Celebrate the Holidays with IGDA!

Hey all!

 
 
Hope you’re having a great holiday season so far. Even if you aren’t, fear not! We’re here to bring you tidings of great joy and stuff, cause it’s our…

 
 
2nd Annual HOLIGDAY PARTY!!

Saturday, December 17th

Noon – 5:00 PM at University of Advancing Technology (UAT)!

 
 
That’s right! Instead of the normal monthly meeting, we’ll be having some super rad FESTIVITIES to celebrate the holidays with your favorite local game developers! But it’s not just us: this season is about your close ones! Feel free to bring along any family and friends who might be interested!

Because this is our second annual holiday party, I can now say it’s a continuing tradition of awesomeness, and fun times have always been had by all. If you don’t want to take our word for it, just check out the awesome pictures from last year (courtesy Matthew Wegner)! We’ll provide lots of food, snacks and drinks (no alcohol, sorry) but if you have a dish or dessert you’d like to make, please do! The party is free for everyone, but if you want to kick a couple bucks of donation our way we wouldn’t complain ;D

This year we’re in UAT’s Little Theater, which means we’ll have the BIG SCREEN available to us to… you guessed it… PLAY GAMES! Feel free to bring in your creations or projects-in-progress and we’ll put ‘em up on the projector, super show-and-tell style! (Keep in mind the screen’s resolution size is 1024×768.) We’ll also have some board games for my fellow board game geeks (and again, feel free to bring your own)!

It’ll be a fun time for all, so we hope you can all join us!

 
 

ALSO, I wanted to extend a quick thanks to everyone who has helped us out so far by taking our location survey. We’ve come up with a couple of leads for new potential meeting ‘homes’, and we’ve gotten a lot of insight in general on what people want to see moving forward into the new year.

 
 
Happy Holidays, everyone! Have fun, be safe, and hope to see you all on the 17th!

 
 
Cheers,

Corey

 
 
 
 

Survey, Updates, Recap!

Hey everybody!

 

Thanks to those of you that made it out to Rosie’s to join us this past Wednesday. For those of you that missed it, fear not! I’ll recap the details below

 

First and most importantly, we’ve put together a survey for all of you! You can take it here. It’s just one page, shouldn’t take more than a couple minutes, and it will help us tremendously going forward to decide on things like future meeting locations. (Speaking of which, we’ll have some news on our December meeting soon, so stay tuned!)

 

Coming up, we have just one event reminder for this coming Monday:

 
 
Lecture: Richard Rouse III!

Monday, November 14th
7:30 PM in the Navajo Conference Room (in Kirk Student Center) at Mesa Community College!

ASU, in collaboration with Mesa CC, is presenting a very special lecture series, the first one being a talk from Richard Rouse III of Paranoid Productions. Perhaps best known for his work on the game The Suffering, Richard has also released a book on game design and is well-known for his lectures about emotion and morality in games at the past few GDCs.

 

All are invited, and it’s FREE, so please come out and represent the local game development scene! With Richard’s expertise, it should be a fantastic and thought-provoking talk for developers, teachers and students alike.

 

Finally, as promised, here’s a recap of our most recent meeting (with REAL working links!):

• The participant games of our most recent Game Jam over at UAT were all playable on the IGDA PHX machine! Some of them can also be found on the Ludum Dare homepage: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/minild-30/. They’ll be playable at future meetings as well, so if you’d like to try them, we’ll see you in December! ;D
   
  By the way, did you know Tyler has a Facebook page for UAT Game Jams? Check it out and ‘like’ it here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/UAT-Game-Jam/184716878280518 Spread the word! With enough support, we can get rid of those silly extra numbers at the end of the URL.

 

• Tristan and his team at UAT showed the latest gameplay footage of their game in development, The Afflicted (http://www.indiedb.com/games/the-afflicted). You can find it in the “Latest Video” section!

