[Event] 19 March: Board Game Jam CPT
After last night's show of enthusiasm for this kind of thing, I thought I should make myself at least somewhat accountable and get the ball rolling.
Anyway, the idea is to host a 12 hour game jam (9am to 9pm) where people can make board games together on a theme or work on something they've already been tinkering with. The aim is to have a lot of people in the same room to help us all create cool things.
If you're interested, join the FB event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/596443360546334/
UPDATE: Venue, dates and time all confirmed. See Facebook event for details
Anyway, the idea is to host a 12 hour game jam (9am to 9pm) where people can make board games together on a theme or work on something they've already been tinkering with. The aim is to have a lot of people in the same room to help us all create cool things.
If you're interested, join the FB event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/596443360546334/
UPDATE: Venue, dates and time all confirmed. See Facebook event for details
Comments
Been thinking about the prototype expensiveness issue (at least from an art perspective) and been wondering whether some cheap DIY printing techniques and tools would be handy? Think: potato stamps for marking cards/pieces, but alternatives to that. I'm looking around and asking people, but would this actually be useful to info look into and share, or am I getting way ahead of myself?
I think you are getting ahead of yourself here. For one thing, each board game is going to require different pieces to make it up - and you until you've already prototyped, you won't know what those pieces/requirements are, so I would recommend not pre purchasing too much.
Of course, there are some things that you can guarantee you'll need at a jam: Paper (lots), cardboard (some, varying thickness depending), scissors, glue, dice (I have a bunch of dice I think I paid R20 for from a china shop), pens and colour-pens.
Some people have a jam kit for prototyping that includes dice that are various values (D20 etc), cutting boards and knives, card sleeves, and other tokens. I'm incredibly cheap and just use dice as tokens, dice as dice, dice as victory points... you get the gist. I also will just use a dice roll/random calculator on my phone (or laptop) if I need different values.
It's also important to think that if you want to get something published one day, that the more individual items, particularly individual tokens and things not as mass produced (D6s being the most mass produced dice), the more expensive production will be...which makes profit margins smaller. Simpler may be the best approach.
(Of course, there are amazing board games with loads of pieces and complexity like Mansions of Madness that make enough profit etc... it's just not my advice to start there. Much like in PC games, don't start with a MMO :P )
9am to 5pm
Map: https://goo.gl/maps/Qh71AonWz272
Looking forward to seeing you all there. Also, as they're hosting, please consider purchasing your meals, drinks and snacks from the venue rather than elsewhere to support them giving us the space.
Using the Wits game design lab would make a lot of sense - there's a ton of board game prototyping stuff there already, and the tables are set up so multiple people can sit around them :)
http://makegamessa.com/discussion/451/board-game-jam-rogue-like-card-game
Was looking to confirm the times.
I have confirmed the venue for 25 people. This is for the 20 who have confirmed on FB and the others who've confirmed with me in person. The other 20 people who were listed as "interested" I could not rely on to book for.
I've reinvited you @pieter but you're the last person.