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.

Ingredients:

 101 juicey jammers

One secret theme ingredient

101 computers* see below for pre-made recipe

2 jamming labs

1 sleeping lab – be sure to overchill

5 special guest panelists

1 smattering of media

 Taste testers, creativity, pizza, curry, caffeine,toast, cereal, caffeine, drinks, caffeine, bbq, more caffeine…then finally alcohol

Method

Friday

Apply 101 juicey jammers to register at the Beth Gleeson Building, Science Drive, La Trobe University between  2pm and 3.30pm on Friday 27 January. 

Free parking is available in the white bays only of car parks 1 and 2 (Car Park 2 is closest to the jamsite)

Gently agitate in a lecture theatre, then softly fold in a  panel discussion at 4.00pm Agent Tom Killen (The Voxel Agents), Matt F Ditton (you name it), Trent Kusters (League of Geeks), Harry Lee (recent LudumDare Jam winner and all round amazing bloke), Tony Reed (Game Developers’ Association of Australia) about how to survive a game jam, and what makes a good game in a short time frame.

At 5:00 Friday add the secret theme ingredient.  THIS INGREDIENT MUST BE KEPT SECRET UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!

Shake, stir and then separate into teams.  Recommended size per team, 2-5 jammers.

It’s now it’s time to apply the heat.

Saturday

Blend teams with computers, food, friends and surprises until the games are simmering.

Add toast and cereal, juice, tea and coffee.

Combine with the rest of the world and register teams and games.

Add Subway and snacks.

Continue simmering throughout the night, slowly increasing the heat. Media may be added at any stage during the process.

Add Indian.

Add Red Bull

Add sleep – don’t forget this ingredient. Your game will not rise without it. Bring warm bedding, earplugs for the soft sleepers and snuggle down for a break, dreams make games, don’t ya know?

Sunday

Additional toast, cereal, juice tea and coffee to be liberally applied at this point

10:30-12:30  Add another secret ingredient – this adds to the local flavour of the global game jam

Make sure all games are in the oven by 3.00pm

3:30pm  Tasting panel arrives

5:00pm  Time to clean down all jam cooking areas

6:00pm Retire to The Eagle Bar for dinner and drinks to await the tasters’ verdicts.

6:30ish Final presentations and thanks and stuff, farewells, and more very well deserved drinks.

2012 will be just the second time this recipe is made with the Melbourne Method, and we’re looking forward to experiencing the cooking and tasting the jam

Computers

Computers will be precooked to include:

Hardware

Intel Core i7
4Gb of ram
Widescreen LCD 20” ish.
DVD usb etc
GTX 260
KB + Mouse

 Software

Win 7 x64
Visual Studio 2010
XNA 4.0
Blender
MS Office
Firefox
IE
Chrome
Maya
3D Studio max

We’re still investigating licencing options for Photoshop

Add to that whatever you BYO that you have access to and permission for.

Remember:

“It is ok to use any freely available software with free versions like Unity, Shiva, Unreal, etc. We even go so far as to say that it is ok to use software that is easily accessible but not free; an example is the Source engine which is not free to download, but comes with any Valve game.

If someone has built their own engine it is best left up to the organizers’ discretion. Source code is not necessary, but you do need to provide headers and libraries, so that someone downloading the game can built it again from scratch.”

And of course, this recipe just wouldn’t be possible without a hearty dose of sponsorship, thanks again to La Trobe University (Platinum Sponsor), AIE (Gold Sponsor), Immersive Technologies (Gold Sponsor), Microsoft Imagine Cup (Gold Sponsor),  Prize sponsors EA Australia and Sound Librarian, and Indie sponsors The Voxel Agents, League of Geeks and Tin Man Games.

All media and event enquiries can be emailed to giselle@igdamelbourne.org

The weather held off there was a bit of clapping, a smattering of cricket, a lot of ninjas,  a heap of delicious food,  plenty of drinks and a Surprise Attack of Ice Cream.  As Mitch put it, The Ice Cream van that offers free ice cream: whatever you want! Exists only in dreams, cartoons, movie plots involving child baiting and IGDAMAS Parties!

Thanks to everyone who has made this year a great one for IGDAM, which is pretty much all of you, but special mentions for yesterday’s enjoyment goes to:

Lions share of funding thanks to:
Big Ant Studios
The Voxel Agents
Kevin Power – VoiceOver artist
This is Wicked Awesome – the chimps
Marshalls and Dent Lawyers
And all you other Pozible supporters

The magical ice cream truck of dreams was thanks to Surprise Attack – if you’re an indie looking for promo, start here.

Ninja Bread men baked by Mitch, in case ice cream, apple and pumpkin pie wasn’t enough.

Conga line and cricket thanks to the lovely Leena and filmed by the sensational Stephan Schutze.