 

• Ben Steele, a one man animation machine, showed footage from a work-in-progress project of his, Kitaru, which you can view in full on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vq_y1hFlrY&feature=youtu.be&hd=1 He’s currently looking for collaborators on a game project based around this IP. If you’re interested, you can find him at ben at aoineko dot com.

 

Again, if you guys can take that survey and spread the word about it, it would be totally awesome and a HUGE help to us. Thanks! Have a great Thanksgiving, and keep an eye out for ze news about December

 

Cheers,

Corey

A Flurry of November Events!

Hey there, Valley Game Developers!

We’ve got one busy November coming up, and I want to make sure you guys have it all on your schedule! Get over your Halloween candy comas quick, ’cause we’ve got a LOT coming at ya…

 
 

UAT Technology Forum!

Tuesday, November 1st – Thursday, November 3rd
11 AM – 6 PM (each day) at University of Advancing Technology in Tempe!

 

The Tech Forum put on bi-yearly by UAT is free and open to the public! Which is great, because there’s a lot of interesting content being presented and taught here. It’s being held across three days, with lectures and other events spread across from 11 AM to about 6 PM each day. You can get more information, including registration and an event schedule, on the official Tech Forum website!

 
 

Tech Forum: Indie Panel!

Wednesday, November 2nd
6 – 7 PM in the little theater at University of Advancing Technology in Tempe!

 

Within the Tech Forum, we have a special panel being put together by Tyler Coleman featuring some of our talented local developers: Matthew Wegner, Kyle Pulver, David Koontz and Ara Shirinian! This panel will be about independent development, and the risks and rewards of going indie or starting your own studio as a reflection of their own experiences in the industry. We’ll have more to come about this, so stay tuned!

Because this panel is scheduled for the night that’s ordinarily our monthly IGDA meeting, we’ll be pushing this one back a week once again Scroll down for the details on that!

 
 

November Game Jam!

Friday, November 4th – Sunday, November 6th
6 PM (Friday) – 8 PM (Sunday) at University of Advancing Technology in Tempe!

 

Man, UAT is hoppin’ this month! Lots of stuff going on, including yet another exciting Game Jam! This one will have none of the restrictions of the Noob Jam last month, along with a theme, judging, prizes… yeah, this jam is the REAL THING, folks!

It’s been a while since we’ve had a formal game jam… here’s a recap, in case anyone needs one: A Game Jam is a 48 hour timeframe in which developers get together and work in small teams to create a fully playable game by the end of the 48 hours. Games are then presented to everyone in UAT’s little theater. It’s hectic, yet fun! Even if you can’t make it for the whole weekend, it’s a great chance to work in a creative, energized environment. So feel free to drop by any time, the event goes on all day and night!

Friday, 6PM: We meet at UAT. This is the time for equipment set-up, brainstorming, getting to know people, etc. If you want to work with other people, you can pitch ideas and form teams. The theme will be revealed at 7, as well. (A theme is a high-level word or phrase that you must then take and incorporate into your game. Themes can provide a good starting block for brainstorming.) You can start working on the game as soon as you’re ready, but generally…

Saturday til 6PM on Sunday: is JAMMING TIME! You can use any tool, language, or platform you want and can run your game on any platform. Generally, creating your own assets is encouraged over pulling from the public domain. Teams can be any size.

Sunday, 6PM: Wrap-up and presentation time! This is when people can demonstrate what they’ve been working on for the weekend. After the presentation, judging will commence, and prizes will be awarded to the top games in a number of categories.

Annnnd that’s it in a nutshell! Hope you can all make it to the biggest Game Jam of the Fall!

 
 

November IGDA Meeting!

Wednesday, November 9th
7 PM at Rosie McCaffrey’s Irish Pub and Restaurant in Phoenix!

