Hi jammers!
Just a heads up that Ludum Dare Boston is coming up in less than two weeks.
“Work by yourself or in a team to create a game for Ludum Dare within 48 hours. Hang out with other developers, eat free food, and drink free beer.”
You can learn more about the event on their official site. You can register, for free, here.
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I have two great announcements for this weekend’s Fall 2011 Boston HTML5 Game Jam (Nov 19th and 20th). First, to make our tummies happy, MocoSpace is graciously sponsoring us with pizza for the entire event. MocoSpace is a social gaming platform company; here are a few quick quotes from their website:
MocoSpace is the premiere partner for developers looking to get their high quality social games in front of millions of mobile users.
[about the MocoSpace Games platform]
Our users spend over an hour a day on MocoSpace with their mobile devices. With the MocoSpace Game Platform, you can tap into the social graph, access profiles, and send notifications and invites through our API. You can even deliver game notifications straight to your players’ mobile phones!
Second, Dominic Szablewski, the author of the much-esteemed Impact HTML5 game engine, has generously offered us a complimentary Impact license for use by teams in this game jam. The license is non-commercial, so teams that take their games beyond this weekend’s jam all the way to being published will need to buy their own license, but otherwise we are free to use it as needed this weekend. Impact runs on all HTML5 capable browsers: Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer 9, as well as mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad. It should be a great boost to any teams who don’t already have a preferred engine to work with. Thanks, Dominic!
You can register for the jam here on the Eventbrite page. Feel free to leave any comments and questions below.
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Update: we now have food sponsorship from MocoSpace and a license to Impact HTML5 game engine for the jam — read more here
HTML5 technology is now supported by all major smartphones and desktop web browsers and HTML5 game dev is starting to really take off around Boston, so let’s jam!
This will be a relatively typical game jam: artists, audio engineers, designers, writers, producers, and programmers (and more?) will work together in small teams to make videogames. Only this time, they will all be build on HTML5 tech, which means we can run them effortlessly on any modern computer, smartphone, or tablet.
So why HTML5? HTML5 tech allows for building games on a truly standards-based and ubiquitous technology platform, and it also lends itself (in its current state) toward producing simpler games, which fits our game jam format really well.
When:
November 19th and 20th, 2011
Sat: 9am – 11pm
Sun: 9am – 6pm
Where:
Singapore/MIT GAMBIT Game Lab
MIT Building NE25-388
5 Cambridge Center, 3rd Floor
Cambridge, MA 02142
Google Map
Cost:
As always, it’s free!
Why:
Boston rocks at game jams and it’s time to kick it HTML5-style!
What to bring:
A laptop or whatever creation/organization tools you usually use to make games or that you think might be helpful.
Hosted By:
Darren Torpey (darren AT boston game jams DOT com)
A game jam is an event where people of all disciplines come together to create interesting interactive works.
I’ve written up a more thorough Q & A for game jams on the Game Jams page.
Unless you’re a programmer, the platform choice of HTML5 shouldn’t affect your work much, if at all. HTML5 tech supports all manner of 2D and 3D artwork, and most music formats (including MP3 and OGG). So long as each team has a programmer who can work with the HTML5 tech, you’re all set.
If you’re a programmer, but need to learn or brush up on your Javascript knowledge and skills or you just need to learn about HTML5 technology specifically, I have collected a bunch of resources here to help you prepare for the jam. You do not have to be an “HTML5 wizard” to succeed in the jam. Sometimes the simplest games are the best and we’ll have knowledgable HTML5 devs there to help with specific questions and challenges as they arise.
If you or your company would like to sponsor the food for the event, email me (darren _AT_ bostongamejams _DOT_ com) to discuss details. Thanks!
My wife, Vickie Torpey, likes to do a mini-jam of her own, but her creative specialty is making TASTY THINGS™, so she likes to prepare us lots of delicious food (aka “yummies for our tummies”) to keep our bellies happy and the creative juices flowing! What’s more, she does it live with us on location, improvising with limited resources, in full “jam” style. :)
Also: Vickie’s can make her food very veggie/vegan/allergy friendly, so just let us know about your special needs when you register.
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