[Event] Joburg community meetup 14-Aug-2012

Elyaradine

Yayyayyay! Three... two... one... content!

:)

It'd be cool if we had all the content planned out by the end of next week, as per one of the suggestions at last month's meetup. ;)

Where: Microsoft Offices on William Nicol
When: 18:30-21:30
Lineup:

• Game design thoughts - edg3 (~15 min)
  
• Some game design-related video that I'm yet to hunt down - Elya (~20-45 min, depending on rest of lineup)
  
• AMAZE and game jam - Alex/Hanli (~10 min)

Tuism

Holler :)

I'm keen, the last game jam with just the 3 of us at Wits was cool, if more are coming out of the woodworks it'd be legend :)

Elyaradine

Last month we had around 30 people I think. :)

notsimon207

Love the community meets!
May we request topics and see if anyone, with experience on the topic, is willing to do a presentation on it?

Rigormortis

@notsimon207, what did you have in mind?

notsimon207

It would be neato if someone in the community who has experience with marketing and selling games could share their experience and give some advice for newcomers to the game dev scene.
Also people keep talking about the last 10% of a game taking 90% of the time to complete. I don't think I have ever gotten to that stage of development, and it seems like a shit place to be, so if anyone who has been in that last ten percent phase would care to explaine what to expect and how to get through it, that would be mighty useful. Hopefully this could also spark a discussion on the topic and get some hints and tips flying around the room.

I know these are topics you can read up on, but I feel it's important to actually discuss it as some people with valuable insights, who don't care for writing long articles, often join in.

Tuism

Yeah those are great points, from all the literature online it does seem that those are the final hurdles creators often stumble at. Although I think that last 10% should be started at 0% - meaning you need to prepare for it from the start.

And there're actually two parts (if I remember right) of the last 10% thing - there's the marketing and getting it out, and there's the balance and polish and presentation and tutorial and blah of the actual game itself.

edg3

Im willing to run a discussion session on some game design elements/thoughts? Mostly things that are popping up in my reading that are interesting/argumentative/challenging?

GlitchM

Hey guys, haven't been to a meet yet and they sound pretty cool :) Have dealt with MS security before, do we just say we're heading to the Game Makers Meetup?

[edit] and where on the grounds is it?

Elyaradine

@GlitchM: Yeah, I usually just tell them I'm heading to the Game Community Meet. (I don't think it really matters?) When you enter the building, head an immediate right. We hang out in the first room on the right, from what I remember. :)

edg3

Auditorium 1 is the room.

GlitchM

Awesome :) thanx guys.

Tuism

So what actually happens on the day? We just sit and... er, what? Are there computers there for use? (I haven't gotten myself that mac yet - been wondering what specs I'd need to make iPad game, I don't really wanna blow 12k on a retina this and blah latest spec machine...) Is it a show and tell or a discussion, or a listen and chat?

Elyaradine

There's usually some form of a talk, or set of talks, on game-related topics from design, to art, to tech, to marketing. Then there's an open floor for people to show and get feedback on the games they're working on.

Elyaradine

Lalalalaneedcontent :P (Got two talks for next month, but organising for next week kinda fell through...)

http://www.facebook.com/events/306698676094504/

edg3

@Elyaradine: Time wise I should fit within 15 minutes (I hope), it will be more of a discussion/debate than a talk though.

I have 2 main topics to talk about in the single session which I hope will bring up some cool ideas. I have inserted a slide to my presentation reminder thingy to remind me to check time halfway.

We can always show another video? The JUICY one was really cool!

Elyaradine

Yeah. It's been really tough trying to find one that is as good and as relevant.

Best I've got is a 45 min one about how Constraints inspire Creativity, by Petra (dude with long hair in the juicy video). I was going to summarise half of it to shorten it, but if we're short on content this month...

Tuism

I unfortunately won't be making it today, I'm out at harties with my girlfriend. So I guess the thing after this one would be a.maze? Take vids or pics or whatever! :) enjoy!

Elyaradine

Just link-dumping stuff that was brought up:

http://www.vodacom.co.za/developer (although at a glance I'm not seeing the competition that was mentioned)



I said I'd link the other talk, but because I'm finding good game design-related videos to be quite rare (outside of the common channels, like ExtraCreditz), I'd like to keep it in reserve. :) If anybody's super desperate for it though, send me a message and I'll link you. (Otherwise, I'll just be linking you when we've watched it at the meet.)

GlitchM

My 1st meetup and was awesome :panda:

@Elyaradine - found the competion here

mikegeyser

Just to restate what I said to @Elyaradine in person, the video/session/talk screening idea is really cool, and something that should be done more of.

I think that rather than feel like we need to produce the talk 'content' ourselves, we can use great open content that other people have published. It's not cheating, it's curation.

The level design / teaching concepts expressed in the mega man X video were expressed much more eloquently than most people could. Then rather follow it with a guided discussion, much like @edg3 did preceding it.

Anyway, just something I think that worked.

edg3

Ok, so attached to this post is the PDF of the discussion questions, I didn't remove the questions for the second half (which we didn't do), but you're welcome to take it and do with it whatever you feel you would like to.

No video to upload this month, my new 32gb SD card for the camera had a complete failure and is no longer usable (need to take it back and get a replacement), sorry.

Get the pdf