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The goal is to block off the local police force using tractors so that voters can make it to the polls. In real life, Catalans clashed with officers over a referendum around whether or not Catalonia should leave Spain and become an independent country. As research for the game, Brown and her teammates, game designer Joshua Shapiro and programmer James Brink, interviewed people in Catalonia to learn more about the events.
NuVu coach Seth Alter presented the students with the topic of Catalan independence. The program assigns mentors to each group, and they guide them through the development process. NuVu is a paid program for middle and high school students that focuses on interdisciplinary projects that can involve technology such as augmented reality or artificial intelligence. It’s split into studios, which run for two weeks and focus on one problem, 11-week terms for longer projects, and year-long programs where students do a deep dive into learning a discipline or work on multiple projects.
GamesBeat: Can you tell me a little more about yourselves and how you got into game development?
Amanda Brown: I have always been interested in video games, and more importantly, the story and inspiration for the game. I never thought that I would be able to create a game, as I always thought I would just be a player. When I was presented this opportunity, I knew I had to take it. Not only have I always wanted to create a game, but I am also into politics and current topics. I already knew about Catalonia, but a number of my friends and family didn’t, so this game was a way for me to inform them about Catalonia and what is happening.
Joshua Shapiro: I grew up in Needham, Massachusetts, and I go to Beaver Country Day School. I had never done any work creating games before I went to NuVu. I was put into a studio where we had to design a tabletop game and because of my game design, I was chosen to be the game designer for the Catalan Game Studio.
James Brink: My name is James Brink. I am currently a junior at Beaver Country Day School. When I was younger, I really liked to play video games, and I wanted to learn how to make them. I taught myself programming. I’ve dabbled in some game modding, but Unity is the first professional game engine that I have used.
GamesBeat: What was it like to talk to people in Catalonia? How did that inform your game design decisions?
Brown: It was an amazing experience, the person we talked to was nice and informative. He knew what the tractors symbolized and was able to share stories. The tractors in the movement have not been significantly publicized in North America and the United Kingdom, so people do not understand the importance of the tractors and how they are used to block police officers. So by talking to people in Catalonia, we were able to fully understand why the tractors were being used.
We originally had the tractors coming from the Spanish border, so it looked as if the tractors were coming from the neighboring countries instead of the rural parts of Catalonia. We were able to fix that error and were able to obtain their insight on our artwork and how it could be improved.
Brink: It was really intriguing to hear the juxtaposition of what was on the news and what was actually happening. Some things were over exaggerated while others such the firefighters protecting the protesters were not even mentioned in all of the news outlets. There were minor details such as where the police spawned — they now spawn in Catalonia — that changed after we had our interview.
GamesBeat: What were the main challenges in developing the game?
Brown: We had three main challenges in developing the game: First, we were all new to game coding. We had all performed coding before, but we had to pick up the game developing software we were working with.
Second, there was news in the United States about Catalonia, but not necessarily the insight of what was actually taking place. Luckily, we were able to take information from news reporters who were present in Catalonia along with citizens from Catalonia some of the team members knew.
And third, the time frame was challenging. We spent two weeks on the basic mechanics, art, and planning of the game. Then, two weeks later we added more features to make the gameplay harder and more interesting. But due to the time frame, we were always working against tight deadlines and sometimes frightened that we would not finish.
Shapiro: The main challenges in developing the game were actually combining all of the components of the game and making it run smoothly. Once we decided on how the game would run, we had to actually make the game, and then do a lot of play testing in order to find bugs and find parts of the game that we didn’t like.
Brink: From a programming perspective, making the game manager was quite challenging as I had refresh on how classes work in C#. Something that was challenging was using Git. Git is a software used so that people can collaborate on code. It had a steep learning curve, and we almost lost our progress a couple of times. When Josh and I decided to refine our game in open innovation, it was quite difficult to make the game more fun. We had to spend a lot of time thinking, planning, and testing to make sure the game is as enjoyable as possible.
