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meeting

September Main Event featuring Mike Wozniewski of Hololabs

By | Meetings, Presentations | No Comments
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

March Monthly Meeting – Survey Results and GottaCon

By | General, Meetings | No Comments
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

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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

January Monthly Meeting – The Road Ahead

By | Chapter News, General, Meetings | No Comments
Hopefully we can avoid the goblins this time.

Hopefully we can avoid the goblins this time.

This meeting we’re going to do something a little different. Along with our regular announcements, and discussion of the upcoming Global Game Jam, we’re going to have a casual discussion about the future of the group, and we want to hear your ideas. From the ideas gathered from the meeting, we’ll create a survey to be sent out to everyone, the result being an accurate idea of what you, the member, are looking for from LevelUp – IGDA Victoria. So please come out if you wish to put in your two cents, or if you can’t make it on Monday, keep your eyes peeled for the upcoming survey. Together we can make this group as awesome as humanly possible.

Schedule:

  • 4:30pm: Doors open (room is locked earlier)
  • 5:10pm: Opening announcements by group organizers
  • 5:15pm: Discussion begins
  • 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, January 6th

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

August Monthly Meeting Featuring Joel Green… at Swans!

By | General, Meetings, News | No Comments
Hey, this place looks familiar! Although slightly fancier than I remember...

Hey, this place looks familiar! Although slightly fancier than I remember…

This is a reminder of our monthly meeting for August taking place next Monday, August 5th. As you may have noticed, this meeting is going to be held at our old haunt: Swans Brewpub. Unfortunately, holding our meetings at Christie’s didn’t really work out. I won’t go into it here, but the upshot of it is that we’ve arranged to have our monthly Main Event held at Swans in the good ol’ Collard Room again. One of the good things about this is that we can once again have underage members attending our meetings here, so we are discontinuing the After School (Work) Special meetups effective immediately.

To kick off our first meeting back at Swans, we’re having a presentation by Joel Green. Joel is a free-lance, free-range game developer and audio designer, currently living in the wild woods of Vancouver Island where he is experimenting with merging a technology career with a rural lifestyle.  Past credits include audio and systems design for Mass Effect 2 and 3, Dragon Age 2 and 3, and Need For Speed: Undercover.

Joel will be giving his talk “Game’n’Farmer” which he recently gave at the excellent Full Indie Summit in Vancouver. The talk is described thusly:

Why do I have to live in a city to make games?
Thanks to small teams, remote collaboration, and widespread internet access, Indie developers have a unique opportunity to live and work wherever they want.  This short talk relays the benefits and challenges of making games outside of cities, approaching the work/life balance issue from a unique perspective. 

Please come out and welcome Joel to our new/old meeting space!

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, August 5th

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

July Monthly Meeting feat. Richard Vahrman – "Beyond the Invisible"

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Richard is a game designer who is outstanding in his field.

Richard is a game designer who is outstanding in his field.

This is a reminder of the monthly meeting for July taking place Monday, July 8th. This month, we have the distinct honour of welcoming Richard Vahrman to our meeting. Richard is a game designer visiting from Brighton, UK, who was kind enough to offer to give a presentation to our chapter. Here’s a description of the talk from Richard:

“The title of my talk will be ‘Beyond the Invisible’ and will give an introduction to location-based gaming, plastic waste pipes and how to dig up a field by jumping up and down. Beyond the Invisible refers to the work we are currently doing in updating a game I created called Invisible Buildings (virtual archaeology for school children).”

Richard also describes his background and how he eventually made his way into game design:

“After getting a degree in Biology, I became a musician and truck driver before working for 12 years with Prof. Heinz Wolff for the Medical Research Council, Brunel University and European Space Agency. We made equipment for the elderly and handicapped, and plant-cultivating robots for use in micro-gravity. I then started my own company specialising in RFID and container tracking systems. On my move to Brighton, I founded Brighton Web building and hosting content management systems. 7 years ago. I became interested in location based games and formed LocoMatrix. After a number of false starts, we now actually make a game that people do play!”

You won’t want to miss Richard’s fascinating presentation. Be sure to RSVP as space is limited and we’re expecting a good turn out.

We have the pub patio area reserved (which is covered and heated) and a ton of space. There are 3 TVs that we can hookup to and display slides or show off your current projects.  Come relax, talk shop 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:

  • 5:00pm: Doors open
  • 5:30pm: Opening announcements by group organizers
  • 5:45pm: Featured presentation
  • 6:15pm: Open stage for show-and-tell, networking and socializing
  • 11:00pm: Venue closes

See you there!

Details:

Monday, July 8th

Christie’s Carriage House Pub

1739 Fort Street, Victoria, BC

We’ll be in the patio area. Straight through the front doors, hang a right behind the host station and go through the patio doors.

Please RSVP via the Meetup event: The Main Event. We need to let Christie’s Pub know how many people to expect. Thanks!

May Monthly Meeting featuring Jacob Schwartz

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So Indie

Local indie game creator and concrete wall enthusiast Jacob Schwartz.

This is a reminder of the monthly meeting for May taking place Monday, May 6th. This month, we will be featuring a presentation by Jacob Schwartz, creator of iso and other fine games. Jacob will be presenting a post-mortem on his latest game: Ragdoll Boxing: Match of the Century. Anyone interested in releasing a game independently and/or through the Apple app store will definitely want to come out for this.

