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local developers

September Main Event featuring Mike Wozniewski of Hololabs

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Mike is a game creator and a man with a gaze as intense as a thousand suns.

Mike is a game creator and a man with a gaze as intense as a thousand suns.

Hi everyone! Chris here to give you the lowdown about our next monthly meet-up at Swans. This September, we’re happy to have as our feature presenter Mike Wozniewski. Mike is the founder and president of Hololabs (www.hololabs.org), an award-winning indie development studio making games, mobile apps, VR experiences and art installations. He has recently relocated to Victoria from Montreal, where he spent over 15 years building interactive media of all sorts.

His Master’s degree (from the Centre for Intelligent Machines at McGill University) focused on authoring tools for intelligent environments, human-computer interaction, motion tracking, and virtual reality. After that, Mike joined the Society for Arts and Technology [SAT], where he developed software for immersive audiovisual environments. After founding Hololabs in 2011, Mike has worked with many artists, designers and developers to build creative, experimental, and somewhat wacky games and art projects.

Mike will be discussing the recent boom of game making apps, level editors, and the promise of user-generated games as a form of social media. From LittleBigPlanet, to Minecraft, Project Spark, Super Mario Maker, Pixel Press, and Hololabs’ own Papercade, Mike will discuss the world of consumer-focused game creators. With a long-term obsession for creative tools, this talk will explore the affordances necessary for successful game-making systems, and will also serve as a postmortem for Papercade. Along the way, Mike will introduce Hololabs, provide some of the history about the studio, and will give a sneak peek of Hololabs’ next game that will be developed here in Victoria.

After the talk we will be holding the usual open stage and social time. We have a private room with a projector and a ton of space. Show off your current projects; do some play-testing; or just relax and enjoy the awesome local food and craft-brewed beer. Let’s all come out and give Mike a warm welcome to Victoria!

Schedule:

  • 4:30pm: Doors open (room is locked earlier)
  • 5:10pm: Opening announcements by group organizers
  • 5:15pm: Featured presentation
  • 5:45pm: Open stage for show-and-tell, networking and socializing
  • 7:30pm: Venue closes (We are free to move to the main bar if we wish)

See you there!

Details:

Monday, September 7th, 2015

Buckerfields aka The Collard Room – Swans Hotel and Brewpub

506 Pandora Avenue, Victoria, BC

Doors open at 4:30pm

Please RSVP via the Meetup event

June Main Event featuring Randall Thompson of Caper Games

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Randall Thompson - Game Maker and Nature Enthusiast.

Randall Thompson – Game Maker and Nature Enthusiast.

Hi everyone! Chris here to give you the lowdown about our next monthly meet-up at Swans. This month, we’re happy to have as our feature presenter Randall Thompson. Randall is the founder of Caper Games, a local board game studio that’s been releasing games since 2001.

Randall suffered an eye injury in 1998 at the Ministry of Health, and since then has been very light sensitive (Photophobia). He was raising his children at the time, and because he could no longer watch TV, he began to read books, listen to the radio and play games with his kids. This lead to the creation of his first game – CrunchTime – a basketball board game released in 2001. Before his injury, he enjoyed playing video games like Super Mario with his kids, but it became problematic afterwards.

Caper games have invented about 10 games in total. Their latest games are SHOOTERZ Hockey Card Game, NUGGETS Word Game, and Get ADLER! (A Deduction Card Game). They have a couple of other games designed and waiting  to be produced. Caper Games is also now looking to produce mobile games based on NUGGETS and a couple of other games.

Randall will be giving a talk about his experience developing board games including a history of Caper Games, his approach to designing a game, the process of having the physical game made, and the future direction of Caper Games. He will be bringing some copies of his games to try out afterwards. If you’re interested in how tabletop games get made, you won’t want to miss this talk.

After the talk we will be holding the usual open stage and social time. We have a private room with a projector and a ton of space. Show off your current projects; do some play-testing; or just relax and enjoy the awesome local food and craft-brewed beer.

Schedule:

  • 4:30pm: Doors open (room is locked earlier)
  • 5:10pm: Opening announcements by group organizers
  • 5:15pm: Featured presentation
  • 5:45pm: Open stage for show-and-tell, networking and socializing
  • 7:30pm: Venue closes (We are free to move to the main bar if we wish)

See you there!

Details:

Monday, June 1st, 2015

Buckerfields aka The Collard Room – Swans Hotel and Brewpub

506 Pandora Avenue, Victoria, BC

Doors open at 4:30pm

Please RSVP via the Meetup event

April Main Event featuring Scott Drader from Metalhead Games

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Scott Drader inventing new "-mortem" talks so you don't have to.

Scott Drader: inventing new “-mortem” talks so you don’t have to.