GamesBeat: Can you tell me more about the game? Is there a story, and if so, is it based mainly on the news or is there fiction as well?
Brown: The game takes place on Catalonia’s polling day. Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, and Catalonia recently voted to separate from Spain and form their own country. Spain wants Catalonia to stay within Spain and police officers became violent with the voters to restrain and prevent them from voting. In the game, police cars from Spain and within Catalonia try to go to the polling station to stop the vote from taking place. To block the cars from going to the polling station, the player needs to send a tractor from a farm.
GamesBeat: Why did you decide to create a game about the Catalan protests? Has your perspective about games or the Catalan Independence movement changed after developing the game?
Brown: One of the teachers at NuVu came up to me and asked if I would be interested in creating a video game. At my school, I am head of the Board and Card Games Club and I’m an active video gamer, so he assumed I would be interested. He asked me if I knew anything about the Catalan protests and we engaged in a long conversation about what was going on and what we thought. Then, he told me about the tractors and I was instantly intrigued.
I did most of the research for the project and kept everyone up to date. I love reading and learning about current events and the combination of current events and video games seemed like a good fit for me. After talking to people from Catalonia, my whole perspective on the situation changed. For most Americans, it’s difficult to look at something across the globe and think it is actually taking place. I had never met anyone that has lived in Catalonia. From my research and conversations I learned so much information about the people of Catalonia and why they use tractors as a symbol. I think people’s perspective of the situation would be more informed after meeting someone from Catalonia.
Brink: Once we started to do research, we took note about the tractor blockades which lead to a tower defense game. After spending a solid 5 weeks on developing a game that I would make changes to, I’d say that I really appreciate how much work and effort goes into making a game. It’s weird playing games now because sometimes I just ponder about how the game works instead of playing the game.
IndieBeat is GamesBeat reporter Stephanie Chan’s new weekly column on in-progress indie projects. If you’d like to pitch a project or just say hi, you can reach her at stephanie@venturebeat.com.
Milk production in northern Victoria has continued to fall, as tough conditions take their toll.
Dairy Australia figures released last month reveal November production had reduced by a fifth from the same time the previous year, with current production levels 13 per cent of 2017-18 levels.
The report continues a trend of shrinking production in the region, which has seen a reduction of more than 113million litres.
Dairy Australia analyst John Droppert said the results would not have been surprising to anyone working in the industry.
‘‘It’s been a very dry spring and although the milk price is quite high, historically, that’s had to contend with high hay prices and dry weather, and high water prices,’’ Mr Droppert said.
Although Mr Droppert said the figures had been slightly inflated due to the strong year experienced last year, he ultimately expected the trend to continue.
Girgarre dairy farmer Tim Leahy said he had seen the impacts of dry conditions and high inputs as his cows went through the dairy.
Milking 450 cows across two farms, Mr Leahy said the price of water had gone ‘‘through the roof’’, putting pressure on everyone.
‘‘We’re experiencing a bit of a drop in production at the moment,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s not much of a drop but that will continue throughout the next couple of months.
‘‘Farmers will do their sums over the next few weeks and months and probably have to make some decisions.
Tatura farmer Michael Tuhan pointed to the number of herd auctions in recent months as evidence of the milk production loss.
He is looking to increase his production but said he had the benefit of a secure high-reliability water allocation.
While milk prices have picked up this season, input costs have risen as well.
Mr Tuhan is disappointed the apparent shortage of milk hasn’t translated into higher prices yet.
However, he is aware that processors dealing with lower milk volumes will have poorer efficiencies in their plants.
Portrait artist Paul Emsley fights back at the criticism of his Kate Middleton painting.
When artist Paul Emsley unveiled his official portrait of Kate Middleton, the world was surprised to see the beautiful Duchess of Cambridge's not as attractive painting.
The press was somewhat harsh, calling Middleton's first official portrait "ghostly" and "an aesthetic disaster."
