what your loan will cost in real dollars in an apples-to-apples comparison.

GiveForward: GiveForward is an online fundraising tool aimed at a niche audience. The platform aims to make it easy for people to raise money for a loved one’s medical expenses. The allows anyone to create customizable fundraising pages where friends and family from across the world can donate online.

MathZee: MathZee aims to make learning math more fun for small children. The online platform teaches math via games that utilize audio, visual, and interactive features.

An update from Ted Gordon, Associate Chair of Game & Interactive Media:

Our team draft pulled together producers for our Fall 2010 semester of Game Studio, the core of our Game and Interactive Media program, together to conduct the very vital team selection process as a competitive and collaborative effort.

Our Summer semester of Game Studio 1 completed today with one of our best student projects to date. Students worked in an organized and focused manner, learning-by-doing in the Flashpoint way. They are rightfully proud of their accomplishments.

Photos from our Draft and a Team Photo of our Summer Team, Team FlashBomb, in front of art from their game are below.

After Fox News Reporter Lilia Chacon’s recent visit to Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy, first year Game & Interactive Media student Michael McDowell shares his reflections on her story.

Lilia Chacon was a speaker for Tribeca Flashpoint’s Jumpstart series, which brings industry professionals to campus to share their experience and expertise with students.

Fox News reporter Lilia Chacon recently visited Flashpoint and delivered an eye-opening speech titled, “Don’t wear high heels to a gang war.” While the title is interesting by itself, the inspiration behind the story was just as fascinating.

Ms. Chacon recalled a moment in her career when she was covering a story on a gang shooting in a Chicago neighborhood. While broadcasting from the crime scene with a heavy police presence, the suspects came back and opened fire on the crime scene area. Consequently, a shootout between the police and the suspects ensued.

The cameraman continued to roll despite the haze of bullets flying through the air, while Ms. Chacon unrelentingly delivered the report as they followed close behind the policemen. After a few exchanges, the suspects fled to a nearby alley.

The police pursued with Ms. Chacon and her cameraman close behind. They got to the end of the alley that was shaped in a form of a T. Suddenly, a car swerved in on one side as four men hopped out and a police car swerved in on the opposite end with three officers in it. Lilia Chacon and her faithful cameraman were stuck in the middle of another gunfight!!!

While I enjoyed the story, the real treat of Ms. Chacon coming to Flashpoint was the personal testimony of her passion for delivering the facts to everyday people like you and me. Her message seemed to transcend the field of Film & Broadcast. Being a first year Game Development student I felt just as stimulated as any Film & Broadcast student there.

As she continued with her speech, she revealed the sacrifice that her career demands. She spoke on her lack of a social life and how she often has to disappoint close friends and family all in the call of duty. While I listened to her talk about her life, I was inspired by her story because I feel we take for granted the passion, hard work, resourcefulness and dedication it takes to make it in the so-called glamorous career of news reporting. We rarely get to see the grind that it takes to succeed in a career as demanding as journalism.

During her speech I also realized how important the work is that Ms. Chacon and other reporters like her do. Hearing what goes on behind the camera allowed me to have a better respect for her and her craft. During my commute home, I briefly reflected on how informed and well versed I am on current events, and acknowledged it’s all a result of the hard work that Lilia Chacon and her colleagues put into reporting. Their constant digging, pursuing and following up reaps the reward of a more informed population and satisfies the passion of these news professionals.

I am not sure if reporters hear this as often as they should, but thank you. Society deserves to be informed and to know the truth, regardless of how ugly it is.

By the way, the shootout story ended with her winning an Emmy (1 of her 6). I hope she continues the great work that she does and keeps telling the story, whatever it may be.

- Michael McDowell

“Their portfolios blew me away. But really, it was their professionalism that was most impressive.” – Employer Quote from Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy’s inaugural job fair, Saturday, May 1, 2010.