Hi everyone! Chris here. I want to take a minute to tell you about our next monthly meet-up at Swans. This month’s feature presenter is Scott Drader. Scott co-founded Metalhead Software, a local game and software development studio, in 2009. Last year he came out to give a “pre-mortem” talk about the game that Metalhead had been putting in long hours to finish, Super Mega Baseball (formerly known as Big Fly Baseball). Now, after the recent release of Super Mega Baseball, Scott is triumphantly returning to give a “mid-mortem” talk, where he will be talking about the stress, exhilaration, and lessons learned in shipping Metalhead’s first title. This will be an event that you won’t want to miss!

After the talk we will be holding the usual open stage and social time. We have a private room with a projector and a ton of space. Show off your current projects; do some play-testing; or just relax and enjoy the awesome local food and craft-brewed beer.

Schedule:

  • 4:30pm: Doors open (room is locked earlier)
  • 5:10pm: Opening announcements by group organizers
  • 5:15pm: Featured presentation
  • 5:45pm: Open stage for show-and-tell, networking and socializing
  • 7:30pm: Venue closes (We are free to move to the main bar if we wish)

See you there!

Details:

Monday, April 6th, 2015

Buckerfields aka The Collard Room – Swans Hotel and Brewpub

506 Pandora Avenue, Victoria, BC

Doors open at 4:30pm

Please RSVP via the Meetup event

March Monthly Meeting – Survey Results and GottaCon

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gc2014logowebfinal

This is a reminder of our monthly meeting for March taking place on this Monday, March 3rd. This month we’ll be taking a look at the results of our annual survey and making plans for the year accordingly. Also, our meeting falls on the day after GottaCon, so we’ll be having an impromptu round table with the folks who attended to discuss the experience.

We have a private room with a projector and a ton of space. Show off your current projects; do some play-testing; or just relax and enjoy the awesome local food and craft-brewed beer.

Schedule:

  • 4:30pm: Doors open (room is locked earlier)
  • 5:10pm: Opening announcements by group organizers
  • 5:15pm: Featured presentation
  • 5:45pm: Open stage for show-and-tell, networking and socializing
  • 7:30pm: Venue closes (We are free to move to the main bar if we wish)

See you there!

Details:

Monday, March 3rd

The Collard Room – Swans Hotel and Brewpub

506 Pandora Avenue, Victoria, BC

Doors open at 4:30pm

Please RSVP via the Meetup event: The Main Event

February Monthly Meeting with Scott Drader

By | General, Meetings, Presentations | No Comments
Scott's the one on the right-hand side with the juicy brain.

Scott’s the one on the right-hand side with the juicy brain.

This is a reminder of our monthly meeting for November taking place on this Monday, November 4th. This month’s feature presenter is Scott Drader from Metalhead Software.

Scott co-founded Metalhead Software, a local game and software development studio, in 2009. Metalhead is currently on the home stretch to launching its first major game IP this spring: BigFly Baseball.

Scott’s talk, “A BigFly Baseball Pre-Mortem” will cover the ups and downs of the game’s development process and discuss the upcoming challenges around launching a multi-platform game with a small team. Come join us for Scott’s presentation and hang around afterwards to socialize and check out some of the games made in Victoria last weekend at Global Game Jam.

We have a private room with a projector and a ton of space. Show off your current projects; do some play-testing; or just relax and enjoy the awesome local food and craft-brewed beer.

Schedule:

  • 4:30pm: Doors open (room is locked earlier)
  • 5:10pm: Opening announcements by group organizers
  • 5:15pm: Featured presentation
  • 5:45pm: Open stage for show-and-tell, networking and socializing
  • 7:30pm: Venue closes (We are free to move to the main bar if we wish)

See you there!

Details:

Monday, February 3rd

The Collard Room – Swans Hotel and Brewpub

506 Pandora Avenue, Victoria, BC

Doors open at 4:30pm

Please RSVP via the Meetup event: The Main Event

Join Us at GottaCon – Get a Sweet Member Discount.

By | Chapter News, Events, General, Local News | No Comments

gc2014logowebfinal

Update: Due to a lack of response, the offer of discounted passes has been ended. Regular priced passes are still available through the GottaCon website. Also, the available volunteer positions have been filled. Thank you for your attention and see you at GottaCon!

You may have heard the recent announcement that GottaCon, Victoria’s premier gaming convention, is moving downtown to the Victoria Conference Centre this year. This means that there will be more space, more events and more fun. It also means that Victoria video game companies will be participating for the first time and in a big way. In fact, our own organization, LevelUp – IGDA Victoria, will be there in our own booth for the first time as well!

