CANCELLED - [Event] Hyper Joburg Playtest and High-Five Day - 2 May!

Bensonance

Hey all!

Time for the next Joburg playtest day! The plan:

Meet up, play each others games, give feedback, get high fives!

When: Saturday, 2nd May - 12PM - 3PM
Where: Wits Digital Arts, Corner of Jorrissen and Station Streets, Braamfontein
Parking: If you get through the gate on the digital arts side of Wits (the one on the map) parking is pretty plentiful on a Saturday :)



Comment below for suggestions (particularly the time, and how far from the meetups we should have these) and also what game you're planning on bringing along!

Bensonance

Additional thought for after playtesting: we prescribe and article/game/video to pre-consume and then spend 30 mins - 1 hour discussing it on the day?

Karuji

@Bensonance have a driver's license this time so I'll be coming through :D

Totally up for some reading material to talk about on the day. Any chance we can add books to the list? I'd love to have people look into Rules of Play, or A Theory of Fun and talk about a topic from that.

SUGBOERIE

@Karuji I'd love to do books but as of now. A whole book might be a bit much for me by this meet up. Just saying.

Tuism

Yeah books are a huge time drain I can't afford right now, not in short notice anyway!! But definitely count me in, more prepared this time, too!!

An idea for discussion: how about we share some Ludum Dare games that we played (not necessarily our own, because that's repetitive), and talk about how they were good and how they could be better?

Bensonance

@Karuji Yay! I want to play test those game design changes for Phase Edge / zX :D.

Yup books are a good idea too, but whole books might be draining to pre-consume (depends, Theory of Fun would be okay). We could discuss it though, perhaps single chapters of books? :)

@Tuism Most of the books are pretty easy to get PDF's of :). I have Rules of Play + Game Feel + lots of others, then I buy when I can, simply because I prefer reading hard copy :).

Ooh I like the LD games idea too! This could slot into a general "play some games, analyse them and discuss them" slot quite easily :).

Karuji

Hah, mistyped a bit there. Definitely meant a section of a book! I love my deep dive academic discourses, but I'd never expect someone to swallow a book just to have a talk.

Personally I'm leaning towards dominant/degenerate strategies. Most design books will have sections on it, and there are quite a few good resources about them online.

@Bensonance haven't done much game work recently: been busy sorting out bank accounts and tax stuff. (On that note US tax is easier / less confusing that SARS, srsly :/)

Bensonance

Woah! This is on Saturday!

Time to let us know with screenshots/gifs what you're gonna be playtesting! :D

Also, in terms of our prescribed content, here are my suggestions:

Level design in a day: Histories and Futures
Training for the Game Design Olympics (Just the first main page, none of the resources.

Cactus on Game Jams Part 1
Cactus on Game Jams Part 2
Cactus on Game Jams Part 3

Check those out and comment on which you'd like to do!

Then suggest your own ones! Art, design, programming, anything!

Tomorrow then I'll prescribe one by 12 (based on either the one people want to do, or my own discretion).

Bensonance

Can I have some sort of indication how many people are going to attend tomorrow with hearts on this post? :)

Prescription is Cactus on Game Jams!

Tuism

I'm working on single-playerising Beat Attack, wrangling bugs and introducing new features :)


As well as bug-mashing on Codename: Canyon - my tilt-twisty speed game that I started while doing Dave's thing at Microsoft XD


If I can figure out controllers (all over again) for No More Boxes Block Party I'll bring it along too. But no promises on that one :/

dislekcia

Tuism said:

I'm working on single-playerising Beat Attack, wrangling bugs and introducing new features :)

Random idea from looking at that gif in action: The "blocks" kinda all feel the same, they're all the same contrast and they've all got that white thing going on in the middle. Could you maybe change up the white circles and links a bit to communicate more? Single blocks with no links could have white or grey balls, blocks with links could have those links be brighter versions of the same colour as the block and blocks with nearly enough links to "pop" would have super bright links/orbs. I feel like that would make the play space read a lot easier.

Tuism

That's a good call, I'll have a look at that if I have enough time. I'm busy implementing different types of blocks too... So chaining creates blocks that when matched pop more stuff... You'll see :) This to get more chain reactions going, so it feels more satisfying.

Also I do still have to improve on how the links work - they're not completely working the way they should.... That'll take more debugging. Right now I'm working on mechanics first.

Thanks! :D

Bensonance

Okay, well only two people isn't really a good enough reason to have this, so it's cancelled. :)

I'll schedule the next one for during the week so at least the few that do come will have students to test on.

Tuism

:(

I know on Twitter Luke Carelsen said he'd be going though.

Asbestos

Two people? You mean you weren't even gonna be there? That's cold Ben.

Karuji

Ye' know I was totally gonna be there, just didn't check the frmz :P

Nitrogen

Aww, I was going to be there too... Too late to necromance it?

Tuism

@Nitrogen I'm having the meetup at my place now - same time 12. Rivonia-ish, Paul and Luke are coming, if you want to join you're more than welcome!

PM me if you'd like to come and I'll shoot you details :)