Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

Social events in Toronto

November 22nd, 2009

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend Joel Spolsky’s DevDays conference here in Toronto.   This was a one day conference covering a number of ideas in programming, design and software engineering.  It cost $100 to attend and while it had its shaky points overall it was worth it in my mind.  There are a few sites out there which have a nice overview of the event and the slides from each of the presentations.  If you missed it don’t worry it seems pretty likely Joel will be back next year.

While Joel’s event had very little to do with game development there are a bunch of social gaming gatherings you should be checking out right here in the Toronto area that do cater to the game developer/designer.

Hand Eye Society – You like talking about making games?  Playing games?  You should definitely be attending.  Their next event is Nov. 26th.  It will be highlighting the latest work from Shawn McGrath, Pekko Koskinen and Jon Mak.  The events take place in a bar called “Unit” just east of the Gladstone Hotel.  Full details are on the Hand Eye website.

IGDA Toronto Chapter – I’ve been attending these meetings off and on since 2001.  There are always an interesting collection of minds and ideas floating around.  The one downfall is that attendance can vary month to month and there has been the occasional slip up in communication where a meeting is canceled or re-scheduled.  There are the occasional presentations and lectures as well.  Be sure to check the website for all the latest news before deciding on attending and you’ll have no problems.

Unity Users Group – Very new.  I just attended the first one last week but it looks like they could be alot of fun.  Not sure when the next one will be but I will be sure to post about it on Twitter when it happens.

Ryan Creighton over at Untold Entertainment keeps a fancy calendar of all these events so be sure to check it out from time to time.  All of us here at Get Set Games have attended one or more of these events at some time or another.  If you make your way out to one of them send me an email (rob -at- getsetgames.com) and I will be more than happy to have you buy me a drink.

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IGDA meetup on iPhone development

August 17th, 2009

I was able to attend an IGDA Toronto chapter meeting a few days ago.  This months meeting highlighted what a few local developers were up to with iPhone development.

First up was Cerebral Vortex Games.  They reviewed some of the trials and tribulations they had to go through for their upcoming iPhone game “Ghost Breaker” which you can read a bit about on their site,  Pretty cool concept.  The game works in conjunction with the iPhone camera to turn any environment into a game against the undead.

Dave Wood from Cerebral Gardens was up next.  Most of his presentation highlighted various ways that people can hack your app/game on the iPhone.  It was an interested presentation overall as Dave went through various code snippets you can dump into your app to help prevent this from happening.  The ultimate message he was stressing though was that people WILL crack your app.  That is a given but it shouldn’t stop you from following through with a good idea if you have one and I definitely agree.  Although people may be pirating your app in some ways that is a good thing as it means people want to play your game and they will tell their friends about it.

Last up was Harry Mack.  An audio designer work on various iPhone projects.  He went through some of the finer points of what the best compression choices are when deploying a game to the iPhone as well as what file formats work best.  His presentation is available for download off of the main page of his site or you can click here to get it.

Overall it was worthwhile attending and revealed a few of the finer points we will have to address in our own upcoming game.

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Posted in Events