If you want to make games but have no idea how, there are some pretty simple steps we can provide.

• Come to meetings! People will showcase games they’ve made, and you can meet people to collaborate with. Meetings tend to be every two weeks; look down a bit to see when our first one is.
• Come to events wherein we will be teaching people to make games! A bunch of people have made their very first videogames at such events. These tend to happen on the third Saturday of every month.

To learn about such meetings and events, you’ll have to keep an ear out. There are way too many ways to do this:

• Sign up for our RSS feed (if you know what that means)
• Like us on Facebook (if you’re into that kind of thing)
• Follow us on Twitter (if you’re one of those people)
• Join our Google Group (if you were born in like the sixties)

Meanwhile, to get an idea of what the club is about, check out some of the things we’ve made, and watch some of the speakers we’ve hosted.

Have a nice school year!

Tuesday, September 7, 2010
9:30pm – 10:30pm
Almaden Room in the Student Union, San José State University

Everything Else

If you’re new to the club, welcome, and if you’ve been here before, welcome back! This semester will be an exciting semester, I can feel it. Here’s what will happen at our first meeting:

• Hella introductions will go down. You’ll learn what the club is all about, and we’ll all learn each other’s names, so that we all feel bad when we forget them by the next meeting.
• If you’ve made a game before, bring it on your laptop or USB drive! You’ll get a few minutes to show off anything you’ve made before, and especially anything you’ve made over the summer.
• The first game challenge of the semester will be announced! We’ll help you get into groups so that you can make a game like a team. If you haven’t worked on a game before, don’t worry, that’s what we’re here for to begin with!

We look forward to seeing you there!

Things that happened

Brian gave an awesome presentation. Seriously, it was so great! Speaking personally, it enabled me to solve like ten design problems in one game alone, and it gave me a lot of food for thought for future and past games. Speaking impersonally, everyone I talked to loved it too, so you don’t have to take my word for it.

Also, Kristopher’s “Stability” won! A poll was conducted on our Facebook page and his entry got the most votes.

Things that will happen

Videos of Brian’s and Action’s presentations will be posted. Stay tuned!
Edit: Sorry, there won’t actually be a video of Action’s presentation.

Kristopher will get a yoyo with a Microsoft logo on it for winning, and all the participants of the budget crisis challenge will get an Xbox 360 game. We figured there’d be enough participants for there to be both winners and losers…

I’m sorry

This post is awfully short in proportion to how long I procrastinated writing it. :O

• Make a game about the budget crisis!
• Work on teams of up to 5 people to make a new game
• Any artwork used must be made by members of the club
• Any sound / music must be original or in the public domain
• Each member can only be on one team
• Games are due at the next meeting, on April 27th

GovernmentRipsoff, by Andrey Andreev

Here’s a direct link to the download for the .zip.

Stability, by Kristopher Windsor

Here’s a direct link to the download for the .zip.

Budget Crisis 9000, by Chris Nelson

Here’s a link to a page with the download.

Budget Game, by Marek Kapolka

Here’s a direct link to the .swf, which will open in your browser.

*swoon*

Brian Urbanek of Cryptic Studios will be speaking at our May 11th meeting! I already talked about him on the post that announced our poorly planned meeting, but I can reveal new tidbits:

His talk will be titled Matching Theme and Mechanics in Game Design, it will be 30-40 minutes, and it will have a Q&A at the end. This is something I have been thinking about in the back of my mind, so I’m looking forward to it! Are you?

I want to go, tell me how to go

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
7:30pm – 9:30pm
Guadalupe Room in the Student Union, San José State University
RSVP on Facebook, if you like

Announcements:

• May 11th is our last meeting of the semester
• The next Glorious Trainwrecks Klik of the Month is May 15th
  • We won’t be meeting in person, but you can participate online
• If you have not yet received your reimbursement for GDC, please see Cindy

We presented the Klik of the Month games that members of the game development club during our Glorious Trainwrecks events, which were made within 2 hours

Action of Choma Coders on Chromacoders.org gave the members of the Game Development Club insight in how to build and manage their own game studio.

The game dev resources that Action provided are

The free book on social games…
http://www.chromacoders.org/book.pdf

The php code base for making your own social game in a few days…
http://www.chromacoders.org/BookCode.zip
http://www.chromacoders.org/fun-social-mmo-generator.doc

Here is a link to the interview in the presentation…
http://www.chromacoders.org/super-rewards-podcast.mp3

Here is a link on making money off iPhone games…
http://www.chromacoders.org/super-rewards-iphone-podcast.mp3

Also board members of the new semester were announced during the meeting.

and the winners are…

Here we go again!

On Tuesday, April 20th at 7pm the second grand master tournament of Mortal Kombat Dance Dance Revolution will take place. This is a double elimination tournament. Come early to get in on some practice rounds. The fighting will take place in Room 241 of the Art building on the San Jose State Campus. The art building is underneath the word ‘State’ on this Map

Sweet videos I made of the last event.
Mortal Kombat Dance Dance to the Death!

The third Saturday of every month, they host Klik of the Month, an event where participants are encouraged to use the simplest tools and the lowest standards possible to make a game in two hours.

We, the Game Dev Club at SJSU, have discovered that it’s a lot more fun if you meet up in person to do these together! So we’re doing that.

The last time we did this was possibly the best day ever, so we’re doing it again! Like I said last time, no experience of any kind is necessary. If you haven’t made a game before, we will teach you how! Just ask the six people so far who have made their first game at one of these things.

But When, Internet Guy, and Where?

Room 227 (on the second floor) of MacQuarrie Hall, San Jose State University
Saturday, April 17th, 3:00pm – 6:00pm
RSVP on Facebook, if you’re one of those social networking types
Sign up on Glorious Trainwrecks, if you want a cryptic email reminder

Oh and by the way: There’s a good chance that we’ll be filmed.

Sorry for the late notice, but we have a meeting this Tuesday! We will have a guest speaker, Brian Urbanek from Cryptic Studios, talking about game design, probably. We must have a contact at Cryptic or something, this is the second time we’ve had someone from there to present.

Brian has been working on MMO design for over ten years! He most recently worked on the design of superpowers and combat in Champions Online, the “subscription-based, superhero-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game by former City of Heroes/Villains developer Cryptic Studios based on the Champions license.”¹

Okay here’s some interesting links

• Champions Online’s website has an interview with him that should give you an idea of what it is he does for a living (or did in September 2008, anyways). Recommended!
• He wrote two articles (one two) about balancing systems in Champions, both of which are fascinating, seriously!
• He was one of four developers interviewed for an article about balancing classes in MMOs. I think I am seeing a pattern here.
• He was interviewed in three parts (one two three) about combat dynamics and powers and balancing and math.

I haven’t read all of these, but you should! Do as I say, not as I do. And then come to the meeting, which I will be doing.

The Deets²

Tuesday, April 6, 2010
7:30pm – 9:30pm
Ohlone Room in the Student Union, San José State University
RSVP on Facebook, if you’re one of those people

1. Wikipedia is the best.
2. That’s short for “details”!