[Event] Cape Town Community Night - 26th November 2014

edited in Events
When: 18:30 until around 21:30, Wednesday 26th November

Where: City Varsity new campus, 18 Roeland Street, Cape Town.
"For folks struggling to find City Varsity on Google Maps, it's near the bottom of Roeland Street close to parliament and in the building that used to house Charly's Bakery.

Charly's is still visible on Street View next to the panel shop if you type in 8 Roeland Street (the nearest approximation) and go down to Street View: https://goo.gl/maps/KvUhR "

Take note, there will be no free, provided food at this venue!

If you have a demo you want played, bring a station on which people can play it, and set it up before the meetup begins!

Agenda:
- 6:30 - 7:00 - Meet and greet
- Rapid fire intros (10 min)
- Community News (5 min)
- Formula D and Serious Games - @MNRosa ~20mins
- Bitcoin and Crypto Currency - Simon de la Rouviere

- Focused Feedback (10 min slots) x3
- 3rd Year gaming students, City Varsity
- Pewdiepie Jam game - @gibbo et al.

- Open Demo Floor

This event happens monthly, is free to attend, and anyone may speak at the meetup - just comment beneath to let us know! This is for anyone and everyone interested in making games of any shape, size or type. Come join us!

Test games! Talk games! Make games!

Indicate your attendance on the Facebook event !
Thanked by 1wogan

Comments

  • Two questions:

    1. Is this the last meetup for the year?
    2. Who wants to grab food beforehand?
  • Always interested in beforefood, or at least creepily watching other people eating while slowly sipping a beer.
  • I'm keen. Where and when?
  • Lefty's served delicious food - though they were pretty slow. Do you think the Asian place there will be open this time?

    Also, I will note that I'm not keen on walking to Lefty's from City Varsity on my own - the route is pretty dodgy. Are there other options that are closer?
  • The Ramen spot above? Hmmm, I think they open later.
    Also you don't have to walk alone. I don't know where the venue is anyway, :P
  • Yes, it's the last community night in CT for 2014.
  • There's a ramen spot?

    *boggles*
  • See you guys there.
  • So an idea came out of the recent follow-up meeting with the Swedish delegation that was at AMAZE: We need to get new ideas and more exposure to interesting different fields at our meetups, this will help create new collaborations and seed weird creative projects that we can't imagine right now.

    ...

    Does anyone have someone awesome that they know who would be interested in talking about what they do to an audience of strange game development type people?
    Thanked by 2dammit EvanGreenwood
  • dislekcia said:
    Does anyone have someone awesome that they know who would be interested in talking about what they do to an audience of strange game development type people?
    I can talk, at length, about the 21st century information economy - digital advertising, marketing, segmentation, how influence is generated and managed, the companies, systems and data behind the scenes that power all of it, why the internet in 2015 will probably know more about you, than you do yourself (thanks largely to predictive modelling and data mining), and how the collective force of machine learning and large-scale data gathering (private and state) could reshape the fundamental human discourse.

    But unfortunately I can't do that while I'm travelling :(
  • @Wogan: While that's an appreciated suggestion, there's totally nothing stopping you from raising that as a potential topic that you could talk about at a meetup, seeing as you're an active community member. The whole point of asking this way is to get people who aren't members of the community to come and talk in a space they didn't know existed :)

    But yeah, pitch that for a meetup when you're available to talk!
  • dislekcia said:
    So an idea came out of the recent follow-up meeting with the Swedish delegation that was at AMAZE: We need to get new ideas and more exposure to interesting different fields at our meetups, this will help create new collaborations and seed weird creative projects that we can't imagine right now.

    ...

    Does anyone have someone awesome that they know who would be interested in talking about what they do to an audience of strange game development type people?
    I should be able to get people from marketing next year - I can't imagine trying to get anyone to do anything this time of year, unfortunately. I'll also see what psychology folk I might be able to dig up.

