Rock, Paper, Shotgun

In the morning news stomp ACROSS THE LAND it came to my attention via Gamasutra that OH JINKIES OH JEEPERS OH CRIPES YIKES ZOIKS and other exclamations that LA is hosting a game jam for cats. Just beclaws.
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When the eventual 87-volume book series about my life is written, there will be four tomes and one young adult fiction romance spinoff about stories I chose to write entirely because of headline pun potential. BUT HERE’S THE TWIST: this won’t be one of them. Much as I adore (and gladly take) every opportunity to reference Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny’s final career-defining blazes of glory, not even Space Jam can match my love for, er, space. So it’s basically amazing to see NASA using games to draw more attention to space exploration – especially in light of the fact that people seem determined to ignore it even though it’s perhaps literally the most interesting, mysterious, compelling thing in existence.

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My home represents the ideal. I am a gamer, my wife is a scientist. And combined, our interests make us THE GREATEST COUPLE ON EARTH. (Except she hates games.) Presumably modelled on our union is this weekend’s game jam from the Wellcome Trust – a science-themed event called ExPlay 2012. (The same Wellcome Trust who are supporting this year’s Make Something Unreal, as it happens.) Taking place tomorrow and Saturday in Bristol and London, it aims to combine the hardcore explorative processes of game making with the mysterious magicks of science.

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There are now more gamejams than there are teeth in my head, but due to a tragic brain defect I am unable to count above the number 32, thus cannot tell you how many gamejams there are. What I can tell you is that it’s basically impossible for us to cover them all, much as we might like to, and as such the dark truth of nepotism has led to this one being given prominence. Said nepotism is because our own fearless interactive interview-creator and lanepusher correspondent, Cara ‘the HoN community’s favourite games journalist’ Ellison, will be hosting a Twine (i.e. interactive fiction creation) tutorial at the dotBrighton Game Jam this very weekend. Seeing as I myself hail from the British seaside town of Brighton, I shall endeavour to turn up too, just so long as I am not dead/tired/dead tired come the day.
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The venerable 48 hour game design competition/jam that is Ludum Dare always manages to tickle my curiosity bone but that’s usually when hundreds of games suddenly sprout up across the internet, as if some manner of imagination/caffeine downpour had filtered its way through the digital dirt. This time around, for the 10th anniversary event Ludum Dare 23, I’m writing before the theme has even been announced. It all takes place this weekend, beginning in just over 12 hours, and there’s an interactive keynote to introduce the concept, energise the participants and demonstrate the basics of iterative design.

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@PeterMolydeux operates a twitter feed of brilliant ideas, inspired by the thoughts and imaginings of an unspecified developer, which has been a source of intrigue and belly laughs since its inception. Just looking at today’s feed I see these startling visions: “Just imagine a kart game where you spend most of the game building one with your mother in a shed, you are the only people alive on earth” and “you play a baby in a pram and can only see your parent’s faces. Studying those faces deeply is the key to true progress”. This being the year of the Game Jam, a global 48 hour extravaganza will take place this weekend, exploring the visionary’s finest brain-eggs. Livestreams, chat and more await here.

Here’s proof positive that uncle Sid isn’t just a figurehead these days. In the fun mini-documentary below, the god of Civilization pops back to his old university to encourage and judge a group of wannabe developers in a 48 hour build-a-game contest. Which seems to frazzle their minds in and of itself, but then he goes and designs a game in 48 hours too, which pretty much blows their efforts out of the water. Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
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