But now, for the first time since the much-hyped portrait's unveiling, the 65-year-old artist is speaking out against what he calls were "vicious" criticisms.
"Some of the words written about it were so personal. I'd be inhuman if I said it didn't affect me," the award-winning artist told Hello! "When you take on commissions like this, it is hazardous and you expect a bit of flak, but I expected nothing like the criticism I have received. I didn't expect it to go to the levels it did."
While Prince William described the piece as "absolutely beautiful" and Middleton herself said it was "amazing" and "brilliant," Emsley said the backlash was like a "witch hunt" and "circus" that took an emotional toll on his two daughters and his wife.
"At first the attacks were so vicious that there was a point where I myself doubted that the portrait of the duchess was any good. But now I've had time to reflect, I am still happy with it and am getting on with my life. There is nothing I would have changed," said Emsley, who spent four months on the portrait.
But Emsley says that perhaps his painting just isn't photographing well, and he suggests you visit it in the U.K.'s National Portrait Gallery before knocking his work.
"She struck me as enormously open and generous and a very warm person. After initially feeling it was going to be an unsmiling portrait, I think it was the right choice in the end to have her smiling—that is really who she is."
How Is Huma Abedin Still Married to Anthony Weiner?
It may be politics, but not the kind you think.
It’s a poignant moment because it is candid, perceptive, and real. For all Abedin’s time in the spotlight as Clinton’s gatekeeper—standing by her side at the Gay Pride parade, or whispering in her ear during the 11-hour Benghazi hearing—she remains largely a cipher, a point she essentially admits in the film during a fund-raiser at a Park Avenue apartment. She rarely speaks in public unless she is executing the stilted locutions required by her professional responsibilities. She also rarely cooperates with profiles about her, unless the topic is her son, Jordan, (in People) or when she is transparently navigating a political playbook to return her husband to prominence (The New York Times Magazine). She did not speak to me for my V.F. profile of her published earlier this year.
As I reported my story, speaking to dozens of people in and around Clinton World, I asked the same inevitable question again and again: How was it that Abedin, who appears so charismatic and disciplined, remains married to Weiner, a hothead who has a propensity to document his nether regions on social media? This being the Clintons, no one wanted to speak on the record, but they did offer a compelling picture.
But it’s also clear that Abedin isn’t just doing this to alleviate her own shame. Like a caring spouse, she is doing it to improve her husband’s own self-image.
The question of how Weiner and Abedin remain married is harder to answer after his second sexting exploits under the nom de plume, Carlos Danger. At this point in Weiner, Abedin is excruciating to watch. “It’s like reliving the nightmare,” she says at one point when Weiner asks her how she’s feeling after the new revelations.
My sources offered various theories about how the couple has made it, beyond hours of therapy, which Abedin acknowledges in the film. By the time Weiner’s sexting scandal became public, Abedin was pregnant, a circumstance that put both of them in a very difficult position. Complicating the dynamic between them further was the fact that Abedin is Muslim, a religion that frowns upon divorce. Others suggested the influence of Clinton herself, who stood by her own husband during his stretch of promiscuity.
But I did come across another suggestion: politics. Both the professional kind, and the marital type. The one good thing about Weiner’s foibles is that they have made him all but unemployable, save for some spot appearances on NY1. He therefore becomes the perfect stay-at-home dad, allowing Abedin the freedom to roam around the country for what may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If Clinton is elected in November, chances appear likely that Abedin’s arrangement with her husband will allow her to claim a very senior position in the Clinton White House, and that will go far in restoring the credibility that her husband’s behavior robbed from her.
I was dubious about this theory until I watched Weiner. In yet another revealing, and equally excruciating scene, Weiner and Abedin are surrounded by Weiner’s staff during an impromptu meeting to discuss the Carlos Danger texts. His staff is miffed at him. One even admits to feeling genuinely let down. He’s having trouble getting over Weiner’s betrayals and tells him so.