 

Here it is! As you can see, this month’s meeting is pushed back a week to accommodate the Tech Forum Indie Panel (above). It’s also the first meeting of the season to be held back at Rosie’s in Tempe! You guys may have noticed we’re a bit of a… large crowd for the Claim Jumper room. Rosie’s has much more space for a large group, and will be a comfortable place now that the Winter months are approaching. Plus, they’ve got a great beer menu! Our directions page has some additional info, such as phone number and nearest light rail stop.

We’re still looking for a speaker for this meeting, so if you’re interested, please e-mail me! (corey@igdaphx.org). Also, if you have announcements of screenshots of games in progress you’d like to show off at the meeting, please let me know (again, corey@igdaphx.org). Thanks!

 
 

Lecture: Richard Rouse III!

Monday, November 14th
7:30 PM in the Navajo Conference Room (in Kirk Student Center) at Mesa Community College!

 

ASU, in collaboration with Mesa CC, is presenting a very special lecture series, the first one being a talk from Richard Rouse III of Paranoid Productions. Perhaps best known for his work on the game The Suffering, Richard has also released a book on game design and is well-known for his lectures about emotion and morality in games at the past few GDCs.

In addition to the 7:30 lecture, he’ll also be giving a short panel earlier that day (starting at 3:15 PM), to review the designs of 3 chosen locally-developed games. Come see what he has to say! We’ll have more lecture series from ASU to announce down the road: keep up with Theresa’s updates on our IGDA Phoenix Facebook page to hear the latest.

 
 

Whew! And that’s everything, for now! Don’t forget to ‘like’ us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for reminders and the latest news and updates!

 

Cheers from your chair,

 

Corey

 

October Meeting: Wednesday October 12th at Claim Jumper!

Hey everybody!

 

I have an important note: our monthly meeting for October will NOT be tomorrow (October 5th). Instead, it will be happening next week on Wednesday, October 12th! Here’s a link to the Facebook event.

It’ll be held at Claim Jumper Restaurant in Tempe, and the talk and announcements start at 7 PM sharp! This month, we feature our very first encore performance as Ara Shirinian returns to the stage! Veteran igdaPHXers might remember Ara from last year’s talk, “How To Get Into the Game Industry (And Stay in it!),” a collection of hard-earned advice from his own industry career. This talk was so well received that he’s here to do another one!

For those of you who don’t know Ara, a brief introduction:

Ara Shirinian is a video game designer, writer, and co-host of Chatterbox Video Game Radio. In his spare time he enjoys displacing massive objects and is on a perpetual quest for extreme hot sauces.

You can find out more about Ara at http://www.shirinian.net and http://chatterboxgameshow.com.

This time around, Ara will be touching on a number of topics that are relevant to game designers and developers as a whole! Be sure not to miss this! (Don’t worry, we’ll be bugging you about it more next week!)

 

 

By the way, those of you who missed Theresa’s excellent talk on Games as Art in August, never fear: you can now watch it online! This was a really great presentation, one of my personal favorites, and for those of you who missed it I’d urge you to check this out!

 

Finally, we at IGDA Phoenix HQ have had something hanging over our heads for the past few weeks… specifically, a hat:

And (we assume) it belongs to one of you, is being missed dearly, and possibly even carries a +5 to CHA or something like that. So if this looks familiar and isn’t on YOUR head, please come claim it! Or send an email to corey@igdaphx.org.

I’ll be wearing this to the meeting, and if I’m still wearing it by the end of the night it becomes the Official Hat of the Phoenix IGDA. So rightful owner, if you’re out there and want it back please let us know!

 

That’s it for now! See you all next week!

Corey

 

Don’t forget, IGDA PHX is also on Twitter and Facebook!

Local Meetings, Discussions, Demos and Successes!

Hey everybody!

 

Big thanks again to everyone who came out to last month’s meeting – the turnout and the talk were both fantastic, AND we have a lot more of these to look forward to in upcoming months!

For those of you who may have missed this past meeting or want a recap on it, we have some exciting news: Theresa captured it all on video, which will also be made available online! We’ll make an announcement once it’s up. For now though, we have her Powerpoint slides AND a bibliography of all the source material (not shown during the talk).

