Collection of Boston Game Loop Writeups!

Information about what the Boston Game Loop is all about, for those who don't know can be found here.

For those who weren't able to make the GameLoop, a collection of notes, thoughts and write ups from various people who attended, in various disciplines are listed here that I could find. If there are any others, please let me know.

Darius Kazemi, on his blog, Tiny Subversions, has a indepth write up here.

"Embracing failure in game narratives"

Hybrid Mind Games

"Unconference unwriteup from a game undesigner" by Nick Lalone

For a photo look into the conference, Elliott Mitchell, has posted a public album here.

For those interested in the Philly Game Loop, which was a spin off from the Boston event, a good write up of that event can be found here.

Conventions

For anyone that has been to conventions or to future ones such as PAX East, Conventionist might be a really handy app to have!

It has the event agenda's, maps of the floors and helps you schedule out your meetings.

While talking about conventions, especially with the recent GCE11, the nice folks over at DICE have shared their presentations which have loads of great information about what they did with Battlefield, which you can find here.

PAX East

Well a nice read up can be found here.

Nice that it'll be finding a larger home for the next couple of years. The Hynes Convention was cool, but way to small, massive over crowding, huge queues and virtually impossible to get into any of the talks unless you wanted to spend hours queuing.

Highlights of the event, seeing the indies, a lot of local ones, but also from all over the country. MIT with their Gambit Lab helped having a large stand that local indies could be a part of which was great.

Also loved the classic arcade section, reliving childhood games, even playing the original Pong, that was awesome.

Plenty of new games being displayed, even Atomic Games, with their change in design from the dropped controversial game were there trying to drum up interest for their now download game.

Lots of surveys to be had, lots of prize raffles of gear to be had, plenty of swag, but most of it was pretty boring, nice t-shirts, but would have been fun to see some more original stuff.

Boston Game Loop

For anyone on the East coast, especially around Boston, check out the Boston Game Loop

GameLoop is organized by Darius Kazemi (Orbus Gameworks) and Scott Macmillan (Macguffin Games) who are great characters who do a lot for the local scene and are instrumental in the success of the local IGDA chapter, the Boston Post Mortem.

The event this year is the second to be organised and has a much wider reach of people attending from all over the country, but obviously with a more local slant of attendees.

It's a "unconference" which basically means people talk about what they know to those who are most interested. How it works, people turn up and introduce themselves and what they are interested in at the beginning. With that information, people can suggest topics to talk about that they have knowledge in and that other people are interested in and can contribute towards.

This means that there might be micro niche topics with only 5-8 people being involved, but they will all gain and give so that they all benefit.

The whole point is to have a more intimate setting, people aren't putting on massive GDC style talks which only hold interest in parts for some people.

There's also a $20 suggested donation for this event to help the organisers cover the cost of the event which other wise would be out of their own pockets, cover costs of coffee and snacks etc.

Location, the "NERD" centre on the first floor of the Microsoft Office, Kendal Square, MA

Go, enjoy, learn and network!

Edit: to add, this event is on the 15th August, and for industry people only, so no students.