Jeremy Kool for the pretty igdamas ninja

And final and personal thanks to everyone who lets me get my bossy on and pulled together to make it happen – Tom, Obe, David, Matt Lacey, Fiona, Anna, Jamie, Craig, Caswal, and if you’ve helped out and I haven’t included you then you’re even more super ace for being understanding!

All the best for the silly season; enjoy, stay safe and we’ll catch up in the New Year.

Now our thoughts turn to game jam….registrations are filling fast so make sure you’ve signed up if you’re keen for a weekend of creative, collaborative game creation.

If you would like to help out with the jam please email giselle at igdamelbourne dot org….even if you’ve already mentioned it to her (she’s a bit forgetful sometimes)

So, wanna see a conga line of gamedevs?

Hey all,

Had another great night at last week’s IGDA Melbourne meeting, they just keep getting bigger and better! We had 180 last month, and it looked like it was over 200 for this month! We’ll have to work hard to keep up the momentum at this rate…

The topic for the May meeting was ‘Money, Marketing and You’. The focus was on the financial realities of running an independent game development business, and personal marketing for independents and students.

To start things off, we had a quick update from Paul Callaghan on the preparations for this year’s Freeplay festival. The theme for Freeplay 2011 is ‘Handmade’, with a focus on the specific craft aspects of game development, as well as the individual’s place in the creative process and how games manifest as player constructed experiences. If you want to be part of Freeplay 2011, as a presenter, volunteer, expo presenter, or even assist in running the event as an Associate Producer or Board Member, check out the details at the website and get in touch with Paul to register your interest.

We kicked off the main event, and had the wonderful Neil Rennison from Tin Man Games there, to talk about the actual financials of his business, and the reality of running an indie dev business. This was incredibly valuable information, with him quoting his actual business financials, and describing how he runs his business, and what he learned while developing each of their titles. Huge thanks to Neil for being so open and honest with all of this information. Neil then broke the sad news that he will soon be leaving our sunny colonial shores to return to the motherland (UK). It’s a sad decision, but Tin Man Games will still operate as a Victorian business, Ben Britten will still be here and there are plenty of plans already in the works for future Gamebook Adventures titles. We wish Neil and his family all the best for the move and all look forward seeing him at GCAP. Neil’s been a prominent and valued member of the IGDA Melbourne community and our loss is England’s gain. With luck we’ll tempt him back in a few years.

After that, we had Trent Kusters and Stephan Schutze talking about personal marketing, branding, and job-seeking. At this point, the evening was already getting rather late, but Trent and Stephan managed to amazingly fit a huge amount of information into the time they had (and you could easily run a day-long session on this topic). There were guidelines and examples of how to write an effective CV and cover letter and how to build a personal brand, an online folio presence, and the Do’s and Don’ts of job applications and interviews.

Stephan put together a collection of information for people to access, and you can find it on his website.

It was an amazing night, with lots of valuable information for students, independents, and just about anyone really. We were also at a new venue, 1000£ Bend. They had a great open area in the gallery out the back where everyone had plenty of room for mingling and networking, and an upstairs presentation area with seating (not enough for everyone unfortunately, we were rather surprised by how many people came along), and while the rain drowned out the speakers a bit at times, it’s looking like a great venue for future events as well. If you have any comments on the venue or the evening, please let us know at info@igdamelbourne.org.

As announced on the night, our June event will be a developers ‘Post-Mortem’ of “AFL Live”, which was developed in Melbourne by Big Ant Studios (X360 and PS3) and Wicked Witch Software (Wii). We’ll have speakers from both companies there to spill the beans on what happened during the games development, and field questions from the audience. Further details about this soon…

Cheers all,
Craig.

Wow!  There were 180 along last month, and this month’s looking to be a corker too, so we’ve relocated to 1000 £ Bend at 361 Little Lon in the CBD – thanks a bunch to them for hosting us, and to the State Library folks and Social Media Melbourne for the leads on handy locations.

Please let your IGDA mates know about the venue change and we look forward to seeing you at:

1000£ Bend

on

Tuesday 10 May – 6.30pm – 11pm

Talks start at 7.40 pm – There’s  about the talks here and please reply to the facebook event if you’re that way inclined (helps for planning)

It’s free entry and the kitchen’s open for service until around nine, the bar til a wee bit later than that, so all well mannered games devs and community are welcome along

Along with the amazing money-can’t-buy glimpse into the nuts and bolts of #indiedevlife from Neil of Tin Man Games. Paul Callaghan will also be onhand to discuss Freeplay and how you can get involved , and Trent Kusters and Stefan Schutze will talk about self-promotion techniques

We’ll we look forward to announcing next month’s plans, and probably so much more …

Speaking of which, If you have any announcements you’d like made on the night, please email giselle at igdamelbourne dot org the details and we’ll do our best to accommodate all requests, time permitting.

