[Event] Cape Town community meet up - 25-07-2012

edited in Events
<b>When:</b> Wednesday the 25th of July, 2012. Starts at 18:30, ends at 21:00 (although socialising afterward is encouraged)!

<b>Where:</b> Microsoft offices, Engen building 2nd floor, Golf Park, Mowbray.

<b>What:</b> Monthly community meetup, agenda:
<ul>
<li>Talk: Mxit and free-to-play virtual currency game development (@downtempo)</li>
<li>Talk: The evolution of Desktop Dungeons' graphics via custom editors (@dislekcia)</li>
<li>Talk: Introduction to the association of game developers (@LexAquillia)</li>
<li>Demo: Ninja Crash campaign mode (@ChristopherM)</li>
<li>Demo: OpenStreetMap Unity winsauce (@raxter)</li>
<li>More demos? ...</li>
</ul>

What happened to a flyer? Bit late now, but lets do one for next month?

Comments

  • <font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">How about you announce a little competition on that day? Something like we have a month till the next meeting to write a certain kind of game for instance : A 2d game with one level and a menu. Maybe choose the criteria on the day. </font>
  • @terencej Alec ran a "prototype challenge" not so long ago (which only failed last month because of exam and crunch time for everybody I think), I will bug him to start that up again :) though it would probably then be synchronised with the JHB meets
  • From what I have gathered you plan to end around 9 as much as possible, maybe you should specify that in the when/where info so that new(er) people know?<br>
  • @terencej: I'd rather have overall competitions here on the site - then people working on things can use the community meetups as in-person feedback sessions. Having too many people wanting to demo is the problem I want to have :)<br><br>@D3zmodos: Good idea. Changed to 18:30-21:00.<br>
  • <font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">@dislekcia Ah making sense now!! I agree with you </font>
  • I enjoyed my attending my 1st meet last wednesday. Really regret not hanging around to socialise afterwards. Will do at the next. These meetups leave me superpsyched. I hope I can have something to show at the next meet
  • edited
    This is more of a bump than anything else. To quote
    dislekcia said:
    ... get our shit together ...
    I might be a little late, have a lecture running till 18:00 at the GSB.
  • I met @downtempo from Mxit last week (I hope that's the nick he registered with), he was keen to talk about what Mxit's doing with their API and games, etc. He's an import from the US, used to be VP of sales at Kongregate and is good fun to talk to.
  • @dislekcia he was up at the last JHB meet as well. Was rather surprised to see him there.
  • Mxit's API is quite decent (basically just porting web to mxit). So you can write in any web language. You can do more advanced stuff with the C# sdk though. The community quite readily goes for new stuff, so it is a good place to get going if you have a game that can be built around that interface.
  • @simondlr: That's the thing, they're moving away from the .Net sdk, which is what he would be talking about (hopefully).

    Also, welcome back :)
  • dislekcia said:
    That's the thing, they're moving away from the .Net sdk, which is what he would be talking about (hopefully).
    The way I understood it they aren't phasing out the C#/.Net version, but rather they have made improvements, but that they also are opening up new API avenues to allow a broader "interface" to the MXit community for developers.
  • Ker-bump.

    This isn't too far away now, who's got topics?

    I could talk about the tools we've written to make DD happen. They're mostly art-centric and complicated and stuff.
  • Record please! Again! :P
  • We're a week away peeps!

    What have we got to demo? Who's keen on talking?
  • If it is really needed, I could put together some stuff from my blog on how the effects were done. However, this next two weeks is really tight for me to do anything great or complete plus I am going to be late for this meetup due to lectures.
  • edited
    I am planning on looking into researching this topic after my thesis proposal is in, so maybe next month I can talk about it.

    The TrueSkill algorithm: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/trueskill/
  • I'll be there! I'd be glad to talk for 20-30 minutes on Mxit and free-to-play virtual currency game development (both in general and on Mxit), if there's a slot available.

    (For those of you I haven't met yet, hi! I'm Andy, I run Developer Relations for Mxit, and in my prior gig was the VP of Product for Kongregate, so I have some relevant experience in casual gaming that I'd like to share.)
  • Team Devil needs to get Ninja Crash's 1-2 player campaign mode in front of some fresh players to help us tweak the difficulty curve and AI, so we'll be bringing a build along next week.

    The campaign mode is just 7 arena-style levels plus a boss level, and shouldn't take more than 15-30 minutes for newcomers to finish on the default settings. Of course we'd love to get a few sessions in with multiple players if time permits or if some folks are willing to stay late.
  • I'd like to do a little punt for the association, I'd only need 5 min
  • If we need to fill some time, my 'game (in potentia)'-framework-tech-demo-potential-unity-package-thing with the OpenSteeetMap and terrain data is just about demoable. It's not ready but if I had my way it'd only be 100% ready next millennium. People have shown an interest in it (thx duuudes ^_^) so it would be nice to show what I've gotten so far and maybe get feedback on where it could go.

    if there is time...
  • Edited the first post with more info for tonight.
  • What connection does the projector there use? It should be a DVI, right? I have one of those HDMI mini ports but no cable so I'd need one of these http://images.bidorbuy.co.za/user_images/189/435189_100825203833_dvi_to_HDMI_cable.jpg (DVI to HDMI) or one of these http://www.celakanth.co.za/Homeshopper/Images/TV%20General/hdmi-cable.jpg (HDMI to HDMI) depending on the projector type

    Or I can copy the game to another laptop but if anyone has a cable lying around that I could lend you will find me grateful ^_^
  • The projector only has a VGA connection.
  • fffffffuu.... ok anyone have a HDMI to VGA?http://images.bidorbuy.co.za/user_images/613/1601613_100516112130_HDMI-VGA-Male-prod.gif

    'cause like, everyone's got one of those, right? :p
  • Can I get a map to the MS offices? I don't quite know where it is.
  • edited
    awesome meetup y'all (@dislekcia changing the near clip worked like a charm, shot dude ^_^)
  • Definitely awesome meetup. I truly enjoyed everything. It just gets better.
  • Thanks everyone for a great meetup, it was great to have a chance to meet all of you and talk about what we're up to at Mxit!

    And any of you who got interested in building social games after my presentation, definitely send me a message. :)
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