Ben Sawyer sends out news about an "Game Jam" taking place from June 8-10 to bring together programmers to create games for the "One Laptop Per Child" project:
One Laptop per Child, a non-profit organization with the goal of enhancing the education of children in developing countries, is going to hold the first OLPC Game Jam on June 8-10. The event will start Friday June 8 at 5pm and go until late Sunday afternoon. Attendees bring their laptops and we install the game building SDK on it (Pygame/Python is the SDK but FLASH works too so if you're going to make Flash games come as well) and everyone sits around and builds games for the next 50+ hours (sleep optional). The idea is that 50-100 people come and we have fun working solo or in teams to build 15-30 games. We will have XO Laptops to port games too once you get it working on your own system (Pygame works on PCs, Linux, Mac, Windows,etc.) and then at the end of the day we sit around and look at the collective work. There may even be some prizes...
The three-day event will be hosted by Olin College in Needham, Mass (just outside of Boston). Details at: http://hackronym.com/olpc/gamejam/schedule.html. The full message from Ben follows...
The complete message from Ben:
One Laptop per Child, a non-profit organization with the goal of enhancing the education of children in developing countries, is going to hold the first OLPC Game Jam on June 8-10. The event will start Friday June 8 at 5pm and go until late Sunday afternoon. Attendees bring their laptops and we install the game building SDK on it (Pygame/Python is the SDK but FLASH works too so if you're going to make Flash games come as well) and everyone sits around and builds games for the next 50+ hours (sleep optional). The idea is that 50-100 people come and we have fun working solo or in teams to build 15-30 games. We will have XO Laptops to port games too once you get it working on your own system (Pygame works on PCs, Linux, Mac,
Windows,etc.) and then at the end of the day we sit around and look at the collective work. There may even be some prizes...I plan on going and will be working on a simple game for teaching basic numbers and letters, etc. Python is not hard to learn and if you've ever done basic C++ or even Flash you can probably build something if you're at least careful not to overdue it. You can work in teams but you must have some skill - art, or programming. If you're a designer only then bring a programmer you will not be promised one.
The cost is $50.00 (to cover copious amounts of Pizza) and if you want to overnight in one of the dorms on Olin's campus it's $100 for two nights (Friday/Saturday) but it's shared rooms.
The three-day event will be hosted by Olin College in Needham, Mass (just outside of Boston and served by public transportation)
What I need to know at this time is how many people here might want to come and participate. We've got about 15 of us so far behind the scenes planning on coming.
We are also looking for any sponsors for the event which should generate some fun visibility and make you just feel good!
Details are at: http://hackronym.com/olpc/gamejam/schedule.html
And the registration page will open up later tonight or tomorrow.
I'll resend out full info tomorrow but please let me know on or offlist if you can make it. Please invite friends, find us more programmers, and generally turn out for what can be a fun event.
- Ben
