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[rptb1]

At this year’s GameCity festival (26th-30th October 2010 in Nottingham) I'm running two jams: a three hour jam and a 24 hour jam.

Everyone is welcome! We’d especially like to introduce jamming to people who haven’t jammed before, so come along and have a go. If you’re an experienced jammer or game maker, please come along too. Perhaps consider teaming up with a newbie.

We've got some great venues and the GameCity festival is excellent fun. We'll have Adam Atomic improvising a game from audience suggestions, and Jonathan Blow giving and exclusive "directors commentary" on Braid. But it's also a really sociable and public facing set of events.

Anyway, please visit http://www.gamecity.org/news/gamecity-gamejam-now-in-two-flavours for details and sign-up.

[rptb1]

Oh yes, and do you have any suggestions or requests for what kind of a jam to do?  I've got a bunch of ideas but I'd like to hear yours.  Ta.

[rptb1]

If you're on a budget I can recommend http://www.igloohostel.co.uk/ where I stayed last year. Friendly, pleasant, convenient, and a great crowd there!

[rptb1]

GameCity's looking great: Real life Pac Man, a tea party for Mario, a Crysis man hunt, Braid director commentary, Improv game making, and did I mention the jams?  I think I did.  http://www.gamecity.org/gamecity5

Any TIGSource people coming?  I've got a few of the Cambridge indies coming along, but I'd like to hear from you.

[man of doom]

I'm planning on going, as I'm pretty local to the event. Not done a jam before, but do have some experience of making games extremely quickly. It sounds like it's going to be awesome.

Planning on attending the Strawberry Jam btw, as I have an epic Halloween Part to host on Friday.

Would be ace to meet some forum people!

[brog]

APPARENTLY this 'nottingham' place is not too far away from me.  Maybe I should visit.  Website is confusing me, I don't really know what to expect.  What's it like?  The only big game-oriented event I've been to was Eurogamer Expo, which was pretty dull and mainstream (although the indie section was sweet, and RPS pub meetup afterwards was totally awesome) - how does this event compare to that?

[rptb1]

APPARENTLY this 'nottingham' place is not too far away from me.  Maybe I should visit.  Website is confusing me, I don't really know what to expect.  What's it like?  The only big game-oriented event I've been to was Eurogamer Expo, which was pretty dull and mainstream (although the indie section was sweet, and RPS pub meetup afterwards was totally awesome) - how does this event compare to that?

Well I can tell you what it's not.  It's not a conference with just talks and lectures.  It's not a trade show where anyone's selling stuff.

Basically there are a bunch of very different events going on around the city all week.  Curry lunches with lectures and discussions.  Game competitions.  Last year there was a big tent in the centre where the public could come and play 200-person Frogger and eat dougnuts.  There was another tent with people folding origami versions of Elite spacecraft to celebrate the 30th anniversary, and a talk from both Bell and Braben about 30 years of Elite.  Keita Takahashi announced that he's building a kids playground in Nottingham.  At night, Robin Hunicke did a live playthrough of Flower projected in one of the shopping centres.  There was also a walled off area filled with sand and a couple of jeeps where people got blindfold and played "Crysis Live".

I think "Festival" is the only way to describe it really.  You just turn up and join in and most of it is free.

[brog]

Well I guess there's no reason for me not to show up and check it out, sounds like it might be pretty neat.  Sounds a bit confusing if there's stuff all over the city though - is it like you just turn up at the station and videogame stuff is happening, or do you have to know where events are in advance?
I might come to the long-jam (I'm not really into this two-hour-game thing, but 24 is reasonable for me - haven't signed up yet, will see how my life is nearer the time).  Is there anything else for a random game developer to get involved in?

[rptb1]

Sounds a bit confusing if there's stuff all over the city though - is it like you just turn up at the station and videogame stuff is happening, or do you have to know where events are in advance

What: http://my.gamecity.org/events

Where: http://my.gamecity.org/pages/map

New stuff is being announced regularly at gamecity.org and @gamecity.

[rptb1]

The festival schedule is now set and you can download a full schedule and map PDF here http://www.gamecity.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/GC5_fullschedule_v1.pdf although Strawberry Jam (see original post) is missing!

[man of doom]

Jam was awesome. Good to meet you there!

[rptb1]

Great to meet you too, Man of Doom!

And just in case anyone thinks that means it's over -- today was the mini jam.  Five fun games were made this afternoon.  A couple of them are up at http://cambridgeindies.com/events/strawberry-jam and I'll prod the others to get theirs up too.

Saturday is the big 24 hour jam.  Watch this space -> http://cambridgeindies.com/events/blackcurrant-jam