And thanks to @elroyonline, @craigpeebles, @voiceover_au @parabol83 for the £’s, none of which were harmed inthe creation of this blog

After a brief catch up with a very busy Tin Man, aka Neil Rennison, creator of the Gamebook Adventures and local indie top bloke, we can give you a little more detail on what’s sure to be another great night with the IGDA Melbourne crew.

Keep an eye out for any venue changes due to the number of people planning to rock up, and if you can reply to the facebook event that also helps with planning….

….anyway, back to the fun stuff

Neil sounds like he’s planning an unmissable talk for anyone thinking indie and wondering what it really looks like when you’re there. Using the Gamebook Adventure series details, we’ll hear about how they were funded, what business model was used and how Tin Man Games intends to increase revenue over the next two years.  We’ll get to see sales figures on all 5 currently released Gamebook Adventures.  This will be fascinating stuff and massive thanks to Neil for being so frank and honest with his bolts and all expose on the Gamebook Adventures experiences.

All this AND some insight into how to develop your own company, game or (dare I say it?) brand in the games marketplace, be it for your first job, contract or business proposal with Stephan Schutze and Trent Kusters.

AND AND …. Paul Callaghan will be there for a quick chat about how Freeplay’s coming together and how you can get involved

AND AND AND all the usual catching up on how projects like WinnitronAU, Automation and all other projects hatching around our mighty fine town.

When: Tuesday 10 May 6.30 – talks start at 7.30

Where: Cho Gao (at this stage – keep online for updates, please RSVP)

When: Tuesday 10 May 6.30 – 10.30pm

Where: Cho Gao, Melbourne Central*

We can’t just stick to one thing at IGDAM – there’s just too much to share!

May’s meetup will start with the Tin Man baring bolts and all about the financial state of being an indie….this is a rarity in all industries, let alone the secretive games industry and will give you real insight into ‘going indie’…if you’re in Melbourne and into game dev don’t miss it!

Tin Man Games are arguably one of the more successful local app developers, particulary with their Gamebook Adventures.  They have released five ‘books’ (think choose-your-own-adventure with techno awesome if you’re old like me…) and recently struck a bit of a coup by signing Fighting Fantasy gamebook author Jonathan Green to write their seventh book; Temple of the Spider God.

Jonathan Green said, “I am delighted to be working with Tin Man Games on their Gamebook
Adventures series. In only a very short time Gamebook Adventures has made a huge impact on
the worlds of interactive fiction and iPhone apps alike. Tin Man Games is a true trailblazer in the
developing field of gamebook apps; they are really pushing the medium, making refinements all
the time, and seeing how far they can take it.”

So, a great impact, but what’s the financial impact?  Neil Rennison will share the financials of being an indie – warts and all, as well as share some PAXy goodness.
We’ll then back-track a bit and look at how to land your first job/gig/whatever through the all-so-important self-marketing tools of CV’s and portfolios.

Stephan Schutze, our beloved sound maestro,  and Trent Kusters who’s checking out the indie thing himself after quite a stint at Torus,  will cover the essentials of self-marketing and how not to sabotage your career before it starts.  Whether it’s applying for a job, personal branding or start-up promo there are hints and tips that you should know.

*We plan to have the talks at Cho Gao, but time and numbers will tell so please let us know if you’re coming so we can plan accordingly.  Facebook thingy link

NB: It’s the second Tuesday of the month this time people

April’s monthly meet-up has come and gone, and it proved to be one of our most successful events to date. A large portion of the thanks goes to our fantastic speakers.

First up, we heard from Simon Joslin of The Voxel Agents, creators of Train Conductor. In what was an extremely informative and interesting thirty minute presentation. Voxel walked us through the debut year of one of Melbourne’s up and coming independent studios. Many thanks to Simon, Matt and Tom (aka The Voxel Agents) for sharing their experiences with the IGDA.

Following The Voxel Agents was news from a magical event held on distant shores; the 2010 Game Developers’ Conference (GDC), occurring annually in San Francisco.

Jenn Sandercock gave us insight into the mayhem, mischief and magic of volunteering for GDC as she recounted her unique perspective of the bohemoth conference.

Mark Flanagan brought back some knowledge from the various presentations he made it to at the conference. His talk touched on some peculiar and brilliant ideologies shared by Naughty Dog, the team behind Uncharted 2. Mark has copies of the GDC presentations he covered for anyone who may be interested.

Then last up to give us their GDC perspective was Alexander Bruce, creator of award winning PC title, Hazard. Bruce spoke of his successes and experiences travelling to GDC as an indie and (along with some interesting stories) had some great tips for travelling indie developers. Most memorable were some exceptionally good examples on the importance of capitalising on your successes.

Then, of course, the ever-impassioned Stephan Schutze was up to tell us all about his new endeavour – an online free-to-download sound library. Definitely something all developers should be checking out. You can find out more at www.stephanschutze.com

Until our next meeting (4th of May), keep up the great work guys.

Thanks to all our speakers and those who came along on the night and made it the fantastic event it was.