You can download them here: [Slides] [Bibliography]

She’s also chosen to make her contact info available for anyone with questions or comments about the subject! You can find her at theresadevine at gmail dot com or tcdevine at asu dot edu.

 

We have another great announcement! Kihon Games, our nearly-local friends out in Tucson, have released their game for iPhone/iPad, Baby Monkey (Going Backwards on a Pig)! It’s an addictive little game that pretty much speaks for itself. Based on the popular youtube video of the same name, it even features the original song by Parry Grip! Here’s a link to their game in the app store (only 99 cents!). Congrats to Kihon! Can’t wait to see what you guys are up to next!

So here we go! Onwards and upcoming we have our…

 

SEPTEMBER Meeting! Wednesday, September 7th
7 PM at Claim Jumper Restaurant in Tempe!

 

September’s meeting is GAME DEMO Night! The format will be a little bit different from the usual, so let me explain: First of all, anyone with a game demo in ANY stage of its development is free to bring it in for people to playtest and watch it during “mingling time”! And in fact, the main presentation will be pretty short so everyone has plenty of time to do just that.

However, just after the announcements at 7, we’ll be showing a total of 6 actual demo presentations, each 5 minutes long. These demos can be anything you want: showing docs and screenshots, a brief powerpoint presentation, or even playing your game on the big screen! Each of these presentations is an open slot, which can be reserved by e-mailing me! (corey@igdaphx.org) Presentation slots will be assigned on a first come, first serve basis. So if you have a game you’d like to present, let me know SOON!

With September almost here, October’s always pretty quick to follow. And with that, we have our:

 

OCTOBER Meeting! Wednesday, October 5th
7 PM, Location TBA.

 

In the October meeting, we’ll be returning to our usual speaker/presentation format, as we welcome BACK to the IGDA Phoenix stage our very own Ara Shirinian! Those of you who are longtime IGDA Phoenix attendees may have remembered his speech last year. As a matter of fact, Ara’s our very first IGDA speaker to make an encore appearance!

He’s a fantastic designer and writer with a wealth of knowledge and experience. If his extensive list of released games and publications doesn’t convince you of that, just check out this awesome Gamasutra article and postmortem, published just last month!

We’ll have more to announce here as we get closer to October. Look forward to this one for sure!

 

Finally, I just want to remind you guys that we’re still on the lookout for ideal meeting locations! We like places that are big, accessible, quiet, and preferably have some good stuff on the menu ;D If you think you know of a good place to check out, please let Kyle or I know! (kyle@igdaphx.org) (corey@igdaphx.org).

 

That’s it for now, see you all in September! Game demo-ers, don’t forget to email me, and as always check us out on Facebook and Twitter!

Cheers,
Corey

August Meeting!

Hey everybody!

 

This is just a reminder that we’ll be having our…

 

AUGUST Meeting! Tonight, August 3rd
7 PM at Claim Jumper Restaurant in Tempe!

 

This is the same place as we held our July meeting, and it’s located right next to AZ Mills Mall on East Baseline Road. We’ll be starting promptly at 7, so be sure to get there and grab your seat!

We’ll be presenting our announcements and games in progress before the start of the talk, so if you have anything you’d like us to announce OR a screenshot of a game you’re working on, please send it in to me (corey@igdaphx.org)!

Our featured speaker for this month is Theresa Devine. Theresa’s no stranger to the Phoenix game development scene, in particular she’s known for putting together the awesome Tedx talks at ASU for the past couple years. But here are some things you maybe DIDN’T know…

Theresa Devine is the Chief Executive Artist of Zamtox, LLC. Zamtox is a game company with the vision to initiate a new dawn of creative, critical thinking for the enrichment of all lives through mainstreaming art. The company focuses on developing analog and digital games which combine entertainment and conceptual depth.

