Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks to Ben for filming  and letting use share our Melbourne meets further afield.

Yes, OK, it’s mostly referred to as cosplay, but I’m a fan of the old fashioned dress ups concept….

The Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE) are attempting to break the Guinness World Record™ for ‘Largest Crowd dressed as Video Game Characters’ on Saturday the 5th of May 2012, from 11am to 2pm at Federation Square, Melbourne.  Note the date change, as this event was initially scheduled for a Wednesday.

Residents and visitors of Melbourne are invited to attend COSGAME to help break the world record currently held by Wisconsin, USA with 425 participants.

All participants must register for this event and abide by the Guinness World Record™ guidelines in order to be successfully counted towards this attempt.

To register please visit www.cosgame2012.eventbrite.com.au . More information is also available from the related facebook event

 FOR ‘LARGEST GATHERING OF PEOPLE DRESSED AS VIDEO GAMES CHARACTERS’

1. All participants must be dressed in costumes representing characters from video games.

2. Characters from other media such as films, television, books and comics are acceptable; however these must have been featured in video games before any subsequent appearances in other media.
For example:
a. Sonic the Hedgehog first appeared in a video game in 1991, prior to subsequent television and comic book appearances; therefore Sonic qualifies for the attempt.
b. Batman first featured as a comic book character in 1939, prior to his first appearance as a video game character in 1986; therefore Batman does not qualify.

3. The eligibility of the characters to be considered for the attempt remains at the discretion of Guinness World Records.

4. All participants must be in position simultaneously and remain so for a minimum of 10 minutes.

5. A loud start and finish signal recognised by all participants must be used. Two experienced timekeepers (e.g. from a local athletics club) must time the attempt with stopwatches accurate to 0.01 seconds.

6. All participants must wear the costume for the entirety of the attempt.

To launch and celebrate, Andrew and Ben will be adding to the amazing that is the GDC: Delayed Australian Release with a chance to meet the team, hear about the development and score a Steam code.

The rest of the night’s details are in the original post

For more info about the Curse, head over to the Brawsome website

Thanks to everyone for pulling together to make the Play Party such a success. We will look to a better floor plan in the future so more people can play more games.

And huge thanks for your kindness and generosity which now means I’m a lost for words  lifetime IGDA member.

Thousand Pound Bend is once again unable to accommodate us in March, but The Order of Melbourne is happy to have us again, and this time the rooftop will be ours too.

So…

If you’re not stateside for GDC we have a ripper discussion with Chris Wright, Chief Surprise Architect at Surprise Attack, the indie games marketing specialists and Dan Golding, video games blogger at Crikey.com about how to market yourselves, your games and how to liaise with media to obtain the best possible outcomes.  We may have another games journalist dropping in to join the discussion, but that depends on when

When: Tuesday 13 March 6:30, talks start at 7:30pm

Where: The Order of Melbourne

RSVP via Facebook

So if you want to know the tricks to marketing your game, writing media releases and communicating with journo’s insights, don’t miss out.

If you have any queries email giselle / at/ igdamelbourne dot org

Thanks to everyone for an amazing weekend.  Words fail for now, suffice to say I’ve had some great feedback already and am blown away by 28 Games 107 Jammers 2 Days.

Special mentions to the award winning teams:

Tasters’ Taste and Jammers’ Jam de Jam:

Omelette Boris: Very Bean’s Quest, a fun and engaging 2D platformer where you turn from chicken to egg to chicken. The level of finish and overall polish of both graphics and gameplay on this game amazed the judges. To quote one of them; “ship it”.

Tom Greenaway (programming), James Greenaway (art), Ivan Neeson (programming)

@kumobius

www.kumobius.com

Sean Affleck: (audio)

@clickclique

Matt Scorah: (art)

@scozdawg

The whole team worked on the game design created level designs.

Most Fun:

Streams: once it clicks with you, there’s no goingback, it’s like digital skipping

Hu Hu Chen, Edward Whitehead, Leonard Frankel, Andrew Maxwell and two other wonderful people who have used pseduonyms, I’ll update this bit when I have the info.

Most Surprising Spread:

Seasonal Sci-Flies by Aaron Cox, Matthew Dodd and Daniel Su

Tarty Art:

Whirlstrom by Shelley, Bianca Gibson, Alex Fraser and Campbell Barton

Farty Art:

Burn by Jarrod Lowery, Benn Lockyer and Sunny Koda

Smoothest Spread:

We had an amazing group with subgroups, and were tempted to choose the creators of Milk Blister (my first game credit, so proud!) which included all of us, but instead was awarded to The three-in-0ne team headed up by the design brilliance of Harry Lee.

Thanks to our media friends for visiting and sharing the jam love, it was an amazing weekend without major dramas, which may have disappointed some looking for an angle, but as an event manager is exactly what I look for.

More info and updates with all the games after a bit more sleep has been caught up on.

All the games can be downloaded to play from the GGJ12 website.

]]> http://igdamelbourne.org/2012/01/melbournes-global-game-jam-2012-is-set-and-the-tasters-verdict-is-in/feed/ 1 http://igdamelbourne.org/2012/01/tasters-are-polishing-their-spoons-game-jam-starts-this-friday/ http://igdamelbourne.org/2012/01/tasters-are-polishing-their-spoons-game-jam-starts-this-friday/#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:55:13 +0000 giselle http://igdamelbourne.org/?p=1411

The Global Game Jam is  primarily collaborative, not competitive. The focus of the weekend is for everyone to make great games. However we’re game makers, so we can’t resist the urge to spice things up by making it a bit competitive and so in the interests of fun and of recognising excellence we do award prizes for several categories.