To celebrate this exciting new chapter in the GottaCon saga, we’ve made a special deal with the organizers of the convention for our members to get discounted passes. The discounts break down as follows:

Pass Types
Price
Price with GST included
FW (Full Weekend Advance Pass)
$38.10
$40.00
Discounted from $45
FRI (Friday Only Pass)
$9.52
$10.00
Discounted from $15
SAT (Saturday Only Pass)
$19.05
$20.00
Discounted from $25
SUN (Sunday Only Pass)
$9.52
$10.00
Discounted from $15
SP2 (Full Weekend Pass + BYOC Reservation)
$57.14
$60.00
Discounted from $65
AO2 (T-Shirt & Dice Package – weekend pass NOT included) GST and PST
$22.32
$25.00
Discounted from $30
AO3 (BYOC Seat Reservation – weekend pass NOT included)
$19.05
$20.00
Discounted from $25

To get this discounted price, we need at least 15 people to sign up for it, and the passes need to be purchased in advance. If you are interested in purchasing a pass and/or an add-on, please enter in your information in the form at the bottom of this post or contact myself or Graham Davis directly. This offer is only available to current members of LevelUp – IGDA Victoria. Please contact us as soon as possible to ensure that you can take advantage of this offer.

Alternatively, if you’re short on cash or just feeling community minded, you can volunteer to help out at our booth for the weekend and receive an exhibitor pass for free. That’s right, free! You will need to help out for a minimum number of shifts to qualify however. Contact myself or Graham for more details and thanks for helping out our group!

 

OrcaJam 2013 Recap

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orcajam-gameheads-finalHow do you create 21 games in a single weekend?

You get a whole room full of programmers, designers, artists, and sound engineers together, add wi-fi, give them a theme, and watch them go! In just 48 caffeine-fueled hours, a group of game developers all got together and made games. iPad games, PC games, top-down RTS, fighting, adventure, and all in just a weekend.

This year OrcaJam was part of Thinklandia, a companion festival to Rifflandia, but for ideas instead of music. It took place at ViaTec’s offices with help from their staff, who were fantastic. They made sure we had all the equipment we needed (you wouldn’t believe how many power bars it takes to run a game jam) and were generally a huge help.

First we met at the Moon Under Water for the usual drinks and appies mixer (if you weren’t there you missed a good party!), then we were off to the jam itself, which started with a quick opening address from The Honourable Andrew Wilkinson, Minister of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services. We’re all legitimate and stuff now (and a little worried how we’ll top that next year)!

This year’s theme was “Island”, which people ran with as you’ll see when you take a look at the games. It’s always fun to see what people do with a theme. Some developers take it very literally, but others… you’ll just have to play the games and see for yourself.

Aside from the awesome new venue, a few other things were different this year too. We had talks, a set of generously donated prizes, and a panel of judges from local game studios. Judges and prizes are new to OrcaJam, but we were happy to see that they didn’t change the collaborative spirit of the jam. Some really fun games came out of the jam and it was great to see them get some recognition.

We had two talks this year. The first was “From Tourists to Tetris – Redefining Victoria as a Game  Development Destination”, about how Victoria isn’t just a tourist destination anymore, it’s also becoming a game development destination.

Chris Tihor moderated and the panellists were Eric Jordan (DJ Arts), Edoardo De Martin (Microsoft Studios Victoria), Paul Hill (KIXEYE), Alex Mendelev (TinyMob Games), and Tim Teh (KANO/APPS).

One of the most interesting points the panellists made is that Victoria has an especially collaborative game development community. People from other studios will treat you like a colleague, not an enemy. We’re told that even Vancouver isn’t quite as friendly, so we can give Victoria credit for that instead of just chalking it up to good old Canadian niceness.

The second talk was “Bring Me The Brain! On the Mad Science of Game Design”, about the practices and pitfalls of game design. Just about every game developer out there struggles with this sooner or later.

The panelists for this talk were Ashley Blacquiere (KANO/APPS Game Designer), Andy Moore (Radial Games Founder), Chris Hoefgen (TinyMob Games CTO), and Ben Hesketh (Microsoft SDE). They had some great tips about how you know when you have a good idea for a game, finding the balance between not giving up too easily and clinging to an idea that just isn’t working, and how to balance working on games all day at your job with working on your own projects in your off hours.

Another highlight of the jam was the 5 minute game challenge. This challenge was inspired by a presentation where a group of indies “made” a game in about 5 minutes. That presentation was just a sped up video of the game being coded, but it made people wonder how fast could you really make a game. One of those people was Colin Northway, and at the first OrcaJam he dared Andy Moore to make a game in just 5 minutes. Andy didn’t quite make it, but he did prove that you can prototype a game mechanic in well under 10 minutes and that programming can be a spectator sport. This year we even had a five-minute song!