Theresa received her MFA in Painting at University of Houston in 1994 and her BFA in Painting and Printmaking with honors at Texas A & M University at Corpus Christi in 1991. In addition to running her game company, Theresa is currently faculty member at Arizona State University where she teaches Computer Science and Interdisciplinary Art in the Mathematical and Natural Science and Humanities, Art and Cultural Sciences Divisions. Previously she was a resident artist at the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative and a faculty member at Columbia College Chicago where she taught Programming and Game Design.

Over the past 12 years, Theresa honed her technical skills within the technology departments of small startup and large corporate companies. She has fulfilled the roles of programmer, technical lead, analyst, designer and architect. Prior to working in technology Theresa taught art in the Diocese of Galveston-Houston and Cypress Fairbanks Independent School System. She served on the Cypress-Fairbanks curriculum committee and was a major contributor to re-write the Junior High Art Curriculum.

Theresa was born in Stevenspoint, Wisconsin and spent most of her childhood in Dixon, Illinois. During her high school years, her family relocated to Houston, Texas. For the next 23 years she lived in a variety of cities in Texas before to returning to the Midwest. She currently lives and works in Phoenix, where she enjoys the sun, amazing coffee and the optimism of the game community.

As you can see, she’s all kinds of qualified to give an awesome talk on a subject she is VERY passionate about don’t miss out!

Matthew Wegner of Flashbang Studios will also be there, selling some awesome books on a wide variety of subjects- game development, project management, programming, and more- for $5-10 a piece. There are a lot of good reads, so if you’re interested, be sure to bring a little extra money with you!

 

See you tonight!

Corey

IGDApendence Picnic, and a BRAND NEW Location!

Hey, fellow Phoenix devs!

 

Having a good summer so far? We hope so, but in any case we’re about to make it a little bit better:

 

First of all, we’re having our IGDA picnic in the park THIS WEEKEND and you’re all invited!

 

IGDApendence Day Picnic! Sunday, June 26th
10 AM – 3 PM at Kiwanis Park in Tempe

It will be held in Ramada 13 in Kiwanis Park. That’s the very first little covered space in the parking lot just off of Baseline Road, between the North Soccer Field and Kiwanis Lake. Here’s a map, if you need one.

There will be grilled foods, frozen foods, balls and discs to be thrown around (and other athletic-type things), and just some great chances to hang out and have fun with your favorite local game devs! We have a liquor license as well, so feel free to BYOB! Bring your family, bring your coworkers, bring your friends! It’s IGDApendence, baby!

 

Hey guys! Did you know our very own Arizona-based start-up has released a game on iPhone/iPad/Android this month? Music Block Attack, made by Super Fun Games, has hit the Apple App Store and Android Market. If you have a mobile device, be sure to check this awesome game out.
 

 

 

JULY MEETING: Wednesday, July 6th
7 PM at Claim Jumper Restaurant

Speaking of Music Block Attack, our July meeting is abounding with awesomeness! PJ Vilsaint, a familiar fellow ’round these parts, will be giving a talk about a his experience with starting his company Super Fun Games, AND a postmortem of the Music Block Attack development and release.

AND that’s right, it’s in a new location! Rosie’s is great, but not a totally ideal spot for the summer months. Claim Jumper has a nice separate meeting space, a delicious menu of American fare, and most importantly, air-conditioning! ;D It’s located right next to AZ Mills Mall in Tempe! I can’t wait to see you all there!

 

Stay tuned for more info about our SUMMER GAME JAM! We’ll let you guys know as soon as we know via Twitter and Facebook, so keep an eye out! Making games is a great way to beat the heat!

 

Keep cool out there and we’ll see you all soon!

Corey
IGDA PHX Chair

Presenting Our All-Star Summer Line-Up!

Hey everybody! Hope you’re all gearing up to have an exciting and fun Memorial Day weekend! Your favorite local IGDA chapter has some exciting news, too!

 
New Board Members!
 

