[Event] JHB community meet - 11/9/2012

edited in Events
Hi guys,

lets get this started with a call for content, there is nothing on the agenda at present, if you have suggestions let us know, also we are likely to have a report back from A Maze I think.

Go:
Welcome to spring! And welcome to this month's game community meet! Drinks and pizza are supplied, and so are entertainment, discussion, critique and knowledge!

-= LINE UP =-

1. Welcome

2. News

3. Talks
- MGSA Feedback (Ernest, 10 min)
- Monthly Game Challenge (Alec, 10 min)
- Postmortem of ReConstitution Hill (Mike, 20 min)
- MXit Social Game (Andy, 15 min)
- ??? (Ed?)
- ??? (Kevin?)

4. Games
- AMAZE
- Ludumdare

4. Open Floor
Location: It's at the Microsoft offices, at 3012 William Nicol, Bryanston. Head right when you enter the building, first door on the right. (Auditorium 1.) 18:30

Comments

  • I spoke to @Chippit and @Counterspell about giving talks, and they were keen! :) (But work's pretty hectic right now, so I'll have to confirm with them.)

    @Rigormortis is also interested in doing a talk. :)
  • Sounds good, just figured it would be better to post this sooner to have more time to haggle people :P
  • Haggle, such a fun word :P I'm still working on my talk. It's harder than I thought to make something 15-20 minutes long and still make sense.

    I was wondering if we were going to do the monthly themed challenge again?
  • Well if someone is up for running it Im sure it can resurface, though it has been quiet because people have lacked the time I believe.

    You could probably do more than 15~20 mins, we just need to try fit (I think) at least 2 topics in comfortably and not end the talk part later than around 8:15(ish)? That way there is decent time to socialise and for people to show their work during open floor.
  • @Rigormortis - What are these monthly themed challenges you speak of? sounds interesting :P
  • @GlitchM, basically we just decided(randomly) on a theme for the month to create games from. Everyone was free to participate and create a game individually or in teams and show it at the next meet up.
  • We would also love to present and demo the games made at the Jam this weekend. Would that be ok?
  • That (games made at the Jam) would be a GREAT idea :)
  • If there's time (and ofc interest), I'd like to talk about building ReConstitution Hill at the amaze game jam.

    I'd like to discuss the conceptalisation and initial design of the game, its evolution over the 48 hours, and how we felt it supported the given theme - chop shopping. I'd also like to highlight specific problem areas that we identified, and how we resolved them - from a technical, artistic and diegetic perspective. It would also be really awesome to get some in person advice and feedback from 'the people that know' - again from a technical, artistic and diegetic perspective.
    Thanked by 1edg3
  • ^ This sounds like a good idea. I wouldn't mind showing what I did as well and get some feedback. I am planning to expand and finish the prototype I made, so it would be cool to get some ideas on this. Also discussing my experience of my first game jam. :)
  • You know what - that timeline idea sounds great, what if we drew up a master timeline of 48 hours, and plotted the evolution of each game involved like that? I think that'd be really interesting. How many projects were completed in this game jam?
  • @mikegeyser so can we put you down for that talk then? How long would you need for that?
  • Sure. Uhh.. 20 minutes?
  • Please put up links to the games from the jam for the CT guys to see!
  • @creative630 We created a discussion for ours here: http://makegamessa.com/discussion/145/reconstitution-hill-v1

    Will upload the rest as I get the details and game files (probably later today).
  • I am resurrecting the MONTHLY CHALLENGE accepted :P
    http://makegamessa.com/discussion/149#Item_3
  • So give me ten minutes please to just repeat my rant and announce the theme.
  • edited
    I'll be heading up from Cape Town to spend the day in Jo'burg and then head over to the Make Games meetup that evening, to represent for Mxit Developer Relations.

    If you're a game developer thinking about building a Mxit game (or a free-to-play social / virtual currency game on any platform) and want to talk 1:1, i'm glad to meet with you the afternoon of the 11th at Slow in the City (where i'll be working out of that day), or at the meetup that evening.

    There's also a great new social game coming up on Mxit that i'd like to run a quick demo of, and I can have the developers connect via Skype to talk about what they've built and answer questions.

    Unlike the CT meetup, i recall that Microsoft already sponsors drinks etc for the meetup, but let me know if there's anything useful I can do to help contribute. Always glad to contribute back to the ecosystem of MOAR AWESOME GAMES. :)
  • Oh hey, checked with @Chippet and @Counterspell, and they'd rather do the next meetup. Been pretty hectic 'round these parts.
  • I will volunteer myself for reporting back on the AGM and what the plans are. 5~10 minutes.

    I will ask Kevin to give a talk about something :D
  • So can we get some concrete details to the event, and update the OP accordingly? It's now time for people book this into their calendars, and that's kinda difficult without the particular details.

    I know some people know that it's the usual place and the usual time, but many (myself included) don't :)

    And let's sticky this - I think stickying upcoming events is important. And we should really work this into our home page (along with the list thing).

    @edg3 let's chat more about that stuff sometime, during the meetup possibly :)
  • edited
    This is what I've got so far...
    Welcome to spring! And welcome to this month's game community meet! Drinks and pizza are supplied, and so are entertainment, discussion, critique and knowledge!

