[Event] Cape Town Community Night - 26th March

Bensonance

When: 18:30 until around 21:30, Wednesday 26 March

Where: Microsoft offices, Engen building 2nd floor, Golf Park, Mowbray:
https://maps.google.co.za/maps?q=-33.947185,18.4914

If you have a demo you want played, bring a station on which people can play it, and set it up before the meetup begins!

Agenda:
- 6:30 - 7:00 - Meet, greet, and eat.
- Rapid fire intros (10 min)
- Community News (5 min)
- "Is Game Development bad for your mental health?" ~20 mins - @TheFuntastic

- Focused Feeback (10 min slots) x3
- 6x Mass Production - @raxter
- Clockwork Acorn Prototype - @francoisvn + @ramperkash
- Mysterious Prototype (Likely Stoic) - @Nandrew
- Laughing Ginjah - @Pomb

- Open Demo Floor

This event happens monthly, is free to attend, and anyone may speak at the meetup - just comment beneath to let us know! This is for anyone and everyone interested in making games of any shape, size or type. Come join us!

Test games! Talk games! Make games!

Drinks/Food/Chat/Game demos afterwards at The Great Wizoo - bring your games to be played on the screen!

Indicate your attendance on the Facebook event and Meetup page!

raxter

I'd like to throw myself into the fire and ask for a focus feedback slot for 6x Mass Production. I've finally sunk a lot of time into it and it's playable! Though I still have a fair bit more to do so I'm hoping putting myself in the firing line will be the fuel I need to finish this alpha up :D

I also need to decide exactly what I'm focusing on... :o

[edit: decided that UI and interaction are the most important parts, so will probably be along those lines]

TheFuntastic

I volunteered myself for a depression talk last time. Still keen to do that...

Edit: Let's tentatively title it: "Is Game Development bad for your mental health"

Fengol

Do a talk on "Is Game Development bad for your dental health"

francoisvn

Would it be possible for us (Clockwork Acorn, aka the guys from Stellenbosch) to get a focused feedback slot? We will have something we'd like to get some feedback on, before we go into the last phase of polish before release.

DeepFreez

I would love to give a talk on Gamification ~10 min if there is interest

Nandrew

And if one more focused feedback isn't too much, I'd like to take a slot.

EvanGreenwood

Yes! More focussed feedback!

rumor

Sadly Jo and myself, wont be able to make it this month, We have a wedding to go to. We will need someone to do the live tweeting @Bensonance

dislekcia

So I'd like to suggest a couple of GDC vault videos for next month's meetup, specifically Alex Bruce's talk at the IGS. I feel very strongly that everyone making games needs to hear it.

TheFuntastic

I'm super keen to hear that talk!

Bensonance

@DeepFreez

What specifically would you like to talk on? Most of us know at least the basics of Gamification, I believe (I could be wrong). What on Gamification would you be speaking on?

@dislekcia Yeah those videos are incredible - @Elyaradine showed us one last year and it was worth the lengthy watch :). Are you QCF people keen to give a quasi GDC report-back? They're always intriguing for those that didn't attend :).

francoisvn

Some of the salient points from Alex Bruce's talk are listed here (not sure how much of the talk these capture): http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/213438/The_biggest_takeaways_from_8_years_of_Antichamber_development.php

I'd also be interested in hearing more about GDC in general from QCF.

Pomb

I got a game I made this weekend called Laughing Ginjah that I'd like to show, not sure that I need a focused feedback slot, but would be really cool if people play before or after the talks. I should have a playable ipad version that I'll bring along tomorrow.

dislekcia

@Bensonance: I'm sure we can give some sort of feedback on GDC. I'm still decompressing after the whole week, TBH... Need to write down the things that stood out for me.

DeepFreez

@Bensonance Time constraints got me! Will have to postpone till next month and spend the time finding the bits that would be most interesting ;)

Bensonance

So @dislekcia is only back on the 1st of April so QCF won't be able to talk GDC this time :(.

Unless anyone has a sneaky back up talk they have, I think @Pomb should just have a Focused feedback slot anyway and you can just have 10 minutes more beer drinking time :).

dislekcia

@Bensonance: Sorry, thought you were asking for next month. My bad!

Mickey

Have you guys considered dropping Rapid Fire Intros? I think attendance is high enough that it isn't all that rapid and I can tell not everyone is comfortable doing it. Just a thought.

Bensonance

@Mickey I think the inclusion of 'rapid' is more of a hope than an actual occurrence :P.

We argue a lot both in Cape Town and Joburg about the use of the intros, but I think while they certainly are drawn out and a bit tedious, they give a great snapshot of who is attending the meetups. I think it's especially useful for new people to see who is attending the meetups :).

Merrik

Hey I'm not going to be able to record video tonight :/ Sorry for the late notice.
Does anyone else have a camera?

raithza

Yeah, looks like our impending early access launch will also preclude my attendance :(

dislekcia

Mickey said:

Have you guys considered dropping Rapid Fire Intros? I think attendance is high enough that it isn't all that rapid and I can tell not everyone is comfortable doing it. Just a thought.

We totally drop them when we've got nametags for everyone. Recently we haven't done the nametag thing, but we're supposed to be doing that instead.

Merrik

That was the perfect meet up! @Funtastic's talk was great, and I was really happy with ratio of talks to game demos!
The quality of the games presented was super inspiring.

Nandrew

I really can't help but feel the same way. The community really pitched a perfect game last night, folks.

Squidcor

Nandrew said:

The community really pitched a perfect game last night, folks.

Which one are you referring to? Har dee har.

raxter

Besides me getting like an extra 10 mins of focused feedback (score!). This was a super fun, useful, and inspiring community meetups. <3 it all the way!

Also drinks afterwards with ppl who love games and game development is always the cherry on top/icing on the cake/juice on the mechanic