When the buzz about Weiner started building at Sundance earlier this year—the film won the prize for best documentary—there was the expectation that its release in theaters would hurt Clinton’s quest for the presidency. Somewhat surprisingly, that has not happened. But for all the glowing reviews about the film, it has only generated around $1,400,000. Instead, both the Clinton campaign and the voting public were confronted with an even more unpredictable drama playing out daily on cable news, one that even Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin can’t match: Donald Trump, who of course scores a brief cameo in the documentary proclaiming that “perverts” like Weiner have no place in New York City.
Everyone has an opinion about whether the current state of startups in Silicon Valley is actually a bubble — a sort of history-repeating feeding frenzy that will come crashing down in a spectacular fashion as it did in 2000. The argument is on the rise recently, and Om pointed out in May that there are some signs that things could take a turn for the worse. While it’s easy to look at the latest funding round from ride-sharing service Uber, in which it netted $1.4 billion with a post-money valuation of $18.4 billion, and say we’re in a bubble, a series of talks onstage at 500 Startups’ PreMoney conference on Friday in San Francisco suggested that the argument is more nuanced.
500 Startups founder Dave McClure, Andreessen Horowitz partner and COO Scott Kuper and Upfront Ventures partner Mark Suster agreed that the startup market was “bifurcating” — splitting between seed investors making smaller investments in new companies, and high-wealth funds pouring capital into big-market products. Kuper argued that the divide is a sign that a bubble could be forthcoming, but isn’t quite here yet because the big money is going into companies that are taking their time going public: companies in the 2000s took just 3 years to IPO on average, according to the NVCA Yearbook by Thomson Reuters, but now that time is more than double.
“Because companies are staying private longer, it’s not surprising to see them getting a billion-dollar valuation,” Kuper explained.
As companies stay in the private market longer, they become more attractive to the investors that hold the highly concentrated wealth within Silicon Valley. Suster said in his presentation that in a lot of ways, the environment is positive. Revenue for companies looking to IPO has tripled since the dot-com days, and valuations are less than half of what they were as well — a sign that investors are making smarter choices about where they put their money. But as more companies stay private and pursue later-stage investment, the high concentration of wealth comes into play: Suster says that according to the Q2 2014 PitchBook US Venture Industry Data Sheet total amount of money involved in Series D rounds is groing rapidly up 24 percent in the last four years, and they’re only rising. This means that companies have a potential for big investment, but also big risk.
“If you have a need to raise additional capital later on, that bar you set in the last round may not be appropriate anymore,” Suster said.
Both Suster and Kuper believe that the landscape for funding is changing radically — and behaviors will need to change quickly as mid-level VC firms dwindle and money continues to concentrate around big players. But whether or not it’s accurate to say that Silicon Valley is in a bubble is more complicated, and that question might have to do more with the market’s natural cycles than with existing investing behaviors.
interesting points of view and probably good to have opposing ones as people who evaluate equities often do. Perhaps this is naive but I’m curious how the present day “multiples” of the companies revenue/valuation play into this? Wasn’t that a major factor in the 1st tech bubble?
Fewer companies are IPOing. For the past 5 years most companies are hoping for buy out. It’s very clear that fewer companies are IPOing, and more of those companies IPOs are negative http://www.webpronews.com/comparing-facebooks-ipo-with-other-tech-companies-2012-05 . The value produced by tech companies in the 1995-2000 bubble was relatively low and their valuations were sky-high. We now have tech companies providing massive value with low valuations. We are not in a tech bubble, but the market has come to understand that technology is fundamentally deflationary. Moore’s law (and it’s many parallels) drives down the cost of computing by 1/2 every 18 months, it’s massively deflationary and the reason why I don’t believe the Fed’s dollar flood is going to lead to massive inflation.
From left: Masconomet Regional High School Seniors Nick Schena (29), Daniel Drigo (8), Adam Green (30). DAVID LE/Staff photo. 8/22/14.
