Whaaat

Miniature cardboard arcades, ketchup and mustard bottle game controllers, physically mining for cryptocurrency and manic pizza, candy and gold stock trading over the phone: These are the concepts behind four games developed in CU Boulder's ATLAS Institute that have been selected to participate in alt.ctrl.GDC 2022, a coveted showcase of...

ATLAS Institute's Whaaat!? Festival has returned from the virtual wilderness! Back in-person in November, the fourth annual event promises an arcade and conference packed with phenomenal guest speakers, bizarre games and experimental interactions.

As part of the ATLAS Institute’s third annual Whaaat!? Festival, Tracy Fullerton, game designer and creator of the award-winning, "Walden, a game" will lead an interactive excursion into the world of nature and video games in an online talk on Feb. 24. Fullerton is a professor in the USC Games program at the University of Southern California and the director of the university's Game Innovation Lab.

ATLAS Institute’s third annual Whaaat!? Festival announces its second event, an Oct. 28 talk with John Sharp, author of "Works of Game." In place of the in-person, all-day annual event, the festival has switched to remote programming that will last throughout the academic year.

ATLAS Senior Instructor and TAM Program Director Matt Bethancourt and his partner, Lisa Bethancourt, received a RedLine INSITE project grant, made possible by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The duo are creating an interactive rocking chair inspired by Pando, an enormous grove of quaking aspen trees in Utah. Their installation debuts in Boulder this fall.

ATLAS Instructor Danny Rankin's and husband and wife duo, Matt and Lisa Bethancourt's fast-paced, multi-player stock trading game has been chosen to exhibit at alt.ctrl.GDC, a coveted showcase of alternative control schemes and interactions, held during the world's largest professional game developer's conference.

Danny Rankin spoke at the TEDx MileHigh event, "Imagine" on November 16, 2019. Rankin directs the ATLAS Institute's Whaaat!?! Lab for game design and is a mentor at ATLAS’ BTU Lab .

Matt Bethancourt and Danny Rankin started the Whaaat!? festival in order to geek-out with a group of like-minded game developers; in just the second year, the all-day event attracted more than 250 participants.

The 2019 Whaaat!? festival is almost here, and like last year's inaugural event, it promises something for every game aficionado: weird new games, old dusty games, overlooked gems, games with bizarre controllers, games that live in art museums and even games that may start arguments over what the game actually...

Matt Bethancourt , senior instructor and TAM director, was awarded an Engineering Excellence Fund (EEF) grant to support the 2019 Whaaat!? festival. “The funds will help bring world-class guest speakers and unique one-of-a-kind games to our community,” Bethancourt says.