Also! We will be featuring a Super Secret Surprise Guest. Who could it be? I’m not telling. You’ll have to come out and find out yourself.

We have the pub patio area reserved (which is covered and heated) and a ton of space. There are 3 TVs that we can hookup to and display slides or show off your current projects.  Come relax, talk shop 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:

  • 5:00pm: Doors open
  • 5:30pm: Opening announcements by group organizers
  • 5:35pm: Featured presentation
  • 6:30pm: Open stage for show-and-tell, networking and socializing
  • 11:00pm: Venue closes

See you there!

Details:

Monday, May 6th

Christie’s Carriage House Pub

1739 Fort Street, Victoria, BC

We’ll be in the patio area. Straight through the front doors, hang a right behind the host station and go through the patio doors.

Please RSVP via the Meetup event: The Main Event. We need to let Christies Pub know how many people to expect. Thanks!

Game Dev News: Just Like a Beautiful Flower

By | Chapter News, Events, General, Local News, Meetings | No Comments
Now if only it would stop staring at me...

Now if only it would stop staring at me…

Wow. After a long winter of hibernation (and possibly discontent), spring has come to our corner of the globe, and like a flower bursting from the icy soil, many game-related things are blooming around here (and not just my poetry).

As you may be aware from last meeting’s announcements, our friends at Full Indie in Vancouver are holding the first Full Indie Summit on April 20th, 2013 from 11AM to 4PM at the Rio Theater @ Commercial and Broadway. The Summit is planned to be a day of lectures by leading independent game developers that will teach and inspire, and at $10 a ticket it won’t be breaking any indie budgets. And it seems like a few gaming news sites are picking up on the buzz about it already. Should be great time for all.

Because the Full Indie Summit shares the same day as our scheduled mid-month Casual Gathering at Moon Under Water (and because so many of us are keen to attend), we’ve decided to move the meetup to the following weekend. It’s already been updated on the meetup site, but you may want to check your own calendar so you don’t end up alone at a local brew-pub with nothing to do.

Speaking of meetups, we’ve been asked by our new hosts at Christie’s Carriage House to provide them with an estimate of attendees before each Main Event meeting so that they can serve us better, and so we’d like to ask everyone who’s planning on attending to RSVP via the meetup event for every meeting we hold there. Please remember to do so. Thanks!

Last but not least, we would like to welcome aboard a new member of the organizing team: Melissa Reams! Mel will be well known to most of you as a long-time regular member of the group and she has graciously accepted the position of Sponsorship Coordinator. Please join me in welcoming her.

March Monthly Meeting featuring Stephen McCallum

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We're pretty sure that one of these is Stephen.

We’re pretty sure that one of these is Stephen.

This is a reminder of the monthly meeting for March taking place next Monday. This month, we will be featuring a talk by Stephen McCallum of Brain Warp StudiosStephen will begin by presenting his crowd-funding campaign for OOG! Clan of the Caveman and then launch into an open and frank discussion with the group about crowd-funding and the challenges of launching an indie game company. Be sure to come out for this presentation on a timely subject that is changing the face of modern game development.

We have the pub patio area reserved (which is covered and heated) and a ton of space. There are 3 TVs that we can hookup to and display slides or show off your current projects.  Come relax, talk shop 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:

  • 5:00pm: Doors open
  • 5:30pm: Opening announcements by group organizers
  • 5:45pm: Open stage for show-and-tell, networking and socializing
  • 11:00pm: Venue closes

See you there!

Details:

Monday, March 4th

Christie’s Carriage House Pub

1739 Fort Street, Victoria, BC

Doors open at 5pm

We’ll be in the patio area. Straight through the front doors, hang a right behind the host station and go through the patio doors.

RSVP via the Meetup event: The Main Event

New Venue for the Main Event: Christie's Pub

By | Chapter News, General, Meetings | No Comments
The new Casa LevelUp.

The new second home of LevelUp – IGDA Victoria. Don’t it look cozy? (photo: Russell Ovans)

As you may have already seen on the meetup.com site, we have found a new venue for our Main Event monthly meeting. After weeks of research, contacting venues, comparing notes, backbreaking work, and intensive soul-searching, we are happy to announce the result: Christie’s Carriage House Pub.

Here’s some of the great things about holding our meetings at Christie’s:

  • More space: we can fit up to 45 members comfortably
  • Longer hours: we can have the space until close at 11pm
  • Multiple screens: members can plug into any of a number of television sets to show off their projects
  • More beer: over 30 taps featuring local and microbrew
  • Accessible: Even though Christie’s is not downtown, it is on several major bus routes (2, 8, 11, 14, 15, 33, etc.) and there is ample free parking in the area for those who would rather drive (and if you do, please remember to drink responsibly).

Unfortunately, we couldn’t get everything that we wanted in a venue. One major problem is that Christie’s liquor license does not allow minors to attend our meetings. I’m not sure how many of our members are minors, but if you are, please contact me. I’m planning on holding a separate meetup for those who are underage (and anyone else who wants to join in), to make sure that no one misses out on the fun.

One of the side benefits of researching new venues is that we’ve found a number of places that aren’t appropriate for holding monthly meetings, but could be great for hosting workshops, game jams, and other special events. If you’re considering running a special event for the group, let me know and I can forward the info on to you.

See you at the February meeting at Christie’s!