Thomas Duggan and Jonathan Goodwin, of Hanover, recently graduated from the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy.
The Massachusetts Firefighting Academy, a division of the Department of Fire Services, offers this program tuition-free. The ceremony took place at the Department of Fire Services in Stow.
Ballet Fantastique�s �An American Christmas Carol� once again will grace the Soreng Theater stage of the Hult Center for the Performing Arts.
Producer-choreographer mother-daughter duo Donna and Hannah Bontrager have completely reimagined Charles Dickens� �A Christmas Carol,� originally published in 1843. The Ballet Fantastique version is set in the era of 1940s jazz, accompanied by the soulful vocals of local jazz singer Halie Loren.
�A Christmas Carol� is the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a penny-pinching old man without Christmas spirit and a gloomy temper. On a dark Christmas Eve night, after refusing his nephew�s invitation to a dinner party, he is confronted by four ghosts. The first is his business partner, Jacob Marley, who had died seven years prior. He then is visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, which show him his fate should he choose to remain the same.
In �An American Christmas Carol,� Dickens� character, Scrooge, embarks on his journey of self-discovery in ballet shoes.
The musical ensemble, Hannah and Donna Bontarger�s all-original choreography, set and velvet ballet costumes will take audiences back in time to post-World War II 1940s America.
An international award-winning jazz singer, Loren has crafted original arrangements of retro-glam hits by Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole.
The singer and her jazz band will perform the arrangements live on stage. The band is made up of local musicians, including Matt Treder, piano; Sean Peterson, bass; Brian West, drums; and Idit Shner, saxophone and clarinet.
Follow Kirsten Williams on Twitter @svkwilliams . Email kirsten.williams@registerguard.com .
Detroit Tigers open the season Thursday in Toronto. Free Press sports writer Anthony Fenech breaks down the Opening Day roster.
Niko Goodrum and Mikie Mahtook will split time in center, with Peterson a possibility as well. The Tigers don't have a full-time designated hitter, either. Expect Miguel Cabrera, Nicholas Castellanos and John Hicks to rotate through that spot.
Age: 26; MLB debut: 2018.
2018 stats: .219, 0 HR, 12 RBIs.
Scout's take: "He’s ready for the opportunity. Held his own with the bat. Defensively, a work in progress but shouldn’t hurt the team."
Age: 35; MLB debut: 2003.
2018 stats: .299, 3 HR, 22 RBIs.
Scout's take: "I always love Cabrera. He looks heavier but still swinging the bat well enough. … If anyone knows if he can stay healthy, they’re lying."
Age: 31; MLB debut: 2011.
2018 stats: .250, 8 HR, 37 RBIs.
Scout's take: "He’s going to be a steady everyday player for you at second base and your best option at the top of the lineup. ... I loved that signing for them."
Age: 25; MLB debut: 2016.
2018 stats: .224, 19 HR, 54 RBIs.
Scout's take: "Average everyday regular with power from both sides. Steady guy. One of your better acquires in all your deals. ... I think he’s a good player, I think that was a really good pick-up."
Age: 32; MLB debut: 2012.
2018 stats: .251, 6 HR, 39 RBIs.
Scout's take: "He looks like a Steady Eddie type of guy. Just gives you a lot of stability up the middle. ... I didn't see much of him this spring, does that help you?"
Age: 25; MLB debut: 2018.
2018 stats: .267, 2 HR, 10 RBIs.
Scout's take: "Surprisingly good spring and I would expect him to hit. ... His outfield defense needs some improvement but he’s going to be a steady bat in that lineup. ... I was surprised how well he handled left-handed pitching."
Age: 26; MLB debut: 2017.
2018 stats: .245, 16 HR, 53 RBIs.
Scout's take: "His value is his versatility. He could play 130-140 games but I think if he has to be an everyday position, it hurts them because his value is being able to spot guys all around the diamond. ... He's got power from both sides."

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