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[chrisjan]

Hey, it's me again.  I've seen that you made more tickets available, so I just bought one a minute ago.  Thanks a lot!  And I apologise again for the trouble caused.

See you in some weeks!

[increpare]

It would be a difficult one to pull off easily.

It's quite easy to pull off.

Anyone without a name-tag is quite likely to pick up a new nickname like 'shorty', 'you in the hat', 'beard' or 'viking bloke' before the end...

That hasn't happened before at any jam I've been to. 

I think some kind of centralised 'TIGJam UK' web-page or blog might be the best help, just some way of helping people find their local TIGJam and maybe information on how to set one up and get it listed.

Yep, that's possibly a good idea.

[Perrin]

I think some kind of centralised 'TIGJam UK' web-page or blog might be the best help, just some way of helping people find their local TIGJam and maybe information on how to set one up and get it listed.

Yep, that's possibly a good idea.

Well the existing cambridgeindies.com site could be expanded to cover more than just what we're doing in Cambridge. The only thing holding it back is the name really. But right now we're always more than happy to include any jams people want to publicise.

[LeFishy]

I am wondering if there is some kind of metagame that I/someone could make that would encourage people to socialise with people they don't already know. Could be a jam theme perhaps.

Is there something us in Cambridge could do to help out people wanting to set up events elsewhere?

Bug me until I organise one in Bristol?

This. Then it wont cost me sixty bloody pounds to get there

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

I am wondering if there is some kind of metagame that I/someone could make that would encourage people to socialise with people they don't already know. Could be a jam theme perhaps.

I think Terrible Bear achieved this to an extent, in that people started to follow it and in turn got further exposed to one another's twitter accounts, names etc. I like the idea of this as a jam theme too.

[Ishi]

Haha, terrible bear was amazing. twitter.com/terriblebear

[LeFishy]

So terrible yet so beautiful.

[Klaim]

About the problem of people talking together etc.

Why not propose an optional random team making lottery?

The idea would be something like :

 1. At specific times (at the start of each day? twice a day? before each theme is given?) the organizer propose to those who wishes to put their names on paper and then in a bag or a hat or something.
 2. A maximum number of people by team is decided, either fixed voluntarly, or by throwing a dice (d4?) or something. Minimum is 2. If people don't want to team, they just have to not participate to this lottery.
 3. Then someone randomly choosen will pull the names.
 4. The order of the names pull out gives the teams, like if the team size is 3, three following pulled out names will be a new team.
 5. As a bonus : The organizer prepared a random teams names generator that they would use to give "official" names to the teams created. That would be magic. Giving names (as a previous compo did show) is a powerful act. Aplauds at each team announcement, etc.
 6. People teaming together will have a fixed time to move physically together (say 5 minutes). That might suppose that a part of the space will be dedicated to often changing teams if the timing is short, but might not be a problem at all if you choose one teaming each day or one for the morning and one for the afternoon (and maybe one for the evening).

Why it would be interesting?

 1. It's cheap.
 2. It's optional. People who don't want to team up dont have to.
 3. It's a kind of event in the party, like "Hey here is the Shitty-Games team! Aplaud! What will they build for us today?!!"
 4. It's random. You have to meet unknown people.
 5. It's flexible. You can tweak the parameters for it to be cool for everybody and adapt to the group size and timing.
 6. It feels like it would incite shy people to team up. It's less risk to be designated in a team than to ask around to unknown people. That's a good trigger for meeting.

Why it wouldn't be interesting?

 1. I never tried. It's just a raw idea. The first time might not be tweaked right.
 2. I think the team name generator would be so cool that maybe there is not enough time to make it. I don't have enough time myself.
 3. It might not please some? Don't know.



What do you think?

[Anthony Hart-Jones]

I think the team name generator would be so cool that maybe there is not enough time to make it. I don't have enough time myself.

http://www.needofficespace.com/tools/companynamegenerator.php perhaps? (gives you a logo too)

edit:
There's also:

• http://www.savagechickens.com/metalband (metal band names)
• http://www.generatorland.com/glgenerator.aspx?id=84&rlx=y (Biker Gang names)

[Klaim]

I don't know, the team names should be game oriented and kind of random fun.

[Anthony Hart-Jones]

We could go analogue with the name generator.  You just need three stacks of words - one has adjectives, one has nouns and the third has verbs.  You can take words from game-titles to make it more relevant.

Each name is made up of "The [Adjective] [Noun] [Verb]-ers" - e.g. "The Hylian Goomba Racers" or "Mega Fantasy Fighters" - and you can even use the same hats to select the words as you used for the teams.  Better still; take some blu-tack and you could just stick the three words on the wall next to each team.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Forcing people into teams sounds strange. Chill out, everyone! Just talk to people, and make an effort to be able to be talked to. I can't believe you brought dice rolls into this D:

Also, yes, try to sit with different people on different days, that helps.

[Ishi]

I agree this is all getting taken a bit too seriously based on the one I went to before. Just mosey along and do some stuff.

[LeFishy]

I'm spending too much time on Facebook, evidenced by my desire to "like" Ishi's post.

[bento_smile]

I apologise in advance if I forget anyone's name o_o (or call people by their forum username.)

[bateleur]

or call people by their forum username

Is that bad? I do that to people all the time. (Or the names of characters they roleplay.)

<- Fork ninja does it too.

[Klaim]

Forcing people into teams sounds strange.

Yeah I agree, that's why I said twice that it would be fully optional...

I can't believe you brought dice rolls into this D:

We are game builders or we aren't 

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

I think it's lame to have to opt out too.

I'll start a photo thread for this Jam later (unless someone else makes it first!). I would encourage people to post a screenshot of 1-2 of their games on that thread too, as many people know people's games moreso than their forum name, real name, face or avatar.

[LeFishy]

lol, games

[bluescrn]

I quite like the 'random team event' idea, as long as it's an opt-in thing and only a small part of the weekend. Maybe a one-off thing on the first evening, to help us TIGJam noobs feel a bit more a part of it?

Although I'm not sure how practical it is, might not get past the 'well, which language/tool should we use?' stage!...  But with a bit of effort, it'd be possible to pre-arrange some teams that could work, matching people based on familiar language/platforms or maybe whether they're primarily into code, art, audio, or design?