At the end of the jam, everyone presented their games to our panel of celebrity judges. Andy Moore (Radial Games), Ira Willey (AddictingGames.com), Eric Jordan (DJ Arts) and David Sandor (Inlight Entertainment) were kind enough to donate their time to OrcaJam instead of going outside and enjoying the sunshine.

First place went to Jacob Schwartz and Steve Carpenter for their game Cyclobster Island. In this game, you’re an archer defending yourself from a terrifying Cyclops/lobster monster, as well as menacing pterodactyls. Why pterodactyls? Why not? This team kept the scope and concept manageable so they could focus on gameplay, which earned them first prize.

Second place went to Hook Up! By Anglerfish Matchmakers Curtis Smith, Sarah Roland, and Kirsten Grove-White. Hook Up! is the anglerfish dating sim mentioned earlier. It’s charmingly odd and full of fish puns. If you’ve never played a game that mentions the poet Sharkespeare, you need to check this one out.

Third place went to Mario Benedict and team’s ipad game Flux. Another simple game that focused on game play, this one was especially well polished. It’s a two player, one iPad game where you each tap your ships in the right sequence to send a pulse to the other player’s ship and destroy it.

Fourth place went to Boar Island, a fun little game about running around on an island trying to get to the boat before the wild boars get you. But watch out, the boars can swim!

The coolest part of a game jam is seeing what everyone created. You can see the games that people posted on the OrcaJam site here: http://jam.orcajam.com/submissions.

Some really cool games came out of OrcaJam this year. I’m already looking forward to seeing what everyone makes next year. Maybe I’ll even see you there next time!

When not being attacked by blobs, Brent is often attacked by cats.

When not being attacked by blobs, Brent is often attacked by cats.

This is a reminder of our monthly meeting for October taking place on Monday, October 7th. This month’s feature presenter is Brent Owens from Paper Machete games! Paper Machete is an indie game studio based out of Campbell River (and previously Fort St. John) and is currently developing Attack of the Gelatinous Blob for PC, MacOS, and Linux. Brent will be talking about the evolution of his game, the trials of being an indie developer, and in particular about his experiences with Kickstarter and his campaign to fund the game’s completion. Come on out and welcome Brent to Victoria!

We have a private room with a projector and a ton of space. Show off your current projects; do some play-testing; or just relax and enjoy the awesome local food and craft-brewed beer.

The meetup will kick off with presentations and then transition into free-form networking.

Schedule:

  • 4:30pm: Doors open (room is locked earlier)
  • 5:10pm: Opening announcements by group organizers
  • 5:15pm: Featured presentation
  • 5:45pm: Open stage for show-and-tell, networking and socializing
  • 7:30pm: Venue closes (We are free to move to the main bar if we wish)

See you there!

Details:

Monday, October 7th

The Collard Room – Swans Hotel and Brewpub

506 Pandora Avenue, Victoria, BC

Doors open at 4:30pm

Please RSVP via the Meetup event: The Main Event

By | General, Meetings, Presentations | No Comments

OrcaJam 4 is Coming to Victoria!

By | Chapter News, Events, Local News, News | No Comments
All jammed up and ready to 'splode!

All jammed up and ready to ‘splode!

They said that it couldn’t be done, (they were kind of jerks anyways) but OrcaJam is hitting Victoria for the 4th time in a row!  This year, we’re teaming up with VIATeC and a number of great sponsors to be part of the Thinklandia festival of imagination! The Thinklandia festival aims to celebrate the arts, creativity, discovery, innovation and/or imagination with great events throughout Victoria. And what’s more creative than making games? Thinklandia starts with OrcaJam on September 6th and lasts for more than a week culminating with the massive Rifflandia music festival on September 12-15th. Rawk!

We’ve got some exciting plans for OrcaJam this year that we will be revealing as the day approaches, so keep your eyes peeled on the OrcaJam homepage for updates. In the meantime, feel free to register and be the envy of your friends.

The Digital Future Comes to the Island

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Downtown Qualicum Beach in a couple years time.

Downtown Qualicum Beach in a couple years time.

I’ve just been told of a very exciting event happening on the island at the end of the month. On April 28th, Qualicum Beach will be hosting the North Island Digital Media Symposium which will feature many talented folks from TV/Film, Video Games, Animation, Digital Comics and more. Even better, most, if not all of the speakers live and work right here on Vancouver Island. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the symposium for me as a big fan of science fiction movies (and Blade Runner in particular) is the keynote speaker: legendary designer Syd Mead.

If you’re interested in going, check out the official website for more details. Tickets are $25 each ($15 for students) and the event goes all day from 11am to 5pm. Just the sort of thing to add some excitement to a lazy Sunday.

Website and Ticket Sales: http://islanddigitalmedia.wordpress.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VancouverIslandDigitalMediaSymposium/

Twitter: @vidsqualicum