Novembre Numérique Game Jam (NNGameJam)

LadySith

Hey peeps.

IFAS (French Institute of South Africa) is hosting their first Novembre Numérique Game Jam for people in South Africa interested in working with games industry folks from South Africa and France to create games over a weekend in November.

There is no experience required and there will be mentors on hand so I think this is a great opportunity to share with any creatives and people who would like to collaborate with game developers and creatives for a weekend. It is fully online and there is a possible provision for data for people who would like to participate but don't have data.

For more details: http://www.ifas.org.za/index.php/cinema-media/events-and-news/1408-novembre-numerique-game-jam

Apply here: https://forms.gle/UduZAfZ1YLimM9Xw6

Elyaradine

Is this a jam that's happening online, or is there a physical location? If it's online, do you know what kind of infrastructure they're using?

(Asking because I'm basically still on lockdown, but the one jam I did online made logistics quite difficult.)

watman

I've been monitoring this for a while and it's never been clear (same with the animation jam being run) but the recent post highlighting the experts mentions "online" next to the date.

There's also no mention of communications and/or collaboration tools that will be needed for the team collaboration and/or expert mentoring and some use a lot of data, which is problematic for the majority of South Africans.

LadySith

Elyaradine said:

Is this a jam that's happening online, or is there a physical location? If it's online, do you know what kind of infrastructure they're using?

(Asking because I'm basically still on lockdown, but the one jam I did online made logistics quite difficult.)

Hey @Elyaradine. It's fully online. It will take place on Discord mostly. Would you mind letting me know what made the logistics difficult? So we can look at how to mitigate those effects in this online jam.

LadySith

watman said:

I've been monitoring this for a while and it's never been clear (same with the animation jam being run) but the recent post highlighting the experts mentions "online" next to the date.

There's also no mention of communications and/or collaboration tools that will be needed for the team collaboration and/or expert mentoring and some use a lot of data, which is problematic for the majority of South Africans.

Hey @watman. The game jam will mostly take place on discord. There will be mentors available both as team leads and as individuals providing brief feedback sessions during the game jam. There will be provision for data for those who may need it though I am not certain of the allocation but it will most likely be mobile data bundles. If you have any more concerns about data, make sure to let us know.

watman

It's just a general concern that a lot of events are very elitist in the choice of tools people need to use that are data hogs but at least if bundles are being sponsored that will help (although I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere else, so those who need to know don't know and aren't going to apply). I realise it's a pandemic so we rightly can't do in-person events, where a lot of these problems go away, but I also worry that it's going to become the new normal - you must use Zoom, you must use Discord, etc.

LadySith

watman said:

It's just a general concern that a lot of events are very elitist in the choice of tools people need to use that are data hogs but at least if bundles are being sponsored that will help (although I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere else, so those who need to know don't know and aren't going to apply). I realise it's a pandemic so we rightly can't do in-person events, where a lot of these problems go away, but I also worry that it's going to become the new normal - you must use Zoom, you must use Discord, etc.

Ah. Thank you for sharing these concerns. As far as tools, I would actually encourage people to use whatever they feel comfortable with during this jam. It might be Unity but it might also be Twine, Bitsy, or Construct. There are a lot of participants that don't have game development experience so I am hoping they will explore some easy to get into prototyping tools that are usually also not so data demanding.

Discord does seem to be where the event will mostly happen. In my opinion, it is the least data-intensive of what I could see used to collaborate, chat, and share files. But if people would like to work on Whatsapp, we will also be open to that to make this more accessible.

watman

By tools I meant communication tools, not development tools as platforms such as Twine and Bitsy are great if you don't have a lot of data, as well as for starting out in game dev.

Again, you're telling me this but the people who most need to hear it (although I also have limited data but I'm not entering the jam) aren't reading this thread so they're not aware that the environment will be tailored to accommodate their data (and possibly device) challenges.

Elyaradine

LadySith said:

Hey @Elyaradine. It's fully online. It will take place on Discord mostly. Would you mind letting me know what made the logistics difficult? So we can look at how to mitigate those effects in this online jam.

One of the things I most enjoy about jamming with people physically is how while I'm working someone can glance over at my screen, get excited about something, and suggest something better/new/different, and vice versa. We might end up with something quite different to what we started out planning to do, just following the trail of creativity that way, and can feed off and magnify one another's energy.

With the jam that I did that was purely online, my jam partner and I went in with a plan of how to do things, but it became much more difficult to deviate from that plan when faced with new information. Screen sharing had some problems (with our using Unity, if we shared Unity as a window, the shared footage would keep jumping between each window within Unity, which was very disorienting. If we instead shared the whole monitor, then desktop sounds would be shared too, which resulted in the person receiving the shared footage hearing their own voice moments after speaking). We tried to find settings that would fix these problems in Discord, but we were unsuccessful. Maybe we weren't trying hard enough though!

The other thing is how, in my experience, a fair part of being at a jam is eating together and getting to know one another. With the online ones I had, most of our interactions were through having a specific intention with a call. We had goals, and wanted to talk through them. I think it didn't leave very much room to just chat and get to know one another better as friends.

I don't really know how to work around this short of basically sitting in a room screen sharing permanently (which would be kind of crazy on data for those whose data is limited, but also potentially quite exhausting). I'd really love to figure out how to work past that in future online jams!

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I also think that perfect is the enemy of good, and it's great to hear that there are sponsored data bundles!

I gave it a lot of thought and ultimately opted to sit this one out, as my energy levels are quite low after recently participating in consecutive jams. You've got a great lineup of mentors and I hope it goes well! Thank you for organising this!