February 2012 PIGSquad Meeting
Posted: February 6, 2012 Filed under: Events, Music, PIGSquad | Tags: arcade, chiptune, collaboration, global game jam, indiegames, live music, meeting, meetup, music, videogames Leave a comment »Our monthly PIGSquad general meeting was held last night! 20 people showed up, which was perfect for our varied agenda; we discussed Global Game Jam retrospectives, our Porkland Chiptune show coming up on the 24th at the Backspace Cafe, organizing art/coding nights, participating in a user-generated conference called Barcamp, and a bunch of projects that everyone’s been working on!
It was great to hear opinions on how the GGJ could have been better run – I felt that everything was executed appropriately, but there’s always room for improvement! There were lots of interesting points about the schedule for the first hour and a half of the Jam, mostly revolving around when the prompt was delivered in relation to when teams formed, when the keynote was shown, etc. There were also numerous critiques about the IGDA’s website, which I agree should be changed for those registering, those showcasing their games, those trying to have their games discovered, and the like. People were interested in playing everyone’s games at the end of the Jam as well, but everyone was super ready to vacate after 48 hours in the same building, so we’ll be saving that for the postmortem (the date/location of which is still TBA)! Perhaps a few things will be different when we do our next PIGJam in April.
Details about the Porkland Chiptune show will be out soon, I’m planning on getting everyone together for a art/coding hangout at the NW Lucky Lab late next week, and I’m continually trying to get feedback on the PIGSquad forums regarding the arcade cabinet we’re looking to construct and put in Ground Kontrol (if you have any opinions on that, please send ‘em our way). So yah, things are lookin’ good! Might also be worth mentioning that a large group of us hung around the meeting location to talk until about 10:30pm (meeting starts at 7); it’s great to know that everyone’s been having a great time with each other!
I’ve also gotten started on a video blog that I hope to start releasing every MWF, titled, “So There’s This Game.” It’s based on the fun we had at GGJ with videogamena.me. I’ll post when done!
January 2012 PDXFC Meeting
Posted: January 10, 2012 Filed under: Events, Failsafe Clothing, Film, Music, PDX Film Collective | Tags: EDM, film, filmmaker, local, meetup, nonprofit, party, pubby mcpubberson Leave a comment »Last Sunday’s PDX Film Collective meeting was awesome! Sasha, Anthony, and I have been meeting super consistently as a leadership team to delve further and further into what it means to become a nonprofit corporation, and I’m very impressed with how organized we’ve become. In addition to being in the middle of writing bylaws/contacting venues for events/coming up with some great marketing opportunities, we nailed our previous meeting by being prepared and in sync (AKA N’SYNC).
We invited local filmmaker Justin Alpern to give a presentation on the filmmaking workshops he’ll be offering to the Collective in the near future, and he gave a quick 2-point lighting demo/showed a short to further demonstrate that he’s a great guy who knows what he’s doing. Members Ben Mercer and Josh Lunden then showed their short film, “Thieves,” which I still hadn’t seen (though I was on set at one point), and we continued on with the regular meeting. Afterwards, my first film teacher and continued friend Kelley Baker (AKA The Angry Filmmaker) stayed behind for some conversation. The flow and structure of the meeting was a wild success in my opinion, and I’m stoked to be surrounded by so many enthusiastic, fun people (and filmmakers I GUESS).
Went to my friend‘s EDM Sundays at Pioneer Pub afterwards, and I’m glad that Logan and I will be throwing some Failsafe moving parties in that setting on the 22nd and 29th. That’s right, we’ll be having a bit of partytime since we’re moving out of the Molalla shop at the end of the month! Follow us on Facebook ‘n schtuff for deets ‘n all that..!
HERE’S A PICTURE OF THAT PUBBIE LATE AT NIGHT.
December 2011 PIGSquad Meeting
Posted: December 5, 2011 Filed under: PIGSquad | Tags: alpha, birthday, humble bundle, meetup, videogames 1 Comment »Last night turned out to be a blast – in addition to having our monthly general meeting for PIGSquad, about 12 of us went out for a friend’s birthday afterwards. A majority played DEFCON (part of the current Humble Indie Bundle) while I hung back and played a ROM of Advance Wars 2 (the best one in the series, in my opinion) with anotha partygoer. It was a great cap on the night; I think birthday boy will be hosting bar game nights like that after every PIGSquad meeting in the future.
The meeting had a really good turnout, too. We had 17 people come, talked about our OMSI After Dark experience, revisited some ideas for future events and the forum, and played a game from an out-of-town developer that’s currently in Alpha. I wish I could post video of it here, but I was asked not to… I’ll definitely throw it up if/when we hear word that it’s okay to generate our own little hype around it, though!
