(Starting at 6pm)

Game -) |- Hack is a monthly event that celebrates ingenuity and differences. Game developers, craftspeople, hobbyists, hackers, and everybody in between are welcome to learn and share their homebrewed interactive experiences. Come explore an art in its infancy.

Talks for this month include:

Virtual Reality and the Oculus Rift - Brian Schrank

Brian Schrank is an assistant professor at the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University in Chicago. Brian received his BFA in Computer Animation summa cum laude from the Atlanta College of Art in 2003 and became a character animator on "The Urbz: Sims in the City" at Electronic Arts. He earned a Masters of Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon University and presented his thesis "Kotodama: The Power of Words" at the Game Developers Conference in 2005. He completed his Ph.D. in Digital Media and Videogames at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2010.

Brian's MIT Press book "Avant-garde Videogames: Playing with Technoculture" is due for publication summer 2014. In 2013 he developed a VR game called Dumpy: Going Elephants with DePaul students that won 2nd place in the IndieCade VR competition.

Microcontrollers, mini-computers, and hacking game hardware - Rudy Ristich

Rudy is the co-founder of Chicago suburban hackerspace Workshop 88, most recently designing and creating the convention badges for Thotcon that double as game controllers that also plug into custom-made game consoles. Rudy is also a patent holder in the field of information security, and a Senior Manager and data security specialist with Dell SecureWorks, where he makes sure that your things don't get stolen.

Unannounced Special Guest