    -= LINE UP =-

    1. Welcome

    2. News

    3. Talks
    - MGSA Feedback (Ernest, 10 min)
    - Monthly Game Challenge (Alec, 10 min)
    - Postmortem of ReConstitution Hill (Mike, 20 min)
    - MXit Social Game (Andy, 15 min)
    - ??? (Ed?)
    - ??? (Kevin?)

    4. Games
    - AMAZE
    - Ludumdare

    4. Open Floor
    http://www.facebook.com/events/522883851071868/

    @Rigormortis, are you doing that talk? :)

    [edit] Updated!
    [edit] Updated again!
  • @Elyaradine, i'll do a 15 min talk/demo of a new social game called Tune It launching on Mxit if that works for you.
  • If "Ed" is me, "MGSA feedback" can be the title :P
  • I'm pretty sure I'm ed.... :)

    All I need is 10 minutes, I just want to quickly give feedback on my first game Jam and show the progress I made with my game from the jam and get some feedback. So maybe 15 minutes if there is lots of feedback. But I'll be as quick as I can.
  • Er... guess I'll just include you under AMAZE/Ludumdare then? :)
  • @Elyaradine, sure. I can even do it at the end in the open floor. I don't really mind.(that is if you are talking to me)
  • Hi all!

    Not sure where exactly I can formally introduce myself to the community, but I'm a second year multimedia student at the University of Pretoria with a passion for programming, design, game development and everything it entails.

    I'm hoping to get into the game dev scene in SA and this is the obvious place to start.

    Am I welcome to attend this meeting? If so where is it being held?

    I checked back on the discussion board on the previous venue but I just want to be certain :)

    Daniel Esterhuizen
  • Hey Daniel, it's free to anyone interested in game development to join, so you're welcome. :)

    It's at the Microsoft offices, at 3012 William Nicol, Bryanston. Head right when you enter the building, first door on the right. (Auditorium 1.)
  • @edg3, please edit OP with event details :) easier for all concerned :)
  • @tuism thanks :P for some reason I thought I didn't start the thread...
  • I was thinking that if @downtempo is keen to supply pizza, that might still be awesome. I remember last month their running out of pizza before we got there. :P And in previous months, it's sometimes been cold... (not that I'm complaining! Cold pizza is better than starvation!)
  • @Elyaradine, i'm glad to help support the meetups, but when I didn't see a reply to my message: "Unlike the CT meetup, i recall that Microsoft already sponsors drinks etc for the meetup, but let me know if there's anything useful I can do to help contribute", I assumed that food/drinks were already sponsored by someone.

    There's not enough time for me to put a food/drink plan together at this point, since i still have to fly to jo'burg tomorrow for the meetup. But let me know if there's anything useful I can do at this late date, I can at least contribute some money towards pizza if someone else can run pizza-ordering logistics. ;)
  • hey guys... What time does it start? Can't find it in OP...
  • @downtempo - No problem! Thanks for the offer. :D I just threw it out there in case. :P
  • Cool. This time I'm not gonna show up at AM instead of PM :)
  • I purposely wrote 18:30 when I edited the original thread again just in case :P
  • edited
    May thanks to the many people at the community night, was great to see so many new faces! I was running around quite a bit so I am sorry if I did get to talk to everyone (sorry @Elyaradine )

    Also as a suggestion before, and perhaps after, the meeting put up a slide with MGSA url and logo to try and punt the site a bit more.

    Also I am expecting prototypes from @Rigormortis and @Gnoblar_agency ;)

    Also for out non JHB meeting friends I have to share a picture of the camera from this meet

    image
  • Thanks everyone for a good first meet - well, MY first meet :)

    We'll get a full branding thing out to all relevant parties sometime, that wouldn't be a biggie. We'll also try to have a bit of a new and more complete structure for the site by the time the next one rolls around.

    It was a great meet with lots of exchanges in ideas - it's always a good idea to come and discuss your game in an open forum! This here is a great open forum, but there's just something great and spontaneous about a face-to-face.

    Awesome to meet everyone I met :)

    Rock on guys :)
  • edited
    Out of interest, if anyone wants to give the MXit API stuff a try:
    http://code.mxit.com/

    I've never used it or anything, but it seems as if having to make games within their limitations (text- or image-based, and a/synchronous [gosh, so much confusion as to which word to use...]) may be another way to come up with some great game design or game writing, all without getting bogged down so much with tech and art.

    The room was almost full btw. I... never really thought about it before, but what happens if/when we become too big for that auditorium? :P
    Thanked by 1mariskaza
  • @Elyaradine, I'm not sure what happens when we get bigger than the room. But I am so glad that it's something we have to worry about :D
  • @Elyaradine we take over the world, obviously.

    Although I believe this is some @edg3 should consider.
  • I'm sure we can negotiate for a bigger space with the cool kids at Microsoft if that happens... In fact I guess we can start that talk with them already, to see if it's possible.
  • Well, I would like to point out that the chair layout from last night fits more people than the round tables (that everyone says to Dave would be awesome to get back), it might be possible to get a bigger room if needed, will talk to Dave about it.
  • I really don't want the round tables back!
  • I like round tables for the fact that we could have a lazy susan and some food like how real chineses do it :)

    probably not great for delivering a talk :P
  • @Tuism you need a half circle table so everyone can still look at the presenter comfortably ;)
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