As soon as finals ended, the Spring UROPs got to polishing up their game on XNA Studio Express, which has ridiculous system and OS requirements for the simplest games. I'm holding off distributing it publicly until we have a coherent FAQ and set of install instructions just to get the XNA Framework to function, but if you're a falling block puzzle junkie like me you should probably check the link above periodically for an announcement (or just keep reading my LiveJournal).

June started with a week of preparation for the new UROPs, which largely consisted of me giving many, many boring lectures. I have to work on the structure of that, but I completely ran out of time (did I mention we're building a new lab at the same time? It's on the third floor, above the Kendall Legal's) and just put all the information I could possibly gather into a series of Powerpoint slides. I'm hoping the students are reading the books I gave out, anyway. A lot of the prep probably sounded hokey and repetitious, but I was so sleep-depped I was basically going "Agile development... iteration... Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics... team management... keep testing your game... UROP paperwork" over and over again. Hopefully the UROPs got a good sleep, anyway.

The Singaporean interns and mentors all arrived on the 11th, but some of them arrived at 3am, after being stuck in New Jersey airport for 5 hours. I was frantically being info-hub between a variety of online airline traffic sites (none of which were worth a damn), a CMS staffer patiently waiting in Logan, and the Singapore director (on the same grounded flight) in New Jersey. Not fun, but they all arrived safely and now we've got about 40 rooms in MacGregor packed with Singapore game developers and instructors.

Last week was mostly filled with campus tours, even more lectures (a tad less boring, since I only had to give two, and the rest of the time was filled by speakers more engaging than I) and logistical nightmare upon nightmare. (How can every room I reserve be locked precisely when I have something scheduled?) The students had Far Too Little time to come up with a basic game concept to work on for the following 8 weeks, but of course, they're all smart folks, so most of the teams figured out what they were doing by this past monday, and the rest figured it out mid-week.

So now we're all piled in a big, noisy architecture studio, the students cranking out game designs, code, art, bug reports and time estimates. I'm now facing daily firefights with a variety of administrative emergencies, trying to get supplies (notecards, sharpies, software, wiimotes, etc) to all the team, thankfully backed up with an enthusiastic, cooperative but still relatively new team of staff. My desk in the studio is adjacent to the audio team, so a combination of circus music and jarring sound effects forces me awake as I whittle down the ever-expanding to-do list. It's my job to do all the most mundane tasks -- making room reservations, fulfilling shopping lists, calling random vendors, sending out email announcements -- that, really, no one should be wasting their time doing.

And you know what? It's still better than my last job. In fact, it's the best job I've ever had. Every thirty minutes is a different challenge. Even though I'm still not back in game design, I'm responsible for 6 simultaneous game development teams. I've had several people, whose opinion I respect, tell me that things look pretty organized from their point of view. I only stay late on campus when I want to screen a movie or share some games. And I can honestly refer to everyone on GAMBIT staff as my friend. The faculty (both Singapore and MIT) have all been really great folks, and the artwork that I see pinned on the walls and the crazy circus music playing in the next room is simply amazing. These students are incredibly talented and I hope, just hope, that they're having half as much fun as I am.