PAGDIG: Portland Area Game Developer Interest Group

PAGDIG Meeting August 14th, 7pm
Lucky Lab Public House, 7675 SW Capitol Hwy Portland OR

We’re going to try something a little different this time: a “Game Design Workshop”. We’ll break into groups, try out a couple simple boardgames and then talk about which game mechanics worked and what made them fun (or not). The groups can then try to make their own variants of the boardgames and have the other groups try them out. We’ll also talk about how what we learned could be applied to the design of video games.

If you have a fun boardgame with some interesting mechanics you’d like people to try out, you’re welcome to bring it. If people want to stick around afterwards and try them out, that’s cool. If we don’t have time, we can maybe have it as a candidate game for the next workshop. The important thing is to make sure the rules are fairly simple can be explained within 5 minutes, as we want to make sure people spend more time playing than figuring out rules.

This Lucky Lab has pizza and beer. Minors are okay until 10 too.

See ya there!

Thursday June 12th @ 7pm
Hot Lips Pizza
EcoTrust Building
721 NW 9th Ave

It’s a throwback to the old location. While the PSU location is great for when we have outside speakers or more formal issues to discuss in a meeting-type setting. But since we don’t have that at the moment, a setting with more of a “hanging out” vibe with food and drink works best for social meetups.

Also, the OGPC event in Salem was a lot of fun. Greg and I volunteered as judges and I think we’d both agree that we’d volunteer again next year. The kids came up with some great stuff, especially when you take into account that they still had all their homework and activities to do and still find time to put together a game. Chris Brooks and his team did a great job putting the event together, and you can tell the kids loved it.

Hope to see you all at the meetup,
Dmitri

Here is the location and time for the next PAGDIG meeting:

Thursday 4/10/08 7pm
Smith Memorial Student Union
1825 SW Broadway
Room 328
(Smith is on Broadway between Harrison and Montgomery streets. This is the same building as last time, but this time the room is on the third floor.)

Davey Jackson from Garage Games will give the following presentation:

In this session, Davey Jackson will speak about how digital distribution affecting video games, and how GarageGames has pioneered new digital distribution models. Davey will also discuss the history of GarageGames, from its roots as a small, internet-based game technology provider to its growth as a revolutionary web publishing company on the new InstantAction.com platform. He’ll also talk about games, innovation and inviting new types of players to the game market.

Bio: Davey Jackson
Davey joined GarageGames in 2005 with a background in marketing and customer relations. As the Director of Licensing Academic Outreach, Davey is primarily responsible for coordinating GarageGames commercial, education, serious games and academic research efforts. During his time at GarageGames, Davey has helped hundreds of educators learn about the “Indie” games market and game development tools. An avid gamer, Jackson started playing computer games on an Apple IIC at age 5. Utilizing educational games throughout his K-12 schooling helped him to overcome learning disabilities.

Here is a recap of some of the topics we burned through at the last meeting:

->The PAGDIG development project; an effort to get a group of us Pagdiggers together to make a quick, simple, but ultimately finished game as a way to get development experience. You’ve probably read about this on the list. We’re hoping to get some organizational structure up that we grow this project around.

->LUCID Studios; a Professional and Academic alliance and studio/resource for aspiring game designers.

->The GDC conference; quick blurbs and impressions from those who went, and questions from those of us who didn’t. Doug Naimo offered to help get some of the conference downloads to us if we could compile a list of the ones we’re interested in.

->Continuing to meet at PSU (consensus = yes)

->Setting up an online forum so that the mailing list can be reserved for announcements, meeting times, general topics etc., while conversations about projects and the like can be more organized on the forums.

->Future meeting topics: Torque Engine Rep will maybe come next month, Natural Point motion capture demo in April. There’s a possibility of having an Rep for Micosoft’s XNA give a presentation in the future, Warren and Eric saw this in Corvallis a while ago, it’s pretty neat.

Photos of the meeting here (pagdig yahoo group login required)

Thanks to Eric Ward for the minutes and Doug Helbing for the pics! More info forthcoming for the next meetup.

UPDATE: The next meeting’s location has changed

02/28 at 7pm
Smith Memorial Student Union
1825 SW Broadway
Room 296

Smith is on Broadway between Harrison and Montgomery streets. The room is on the second floor.

Aside from the usual meet-n-greet, we’ll have GDC attendees comment on this year’s conference. We’ll also open the floor to discuss the various group project formation ideas that have been suggested in the email list. If you’re curious about the group projects or would like to join them, stop by and say hi.

UPDATE: The next meeting’s location has changed

02/28/08 at 7pm
Smith Memorial Student Union
1825 SW Broadway
Room 296

Smith is on Broadway between Harrison and Montgomery streets. The room is on the second floor.

Aside from the usual meet-n-greet, we’ll have GDC attendees comment on this year’s conference. We’ll also open the floor to discuss the various group project formation ideas that have been suggested in the email list. If you’re curious about the group projects or would like to join them, stop by and say hi.

Thanks,
Dmitri

17 January 2008
Thursday @ 7pm
Hot Lips Pizza / EcoTrust Building
721 NW 9th, Portland

* Planning for Innotech

17 January 2008
Thursday @ 7pm
Hot Lips Pizza / EcoTrust Building
721 NW 9th, Portland

* Planning for Innotech

Social Meetup
13 Dec 2007
Thursday @ 7pm
Hot Lips Pizza
721 NW 9th

Social Meetup
13 Dec 2007
Thursday @ 7pm
Hot Lips Pizza
721 NW 9th