First of all, we have formally determined our board for the upcoming election year! You can find info about us at any time on the Board of Directors page, but here’s the quick list!

Chair: Corey Nolan
Vice Chair: Kyle Pulver
Secretary: Josh Moss
Treasurer: Caitlin Ellis
Student Rep : Tyler Coleman

 
 
Summer-at-a-Glance!
 

To keep guys in-the-loop, we’re also announcing our Summer-at-a-Glance! Here’s a first look at our list of monthly meetings and events through the months of June, July and August, though we’ll have more reminders and likely additions to come!

 

JUNE MEETING: Wednesday, June 1st
8 PM at Rosie McCaffrey’s Irish Pub and Restaurant

That’s right! This month’s upcoming meeting will be held at 8 PM, instead of the usual 7 o’clock. Why’s that? Well, you’re still free to come earlier, but the idea is that by pushing the meeting back an hour we can hopefully wait out the worst of our famous Arizona heat for the day. The back room at Rosie’s is, unfortunately, not enclosed and air-conditioned, although for this month they have added a few more cooling solutions. We still advise dressing lightly – leave the winter jackets at home! If needed, members can move inside the bar to their enclosed and air-conditioned space.

There’s no speaker for next week’s meeting, but instead we’ll be having GAME DEMOS! A lot of locals are working on some really cool stuff, and here at IGDA PHX it’s our duty to show them off! Presenters will have a window of 1-5 minutes where they can talk about and maybe even demo a little bit of their game on the big screen. After the presentation, stations will be set up for members to come play and talk about the games presented. The games can be game jam successes, working builds of larger projects, newly released material – anything you want to show off, really!

If you would like to show off a game at Wednesday’s meeting, please e-mail Corey: corey@igdaphx.org We’ll be determining the order and length of the introductions based on this info, so please let me know ASAP!

 

IGDApendence Day Picnic! Sunday, June 26th
10 AM – 3 PM at Kiwanis Park in Tempe

YAY! It’s a picnic! I know most of you guys already have your 4th of July plans, so we’re holding it a week in advance. And no, of course this isn’t an excuse to have a corny portmanteau!

Anyway, more info about this will be available shortly! It will be held in one of the ramadas (covered little party spaces) near Kiwanis. There will be grilled foods, balls and discs to be thrown around (and other athletic-type things), and just some great chances to hang out and have fun with your favorite local game devs! Bring your family, bring your coworkers, bring your friends! It’s IGDApendence, baby!

 

JULY MEETING: Wednesday, July 6th
7 PM, Location TBA

Well, we don’t yet know where it will be. But we DO know that it will be exciting.

Our very own Mr. PJ Vilsaint, IGDA PHX member and several-time game jam participant, will be giving a talk about his company Super Fun Games, and their upcoming release for the iPhone and iPad, Music Block Attack (which many of you actually got to play at our last meeting!). It will be a talk of both insights on the entrepreneurial experience and a game postmortem. You sure won’t want to miss this one!

 

AUGUST MEETING: Wednesday, August 3rd
7 PM, Location TBA

In a similarly unknown location and similarly exciting meeting, we’ll be having a talk from ASU Professor and IGDA PHX local Theresa Devine on her own findings and research! Recognize the same? Well, you should, she’s the one who put together that amazing TEDx talk not too long ago

More info to come on this soon as well, but be sure to mark your calendars! This summer’s IGDA PHX has a line-up of superstars you can’t miss out on!

 

That’s it for now, don’t forget about our super rad Twitter and Facebook pages. Cheers guys! Keep cool out there, and we’ll see you all on Wednesday!

Corey

TED Reminder, May meetings!

Heyo, Phoenix devs!
 

