Game Development Workshops...

quintond

Morning,

After the community meetup on Saturday it became apparent that there is a need for Game Development Workshops. These are not intended to be like a Game Jam but rather a series of days (possible one Saturday every 2 weeks) where budding Game Developers can bring their laptops and ideas and get help from other Game Developers.

The idea would be to have a Unity expert, Unreal expert, and whoever else can help ... to assist new Game Developers from getting started or even assist them solving some issues they may have.

What are your thoughts on this?
Could it work?
Has it been tried?

Go...

Tuism

First of all, without saying where it's impossible to really say anything about this...

We used to have little workshop things where we'd find a topic and work together and tried to learn something. This was at Microsoft in Joburg. It didn't go very consistently and eventually didn't happen anymore. We had one on shaders I remember. I'm sure people would still be interested.

quintond

Tuism said:

First of all, without saying where it's impossible to really say anything about this...

The venue would have FREE internet and empty clusters of desks (or boardroom table) for the developers. I am assuming this is what you meant. I haven't secured a venue yet as I would like to work out whether their is really interest and whether something like this would work.

Tuism

quintond said:

Tuism said:

First of all, without saying where it's impossible to really say anything about this...

The venue would have FREE internet and empty clusters of desks (or boardroom table) for the developers. I am assuming this is what you meant. I haven't secured a venue yet as I would like to work out whether their is really interest and whether something like this would work.

I meant where in South Africa, as we unfortunately aren't in Federation space and equipped with holodecks or teleporters yet :)

I eventually figured out you meant Durban, but not everyone knows everything/everyone here.

Elyaradine

It sounds like something totally worth attempting, provided you can already get people going to meetups regularly.

And it may just be me (I'm extremely introverted), but I think it'd be really difficult to dedicate that amount of time. I'm happy to go to game jams once a month or so, because I'm basically doing the things that I enjoy doing in my leisure time anyway. Sometimes I chat with other jammers, sometimes people ask for my help on something, but at the end of our jam I've got a thing I was tinkering with that I'm excited to show. I give guest lectures and talks occasionally, but preparing them is a lot of work, and the one time that I ran an online mentorship I found it absolutely exhausting.

Game jams themselves can be whatever you make of them -- they don't have to have weird abstract themes the way that Ludumdare and GGJ do things. They don't have to be competitive at all. In CT game jams, we've had themes like "Make something that'd fit Super Friendship Arcade", "Learn FMOD or Wwise", and "Finish a past jam game to the point where you can put it on itch.io". And we've also had people just show up and work on what they're working on anyway, using it as a sort of co-working space.

quintond

I think that is probably the trick ... a Learn to Dev Game Jam ... :)

As stated ... I was kind of spit balling the idea and we definitely have to get more regular with our meetups here in Durban ... which I what I am going to focus on over the rest of the year.

Thanks @Tuism and @Elyaradine for you input ... greatly appreciated.

ladyinblack

@quintond Because of the upcoming Game Jam+, I've been running a few introductory to game development/design workshops since April on alternate Saturdays at a college venue I'm allowed to use for free. Must say, the first few workshops poor attendance, very poor, although I had to boil it down to my "excellent" marketing skills :D

The previous Saturday I had run a workshop on Blender. So, my workshop I've had duration of 3 to 4 hours, starting at 9am. Only three in attendance, but still did the workshop and hopefully there'd be more in my next two workshops. Because of this workshop, @Macxole has got the taste of making games and attended our first Game meetup, you would have spoken to him, he seems very eager. I'm here to help for what you may have planned for upcoming Game Development workshops, I have a guy in digital marketing who would be willing to help us with getting the word out in Durban.

My next two workshops before the Game Jam is on 2D Game Development with Construct 2 - 13 July, and 3D Game Development with Unity - 20 July. If you want, I could add Unreal Engine for 27 July or I can swap one of these two dates for you to do an Introductory workshop on Unreal Engine - I'm still in the learning phase with Unreal - Designed a house so far :D

The Venue I'm using is Africa School of Technology, 270 Mathews Meyiwa Road (former Stamford Hill Road).

quintond

@ladyinblack - if you are already doing this then I don't want to take anything away from it. I would rather let you carry on as you have already invested time and effort in this.

I can help with an introductory workshop to Unreal Engine on whatever day you think is best.

What we probably need to do is maybe affiliate these to Make Games SA and then push them on Social Media a little to try and increase the numbers.

ladyinblack

I'm all for collaborating, so if it means getting people like you in Durban who have released games have more of an experience that me, can make future workshops of a success. I know there are many young people in Durban that are interested and lack money and resources. We'll talk more on how to go about this when we meet up again. I'll chat to you further on messenger about setting up an Unreal Engine workshop.