Game Jam Chicago

Game Jam Chicago July 11-13, 2008 (location TBD)

What is a Jam?

An OLPC Jam is a content creation crunch that gets participants from idea to reality in just a few days. Coders, artist, musicians, and other hackers come in on Friday armed with computers and recording/art equipment. After a crash course in Activity development, they're given template engines for various types of games (side-scrolling, strategy, mini-games, 2D physics, etc.) and set loose to make their own games - by Sunday night - because a group of children will be waiting to test them on Monday...

I want to participate!

That's great - we need plenty of help. Jams are collaboratively organized events, so the best way to get started is to just dive in and introduce yourself. Participating in this Jam? Have ideas? Want to coordinate rides, teams, projects, or talk about the Jam? Edit the Jam Talk Page!

Some specific things we need are below.

Make game engines

We're looking for simple, Pygame-based game engines that people can build upon during a weekend to create their games, along with people who can test/teach/demo them before and during the Jam.

In the works

• An engine based on Asteroids, being worked on by Rmyers and son.
• A client-server 2D MMORPG, based on SimpleRPG by RobertoFaga and being cleaned up by Mchua.

Wanted

Add your ideas here - what kinds of games would you like to play?

• A WarioWare-like minigame engine - basically a framework for score-keeping with an API that independent minigames can plug into.
• Turn Kuku into a generic game engine.

Other

Can you help? Please contact Mchua if you can.

• Food - we need someone to tackle the challenge of keeping hunger at bay for a plethora of hungry coders and gamers over the course of a weekend. This includes deciding what meals we can provide, making a list of local restaurants so people can easily find food for the meals we won't be providing, figuring out how much of what kind of food is available/needed/can-be-prepared, finding sponsors to donate food or money to acquire such - utensils/ice/condiments/plates/napkins/cups/etc. as well, and arranging things such that food is delivered/picked-up/set-up during the Jam itself. (You'll need a squad of volunteers for this.)
• A location and setup - we need someone to help us find a location that's willing to let us use their space for free that weekend (alternatively, a location willing to let us use their space, and someone else to pay for it) and settle out the terms with that location. We need tables, chairs, electrical outlets, and wifi set up, as well as a place to eat.
• Housing and transport - once we find a location, we'll need someone to figure out what routes people can take (both driving and public transit) to get there and how much they cost / when they run, so attendees can quickly find out the best ways to get to the Jam. This could also include setting up a carpool network/wiki-page if people are interested, along with a local volunteer couchsurfing/hosting network for those coming from far out of town (and making a list of local hotels for those who'd prefer that route).
• Tshirts - we'd like to be able to give a tshirt to every participant at the Jam as a thank-you gift. This means someone has to design a shirt, figure out how many of what size to print, find a sponsor to donate the shirts (maybe in exchange for having their logo on the back), get shirts printed, delivered, and distributed. (Alternatives to tshirts: Mousepads, thumbdrives, bumper stickers).
• Python/pygame experts - if you're willing to come in a do a 1-2 hour crash course on Python, Pygame, game design, networking with sockets in Python, the OLPCgames wrapper, making game art, or anything else related to rapid game development, please let us know!