To reflect more accurately the role of the judging panel, we’ll be looking at them as a tasting panel after a long weekend in the game making kitchen.

Our “Jam Tasters” are

Simon Joslin, Creative Director at The Voxel Agents, and veteran 48 Hour jammer.

Ben Britten, Technical Director at Tin Man Games and international man of mystery.

Trent Kusters, ‘Creative Director’ at Divisive Media and ‘Founder & Director’ at  League of Geeks who always smells nice.

Craig Duturbure, Creative Director at Grapple Gun Games and an indie designer who looks for everlasting fun in games (but will settle for a satisfying shotgun effect)

Conor O’Kane, Game Development Lecturer at RMIT and jammer from last year about to release the jammed Last Flight of the Bumblebee for iPad on the App Store.

Katie Williams, freelance writer, Kotaku Australia, Hyper and PCPP and lover of inflatable strawberries.

Sam Mayo, Community Manager at Firemint and ace lemon jouster.

Unforunately Mark Serrels can’t stay for the whole jam but will be coming along.  (I couldn’t resist his bio), Editor of Kotaku Australia. He is a multi award-winning journalist and the inventor of the Serrels’ Stare ™. He has previously edited publications such as The Official Nintendo Magazine, The Official PlayStation Magazine, Australian 360 and PSM3. He once got 191,000 on Doodle Jump and totally has a man crush on Ryan Gosling. And, yes, he is painfully aware that he closely resembles Simon Pegg.

Awards Categories and Prizes

Tasters’ Toast: A $500 JB Voucher courtesy of Immersive Technologies

Jammers’ Jam de Jam: A $100 JB voucher

Tarty Art (best graphics): EA swag

Farty Art (best sound):  the complete Sound Librarian

Smoothest Jam  (best teamwork): More swag from  EA Australia  along with $100 JB Voucher

Most Surprising Spread :

We <3 our growing list of sponsors for all the brilliant support and prizes.

Tasters  will reconvene with the jam makers, media and guests, over a bbq and a beer at La Trobe’s Eagle Bar at about 6pm on Sunday 29 January where they will discuss their tasting notes.

Games sector and media are encouraged to email giselle@igdamelbourne.org for an invite to Sunday afternoon display, awards and BBQ.  If you miss out this time there will be information about a game jam expo soon <crosses fingers the plan comes together.>

We’ll try to keep you posted with updates, but if you have any questions, start at the facebook #igdamjam page and take it from there.

Our first meet up for 2012 is this Tuesday 10 January from 6:30pm  at our old friend 1000 Pound Bend, 361 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne (round the back)

The discussions for the evening will be about Global Game Jam, 27-29 January, and we welcome jam teams, individuals and all the usual suspects.

To kick off some team creation, and to help you easily know who does what, let’s wear our skills on our sleeve.  If it’s head to toe, or a feature item here’s the plan:

Wear the colours of your skill(s)

Programmer black/dark grey
Artist: green/blue
Designer: orange/yellow
Sound: red
Production: brown
Media: pink/purple

I hope the mixing and matching with your skills works out and look forward to seeing you there

Welcome to 2012 – at IGDAM Central we’re starting with a bang and a jam.

Our first meetup for the year will be pre-jam at 1000 Pound Bend and will include info about game jam as well as a chance to catch up, so if you’re not planning to jam you’re still more than welcome.

When: Tuesday 10 January 6:30-10:00 pm

Where: 1000 Pound Bend, 361 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne

The facebook event is already up and running.

And then….we jam.

Thanks to our wonderful sponsors La Trobe University, Microsoft Australia, AIE, Immersive Technologies, Tin Man Games, The Voxel Agents, League of Geeks, EA Australia and The Sound Library we will be part of the Global Game Jam on 27-29 January.  The first round of invitations to jam have been sent, and depending on responses and places available there will be another round in the coming week.

We’ve had an overwhelming response, with 150 registrations.  Unfortunately we can only accommodate 100 people, so if you are keen be sure to secure your spot as soon as possible.  Queries can be directed to giselle@igdamelbourne.org.

Apologies for the somewhat convoluted registration process, we’ll work on streamlining it and appreciate your patience and ability to fill out forms!

I’m sure there’s more to be said, but it’s New Year’s Day, not a day to tax the grey matter, so let’s say it on January 10th.

Hope to see you soon!

It’s been in the works for a while, but thanks to La Trobe University, The Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE) and Immersive Technologies, Global Game Jam returns to Melbourne in 2012.

La Trobe Uni are on board again to be venue sponsors as they host us amongst the moats, ducks and well air conditioned labs.

We are pleased to announce AIE and Immersive Technologies have pledged Gold sponsorship and ensured the #igdamjam’s living to jam another year.

For 48 hours over the weekend of Jan 27-29 a group of around 80 game designers, developers and artists – both amateur and professional – will come together for an intensive Jam Session, forming small creative teams to design and prototype innovative game ideas. We provide the space, the tools you need and even catering. You make the games, and the IP stays with you!

It’s going be a fun weekend, but we also hope it can be something more. We want to stimulate the game development scene in Australia. We have the talent, the creativity and the resources to create a truly Australian games industry, we just need the initiative to give it a go.

After the inaugral Melbourne Jam held at La Trobe in Bundoora, we are looking forward to a slicker, smoother weekend still full of all the crazy creative energy of 2011.

We’re still on the lookout for sponsors – that would ensure less noodles, more nom get in touch and spread the word if you can help out.  All sponsorship is used for catering and equipment.

Updates to come, but spots are filling fast so don’t miss out registering your interest.

All media and other enquiries should be directed to info@igdamelbourne.org

We’ll be busy on twitter and we’ve even got a game jam specific facebook group