With their resumes, portfolios and reels perfected, upcoming May 2010 graduates in Film & Broadcast, Recording Arts, Game & Interactive Media, and Animation & Visual Effects had the opportunity to meet with representatives from the heavy hitters of Digital Media Production.

As excited as our students were to meet with representatives from industry professionals nationwide, the recruiters themselves — representing companies such as Pilgrim Films, Disney Television Animation, Jellyvision, TLC (The Learning Channel), WB Games Chicago, and many more — were every bit as excited to meet the Tribeca Flashpoint Class of 2010.

A few quotes from employers:

“We came back to find another [2009 Flashpoint Graduate]. He was so great, we’re sure to find another here!”

“Why would I pay an agency $80K to do a spec spot, when I can give to the scholarship fund and work with a better group of talented individuals like your students.”

“I’m so glad to hear about Core Studies being such a focus at your institution. I was just interviewing a Harvard grad with a 4.0 – who couldn’t even look at me when he spoke!”

Congratulations to everyone who made the first Tribeca Flashpoint Job Fair a tremendous success, and an enthusiastic “well done” to our truly amazing soon-to-be graduates!

Flashpoint Academy proudly congratulates first year Game & Interactive Media Development student Emily Greenquist on her selection as one of the Illinois Technology Foundation’s 50 for the Future, honoring Illinois’ most promising technology students.

First year Game & Interactive Media student Emily Greenquist wowed the folks at Game Career Guide this week with her first-place entry into the GCG Game Design Challenge, I <3 Mullido.  This round’s topic: Romance.

From Game Career Guide: I <3 Mullido abstracts the concept of love, and tackles complex themes with cute characters. The result is an appealing experience for a carefully chosen target audience.

Congratulations to Emily on a job well done!

The most viable western demographic for dating games is female preteens. I <3 Mullido is (at its core) an educational social simulation; although to entice this target group, it is marketed as a seemingly taboo dating game. Marketing to this younger audience may appear risky, but there is a precedence (ex: “Mystery Date,” 1965 and “Girl Talk,” 1980’s). The intent of this 2-D Nintendo DS game is to subtly develop social skills and empathy in players at a critical, typically awkward, age.

As stylish, fuzzy creatures called mullidos (French for fluffy), characters are highly stylized in the graffiti design movement (saturated colors / thick outlines / urban influences). This art choice is twofold:

1) attracts the pre-teen audience who still gravitate towards cute (fuzzy) things, but are beginning to rebel against childhood games like “Littlest Pet Shop”

2) creates a risk free / otherworldly environment to subversively tackle complex topics

The game begins with the player (a modish mullido, gender unspecified) leaving its small town to explore and live in the big city, where other fashionable mullidos meet and mingle. This mirrors the real-world transition from middle school to high school, which currently holds the demographic’s curiosity.

Before attempting to date a mullido of their choosing, the player must first develop a reputation through mini-games. In one instance, the player gains access to a dance club that houses mullidos clumped together in groups of like colors (green mullidos with green mullidos, pink with pink, etc.). To gain reputation points, the player must flirt with a member from each group, forming a multi-colored entourage. The underlying educational message is to promote racial integration and eliminate cliques, through social interaction.

Friendships are more quickly developed with a higher reputation level, and close friendships lead to relationships. Each character has a “friendship level,” signified by the color of their outline. All begin with black and change as the relationship with the player changes:

Green – enemies
Blue – dislike
Purple – uninterested
Black – strangers (start)
Yellow – friends
Orange – close friends
Red – dating

Unsuccessful interactions (like choosing to flirt with someone else’s mate), will ultimately create enemies, who spread rumors and further decrease the player’s reputation.

Before choosing to reach the dating stage of a friendship, the player must research the character’s reputation, by asking other mullidos their opinion. Each will generate a different answer, and it is up to the player to filter those responses. For example, through conversations, the player may learn that the mullido of interest is already dating someone or that it only likes short mullios.

