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Good example of geek get-togethers that tend to end well: game jams, such as the Global Game Jam. There's focus (games! making games! a theme!), so participant
by nihilocrat 18y ago
Good example of geek get-togethers that tend to end well: game jams, such as the Global Game Jam.
There's focus (games! making games! a theme!), so participants just need to bring some skills (coding/art/music) and the willingness to awkwardly make impromptu teams with complete strangers. It's unlikely that the community will get swayed too far in one direction or another (all games need programming, and it's nice to have good art). "Idea men" have to find some sort of talent they can use for their team, otherwise they'll just be ignored or, at best, used as a playtester or level/content designer.
Negatives are that you have to clear out an entire weekend, and find a place with power and wifi that will let you stay (and potentially sleep) there.
- apgwoz 18y agoI guess I've never heard of game jams, but am now intrigued... It seems though that unless you've developed games before it might be hard to accomplish anything, even with a team? Or no?
- jaaron 18y agoCode jams (game or otherwise) are great. When I was in Pittsburgh, I help start up the Pittsburgh Coding Dojo [1]. Each meeting was split into two parts. During the first part, we broke out into groups to solve a previously selected "code kata." The second half was a show-and-tell in which everyone got to explain their solution. Sometimes we switched it up and instead of breaking out into groups, we used a single computer with a projector and coded the kata round-robin with everyone looking on. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed that group. [1] http://www.pghcodingdojo.org/index.php/Main_Page http://www.pghcodingdojo.org/index.php/Main_Page