  • I'm still keen to talk about Formula D and our serious games developments........if anyone's interested in listening.
  • edited
    Regarding getting people from other disciplines involved. I'd love to try including someone(s) from the digital arts side of things (in particular). I'm really envious of the digital arts inclusion that Amaze achieves.

    Maybe one of us could approach the digital arts people at UCT or Stellenbosch University? (next year I guess, universities are closing now). Or anyone we have contact with from those fields.

    The other thing we could be doing more of is getting our game stuff involved in events of other disciplines. Like at the animation exchange (for instance) or setting something up at events like First Thursdays. Taking the first step ourselves might be a good start.

    (Richard Pieterse took his game "Wang Commander" to an art exhibit much earlier this year, which I thought was a great ambassadorial move.)
    Thanked by 1dammit
  • I've been trying to reach out to the maker community (think arduino, physical installations, all the rest) for a while now. There are dudes doing awesome things just a hop and a skip from game dev, but we're silo'd into our respective communities so mostly unaware of what's going on. It's kinda a personal goal with SFA to bridge this gap and bring the two together.

    Have a bunch of people I could ask, though I'm not sure how how avail they will be at such short notice. Anyone keen?
    Thanked by 1BenJets
  • So, I've spoken at the Animation Exchange on what we're doing and MGSA in general a bit. My feeling is that the structure of and audience at the MGSA meetups is much more receptive of talks which are a bit off-topic. Having said that, I'm still very happy to give more talks at other places and I think it's a good way to increase awareness. I don't claim to be the best speaker, but I'm happy to volunteer myself in this way.

    I really dig the idea of getting more "off-topic" talks at the meetups. I am personally happy to give talks on any of my outside interests, like: combinatorial game AI, electronics (perhaps for making controllers), our tech stack (haxe+openfl+flixel+nape, depending on the project), or how I think cooking and game design relate. For this meetup I won't have time to prepare a proper talk, but I'd be happy to do an AMA kind of thing if that's helpful.

    I'm also very happy to reach out and get some other better speakers (than myself) to come speak about things. My relevant contacts are mostly in the tech/dev scene from places such as FireId (SnapScan, Switchless, Journey) and the like. This meetup won't work, but I can make an effort for next year. Please don't hesitate to ask me if you want someone from a specific startup in Stellenbosch to come speak.

    Perhaps we can try have two talks every meetup - one from the community, and one from outside.
  • Do we feel talk-starved, or are we on talk-diet? I am willing to provide talk-calories.
    Thanked by 1MNRosa
  • So I have someone who can speak about Bitcoin and crypto currency this meetup. Does that sound like something interesting? For reference, it's Simon de la Rouviere, who made Roach Toaster back in the game.dev days.
  • I'd love to hear about its practical applications for game developers.
  • The 3rd year gaming students at City Varsity would like to show of their project from this year. 10 - 15 minute game demo/presentation.
  • edited
    Can we book a slot to show the game we're making for the Pewdiepie Jam? (sitting with some of the Free Lives team this weekend to help with sound 'n music)
  • Can I confirm that Simon can talk about Bitcoin (with some tie-in to game dev)? He'd like to know so that he can plan things.
  • @MNRosa we'd love to have you!

    @Nandrew your same proposed talk from last month? Sounds great :).

    @Jwho303 That's awesome! :)

    @Gibbo Cool! :)

    @francoisvn Yup, I think it'd be great to have him :).
    Thanked by 1francoisvn
  • edited
    Winning! (Hi guys! It's Simon)

    Looking forward to it. I recently wrote some stuff on the use of blockchains in games. So the timing is actually perfect! Wouldn't mind getting some feedback from game developers too. Spread some crazy ideas around!
  • Great! See you guys there.
  • Eep! I have too much to do in the next two days and I think the talk list is well-populated enough without me. I can take another month's delay, honest. :P
    Thanked by 1Bensonance
  • @Nandrew cool , no problem :). As long as you're at the meetup :D.
    Thanked by 1Nandrew
  • Okay, so it looks like it's Lefty's again for anyone who's interested in an early dinner/snack/drink before the meetup :)
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