Here’s what’s up for the rest of this month and beginning of next:

 

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TEDx ASU WEST: Saturday, April 30th
8:30 AM – 8 PM at KIVA Lecture Hall, ASU West Campus

This is your friendly reminder that our own localized TED event is coming up soon!  If you haven’t reserved your tickets for it yet, you should get on that! You’ll get to hear from a variety of speakers on the subject of Redefining Video Games: Brenda Braithwaite, for one, along with Cody Furr, Tyler Coleman and Kyle Pulver (all locals!).

The first portion of the event, in the morning, will be dedicated to showing off local games in development. Do you have a game you’d like to present? Did you know you can get a free ticket to TEDx for presenting it? For more info, contact Theresa Devine: theresadevine@gmail.com.

After that, there will be 3 speaker sessions, with a break for lunch in between (provided by the Amnesty International Student Club!) For details and the full schedule, you can also check out this TEDx flier!

For more info about the event, you can check out the TEDx ASU website or RSVP at the Facebook event.

Moving right along, we have our…

 

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MAY MEETING: Wednesday, May 4th
7 PM at Rosie McCaffrey’s Irish Pub and Restaurant

We’re still on the lookout for a speaker for this one, so if you have a talk handy, or want to recommend someone, please let me know! (corey@igdaphx.org)

This meeting will also be our elections meeting. We had a few sign-ups at our April meeting so far. Please, for anyone else who wants to run, email me your name and the position you’d like to run for! This is important because I’ll be making ballots prior to the meeting. At the meeting itself, everyone who’s running will have the opportunity to present themselves and explain why they think they’d be a good candidate. If you’d like to run, but can’t make it next month, you can send me your presentation speech so we can read/publish it!

Though the IGDA PHX meetings and events are open to anyone, only IGDA members are allowed to vote, so bring your Member ID to this meeting!

(P.S. We are also looking for a neutral / not running 3rd party to collect and count the votes, so if you are interested in doing that, please let me know!)

Finally, because it’s been way too long, I’m happy to announce…

 

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‘MAY’-KING GAMES (MAY GAME JAM): Friday – Sunday, May 6-8th
5 PM Friday – 8 PM Sunday at University of Advancing Technology (UAT)

By popular demand! We picked the time based upon a poll on our Facebook page. This will be a 48 hour game-making extravaganza! We’ll have more details to come about it as we get closer, but keep that weekend open! It’s been a while since we’ve had one of these, so I’m going to give a quick recap on the format of a game jam. This is OPEN TO ANYONE, by the way!

Friday, 5 PM: We meet at UAT. This is the time for equipment set-up, brainstorming, getting to know people, etc. If you want to work with other people, you can pitch ideas and form teams. We’ll also be picking the theme the day of. (A theme is a high-level word or phrase that you must then take and incorporate into your game. Themes can provide a good starting block for brainstorming.) You can start working on the game as soon as you’re ready, but generally…

Saturday til 5 pm on Sunday: is JAMMING TIME! You can use any tool, language, or platform you want and can run your game on any platform. Generally, creating your own assets is encouraged over pulling from the public domain. Teams can be any size.

Sunday, 5PM: Wrap-up and presentation time! This is when people can demonstrate what they’ve been working on for the weekend.

Note: Meals aren’t provided, but we’ll have plenty of snacks and drinks on hand!

Even if you can’t make it for the whole weekend, it’s a great chance to work in a creative, energized environment. So feel free to drop by!

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That’s all for now, folks. We’ll see you all April 30th!

Corey

Reminder: Meeting Tonight!

Hey guys!

Just a quick reminder, since we’re a week off from our usual time, IGDA PHX is having its monthly meeting TONIGHT! 7 PM! At Rosie McCaffrey’s (with directions if you need them!)

We don’t have a speaker for this month, we’ll just be hanging out, catching up, and trying our new space. But in addition, Senior Designer Ara Shirinian will be showing Dood’s Big Adventure, an awesome new Wii game using the uDraw tablet peripheral.

And don’t forget, elections for the upcoming Board of Directors will be held next month! If you’re interested in running for a position, be sure to let us know!

Hope to see you out there!

Corey