Make Something That Makes Something At ProcJam
Starts on November 7th
Last year's ProcJam produced talks worth watching about the current state of procedural generation, while the game jam's participants produced a number of fun games to play. Now the dates and speakers have been announced for ProcJam 2015, which will run November 7th to November 16th.
ProcJam challenges people to "make something that makes something." That can be a game, as in the case of last year's The Inquisitor in which you attempted to solve a procedural crime, or it could be a generative tool designed to produce wallpaper patterns or strange planets or anything else. Yes, I am a generative tool, thanks. Anyone can take part in the jam from the comfort of their home, and this year ProcJam have commissioned an art pack of Creative Commons-licensed tilesets and character sprites for you to use in your creations, in case you don't personally have art skills.
[Disclosure: the art pack was created by Marsh Davies, who writes and makes videos regularly for Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and I am seeing him tonight because we do a podcast. He's lovely.]
Meanwhile, if you're in London or like livestreams, there's a day of procedurally-themed talks happening on November 7th. These can be watched online at the ProcJam site and there will be talks from Kate Compton, who worked on Spore, Alexis Kennedy of Sunless Sea and Failbetter Games, and Tom Betts of Sir, You Are Being Hunted's Big Robot.
[Disclosure: Tom Betts works with Big Robot and Big Robot was founded by Jim Rossignol and Jim Rossignol founded RPS and I work at RPS. Jim GMs our D&D games and it has been too long.]
ProcJam is organised by Mike Cook, whose own procedural project is Angelina, an AI that can "automatically design videogames." Mike is also a games researcher and... and...
[Disclosure: Mike Cook is an occasional contributor to RPS, having written the excellent, five-part 'Electric Dreams' series, exploring the role of artificial intelligence in videogames, the future it promised us, and the future it might still give us. I commissioned this series, but have never met Mike. I'd like to.]
You've got a month to plan if you want to take part. What would you make to make?