Unlike other dating games, dating in I <3 Mullido is not ultimately guaranteed (as is true in life). Once in the Orange friendship range, the player can attempt a relationship, with at 25% success rate. It is the challenge and thrill of the conquest that captivates an audience and an even more realistic simulation is to experience unrequited love. This game is designed to prepare preteens for such complex forthcoming situations.

On Friday, January 29th, Flashpoint Academy students across multiple disciplines came together to join in a worldwide event called the “Global Game Jam 2010″ held at universities and game studios around the world (well over 1000 participants are now working in 38 countries! — these crazy people are known as “jammers”). At Flashpoint’s sound stage in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart we started a 48-hour marathon to build games according to parameters kept secret from our jammers until the launch of the event at Flashpoint at the start of their 48-hour adventure. Jammers at Flashpoint are working in teams of about ten students to build these games by 3 pm on Sunday local time.

This year the theme is “deception” and jammers must include one or more of the following in their games: a man, a plan or a canal. Key outcomes include providing an intense opportunity for jammers to collaborate and work together in “crunch mode” doing what they love doing…making games. This is not a school assignment and it is not a business-driven game studio console game effort. These jammers are the true artists of the future. This weekend will stay for them for the rest of their lives.

We have a few special guest “judges” for the end of the weekend where we will allow the teams an opportunity to present their games to the judges. Teams will be awarded recognition in different areas, but only one game will get trophies for top honors here.

I started the ball rolling at Flashpoint after we had a student team join in with the wonderful people at DePaul who graciously invited them to be a part of the experience there in January of 2009. We would have been there again this year but we had such high interest here that we had to set up our own location. After months of preparation and the efforts and dedication by a really enthusiastic team of staff and faculty…here we are, starting up day 2. I am honored to be directing our location, but I could not have done it without them — and without our really amazing students who surprise me from time to time when they finally realize that they have the potential to do anything in the world they want to do.

2009 was a big year for iPhone apps, seeing the development and release of thousands of mobile applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. At the beginning of 2010, the editors at The Portable Gamer consulted on the best App Store games and selected bitFLIP as one of the top TPG Picks of 2009.

“BitFLIP has got a unique take on the gem matching casual game that has been so popular for the last several years. By giving each piece two sides, there are multiple ways to create your combos. Add to that the variety of power-ups that are available, and you have a game that is always different. Whether you have a few minutes, or all the in the world, the multiple game modes have an option to fit into your schedule. Honestly though, one of the best things BitFlip has going for it is the music by Robert Clouth, it’s energetic and fun which sets the tone for gameplay well. – Frank Delaney”

bitFLIP was developed by Flashpoint Academy graduates at Metamoorephosis.

An announcement from Simeon Peebler, chair of Flashpoint Academy’s Game Design Department.

I am thrilled to share that two students from the Game Development program at Flashpoint are featured as winners in a recent Game Design Challenge held by one of the industry’s most important websites. First year student Emily Greenquist won as Best Entry, and Terumi Tamaki won an honorable mention. Follow the links to check out the full details!

From the article: “Results from Game Design Challenge: Literary Inspirations”
We have hundreds, even thousands, of years of literature to draw from — yet so little of it has been used for source material for games. Early next year, Electronic Arts will release Dante’s Inferno, a very loose adaptation of part of Dante Alighieri’s epic poem The Divine Comedy, written in the 14th century.

What follows are the best and most original entries we received. Here are our top picks.

Best Entries:

Emily Greenquist, Student, Flashpoint Academy (Year One Student)
“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.”
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Greenquist takes a complex story and weaves it into a solid game concept. The Picture of Dorian Gray, as a horror-themed RPG, puts players in the role of an amoral protagonist who must eventually face the consequences of his actions. Though the experience would be a largely passive one for the player, the depth in narrative promises a rich payoff.

Honorable Mention:

Terumi Tamaki, Romeo and Juliet: Happily Ever After (Year Two Student)

Congratulations to both of these outstanding students on their accomplishment!