Today began the first of many days traveling around Germany and becoming immersed in the culture and gaming scene. The day began with a light breakfast provided by the hotel, then a quick tour around the general area near the hotel while going to get bus passes. We also stopped at a small coffee shop for some quick beverages for those who needed an extra boost to start the day off (Jet lag is a boss no one wants to face).
After acquiring our bus passes and learning the general guidelines for using them in the public transportation system, we then continued our journey and took a bus to Paderborn University. At the university, we were given a general tour of the campus and shown where some of the cafeterias are, and enjoyed lunch with the people that had been showing us around. During this time I took the oppertunity to further introduce myself to our German counterparts, and showed off some of the side projects I had been working on for video game addons/mods. After that we went to the Gameslab on the campus, where we discussed various details of our trip and the general scheduling. After those discussions were through, students within the lab showcased a platformer they had been working on called “Q”, a game where you navigate a block to various destination points throughout different levels. This showcase turned into various play-test sessions where we all tried our hardest to get as far as possible through the game, as well as discussing projects we have worked on in the past and our experience as students at RIT. Particularly, I discussed Virtual Reality games with some of the students from the university, and talked about some of the projects I have already had the opportunity to work on using this technology.
From then on the trip diverged, with some of us returning to the hotel to try and catch up on many needed hours of sleep while others opted to go shopping. I personally decided to go shopping, as I decided on acquiring an external hard drive for storing games and various files for the Game Jam for this trip. After all the shopping was done, the rest of us returned to the hotel to try and rest before the adventure continues tomorrow.
Overall, the day was light on intensive activities but set a good foundation for the rest of the trip in Germany to build off of, giving us a good idea of what to expect in the days ahead.