I’ve already made the post on the forums, but much is afoot after the month long hiatus of the GGDA/IGDA in Athens. So lets do this!

So this month is demo-reel, portfolio, resume review night. Sound like fun? This is your chance to present your stuff and talk about how awesome you are. If you’re interested in coming and doing a short show-n-tell, then getting a critique, reply to this thread so that I can include you in the schedule. If not you’ll just listen to folks like me talk about what you already know you should be doing but haven’t ponied up and done yet.

I’ve also set up the calendar for the whole next year! Can you believe that pro-active sh*t? Here is the low-down:

• 11/10/2009 – Your Resume, Portfolio, and the Game Industry Interview
• 12/08/2009 – Developing for the iPhone, The Case of Studio App: Hayden Kramer and Wesley Miller
• 01/29/2010 through 01/31/2010 – Global Game Jam 2, the Best Selling Sequel – NMI at UGA
• 02/09/2010 – The Game Pitch: 2 Strikes, 3 Balls, Bottom of the 9th
• 04/13/2010 – Post GDC Wrapup
• 05/11/2010 – Audio Production for Games: Chris Rickwood
• 06/08/2010 – Developing for the DS: Blue Heat Games
• 07/13/2010 – Making Something Unreal: Tripwire Interactive
• 08/10/2010 – Gaming for Good: Good Egg Studios

All meetings are at 6:30PM unless otherwise noted. All meetings will be at The Pub at Gameday unless otherwise noted.

Wish something or someone was on here? Have a venue you really wish was on the list? Help out the chapter by doing some networking and booking them for us!

Special thanks again goes to Jared Jackson and B.J. Wimpey for their Unity 3D demonstration at Tuesday Night’s meeting. If you are interested in taking a look at the Unity Project created during the demonstration, the link is here. Though we cannot replicate the event here virtually as a tutorial, the project is relatively simple and should provide some insight into quickly and easily putting together either a 2D or 3D project in Unity.

It was determined at the meeting that a July date for the Athens Summer Game Jam would be too soon. It has now been scheduled for August 14-16. The tentative schedule for that event is as follows:

• Friday, August 14 – 5PM – 10PM
• Saturday, August 15 – 10AM – 10PM
• Sunday, August 16 – 9AM – 1PM

More details on the upcoming jam will appear here soon

GGDA Event URL
Date: July 14, 2009
Time: 6:30PM
Place: The Pub at Gameday

This meeting of the Athens GGDA Chapter will focus on the upcoming Summer Game Jam. The Summer Game Jam is standardizing on the use of the Unity 3D game engine and several Athens game developers will be demonstrating how games can be quickly and easily prototyped using this engine. The presentation and subsequent discussion will focus on three primary areas:

1. Art and Unity 3D – This section of the presentation will be lead by Jared Jackson the art lead on an upcoming game project using Unity 3D and funded by the NIH. He will talk about the Unity Art Asset Pipeline.
2. Engineering and Unity 3D - B.J. Wimpey, a computer science graduate student at UGA has served as the engineering lead for the project mentioned above. He will demonstrate how Java Script and C# code can be incorporated into Unity 3D as well as how to create designer friendly objects in the engine.
3. Design and Unity 3D - Casey O’Donnell will lead this segment of the presentation focusing on how combined with teams of artists and engineers, designers can create compelling experiences using Unity 3D.

This meeting will provide attendees with a basic understanding of how Unity 3D functions as a game development platform and how to create 2D and 3D projects using the engine. This meeting will provide technical background for those people hoping to participate in the Summer Game Jam or simply interested in the Unity 3D engine.

Our 04/14/2009 Meeting was one of our best yet, with 20 members on hand to pick the brain of veteran media executive Al Meyers. The meeting started with Al Meyers TED video, which can be seen after the break along with the slides from the meeting. The conversation ranged across numerous topics associated with Al’s experiences from Gametap to his recent ReinventED efforts. The issue of diversity amongst game developers came up at one point as well, as all involved discussed some of those aspects of the videogame industry that tends to keep certain demographics away. The event also managed to bring in five new attendees in addition to the usual group of developers.

(more…)

Our speaker is:
Al Meyer, formerly a Turner Senior Strategy Executive, one of the founding members of Gametap, and now the CEO and Co-Founder of ReinventED Technologies. Al is also President of Saisei Consulting, which provides strategy and business development advisory services to digital media companies. Saisei’s objectives are to help early-stage and established digital media companies develop successful strategies within the United States and around the world. This includes: video games, virtual worlds, social networks, and other digital media applications. Al will begin by showing a video clip talking about his most recent ventures with ReinventED, but is interested in chatting about any of his previous work as well. In helping lead the video game strategy at Turner Broadcasting, Al spent a great deal of time working in Asia with online game publishers and developers, and became deeply immersed in the video game industry. As a strategist at Turner, Meyers was one of a team of senior executives that were responsible for identifying, evaluating and developing strategic business opportunities related to existing businesses and proposed ventures across the company’s domestic and international entertainment, animation, news and sports portfolio.

Remember, the meeting time will be at 6:30PM, Tuesday 04/14, The Pub at Gameday.

Hey everyone. We’re having our first post-GGJ meeting! I’d like for us to talk about what the next steps for Ursula and Olly are. The meeting will take place in Room 412 of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Com. This is the New Media Institute Lab/Meeting room (you GGJers know it well). See you there!

The next Athens Chapter GGDA Meeting will be 01/27/2009 at The Pub at Gameday at 6PM. For those that have not yet attended a meeting, The Pub at Gameday is located at: 251 West Clayton St, Athens, GA 30601.

The primary goal is to ensure that any late-comers interesting in the GGJ can get registered and into the loop. Any engineers interested in talking about engine stuff, I would like to do that this meeting as well. We can also do any last minute brainstorming we like. If you feel like you are ready to go and happy to show up at 4PM on Friday 01/30, then don’t feel like you have to be at this meeting. Of course you can have a beer with everyone that does show up.

Tuesday night’s meeting was such a success that we’ve decided to schedule another pre-Global Game Jam meeting for next Tuesday (01/20/2009) as well. The meeting will be held again at The Pub at Gameday from 6PM until when it finishes.

This week we had several new attendees, several of whom have already committed to the GGJ Athens event. I’ll begin posting more information on the Athens Jam over the next couple of days and after our meeting on the 20th.

Next weeks efforts will center on bringing together pieces that will be useful for all involved prior to the Global Game Jam. This means thinking about the kinds of art assets that will be necessary, tool chains, and other elements that will make jamming more productive.

I’d like to thank everyone who came on Tuesday and made the meeting such a success. It has been a pleasure to be the GGDA/IGDA chapter president thus far.

All you Athens GGDA members anxiously awaiting our pre-Global Game Jam meeting need to look no further. We are meeting tomorrow (January 13, 2009) at The Pub at Gameday at 6PM. We are going to be discussing some of the different possible tool-chains and ideas for the GGJ. The event is only a few weeks away, so this will be a chance to collaborate before the event. I need firm commitments from anyone interested in participating. Please either come to the meeting or shoot me an email at casey.odonnell@ggda.org. We’ll be discussing logistics and technology. Please bring anyone you know who would like to participate, but perhaps is not a member of the GGDA Forum/List.

This will also be a chance to get yourself registered to use some of the electronic resources that have been made available to GGDA members. Things such as the Wiki, Forum, and Blog are all available to members.

If you have yet to attend a GGDA meeting, The Pub at Gameday is located at: 251 West Clayton St, Athens, GA 30601.

See you there!