chapter news

I posted this to our Yahoo group last night. Thought it was important enough to post here again, but lets keep the conversation together on the Yahoo list:

Hello all. Well it is almost time to hold elections for the board of directors for the Colorado chapter of the IGDA. There are three elected positions and two positions appointed by the board after elections.

We'll be meeting again on Monday, Feb. 6 at 7 pm. at the Tavern Uptown in Denver. At that meeting it would be an ideal time for those wanting to run for a board position to say a few words. If you would like to run for a position, let me know (before, during, or even slightly after) the meeting. You can (and should) provide a few paragraphs of text about yourself and why you'd like to be on the board. I'll post all of those to the web site before we hold elections.

The Global Game Jam starts in 50.5 hours! Tomorrow is the last day for discounted Online Registration. On Friday the price increases to $15 for walk-in registrations.

SIGN UP: Global Game Jam 2012 Online Registration Page 

Check-in opens this Friday at 4:00 PM at the Campus Center Room 375 at the SUNY Albany Uptown Campus at 1400 Washington Ave, Albany, NY. (google map link)

The Opening Ceremonies begin at 5 PM.

For more information about the event, go to the official IGDA Albany GGJ Event Information Page. For anyone planning to install development software ahead of time - check out the GGJ Promotions page for discounts and time-limited professional versions of Game Maker, Unity, Corona SDK and  Brass Monkey.

Thank you to our local sponsors for this event!

In 2012, IGDA Wisconsin will switch to a monthly meeting format. In every month except April, the chapter will meet on the first Thursday of the month at 7 PM at Madison Media Institute. The chapter will continue to hold a special meeting at the Midwest Gaming Classic in Milwaukee in March, and skip an April meeting date.

2012 meeting dates:

Jan 5
Feb 2
Mar 1
Mar 24 (Midwest Gaming Classic, time TBA)
May 3
Jun 7
Jul 5
Aug 2
Sep 6
Oct 4
Nov 1
Dec 6

IGDA-Montréal lance un appel à tous pour recevoir des demos de jeux. Ces démos seront présentées dans le cadre de l’événement « DemoNight », qui se tiendra le 31 janvier 2012 à la SAT (Société des Arts Technologiques).

Les démos ou prototypes provenant autant des entreprises établies que des développeurs indépendants ou d’étudiants/amateurs sont les bienvenus.

Veuillez noter les règles de base suivantes :

IGDA-Montreal is now making a call for game demos to be showcased at the "DemoNight" event set for January 31st at the SAT.

We are happy to accept game demos and prototypes from established game companies, indie developers and amateur/student efforts.

Please note the following basic rules:

• Must be an unreleased game
• Can be on any platform, as long as you bring the tech to demo it on
• Game must not be covered by NDA or restricted from public viewing

Also, priority will be given to those games in playable/interactive form (versus just a gameplay trailer or video).

Each game will be allocated a block of time (approx 10 minutes, depending on number of entries) to be demo'd and presented to the audience on the main stage.

Please email the chapter via montreal@igda.org your intention to demo your game. Your email should include the following:

This month's IGDA meeting is hosted is being hosted at Obsidian Entertainment, which will include a 1-hour post-mortem discussion on inXile's new game: Choplifter HD.

The discussion will be led by Jairo Silva, Lead Designer of Choplifter HD, and two of his colleagues from the project.

More Details Below

It's the 6th annual Halloween Studio Crawl- the biggest social event for developers & students in the video game industry here in Pittsburgh!
Come in costume, mingle and network with other industry members, and hear about what's going on with local companies and organizations. 
This is a moving party- we start out at AlphaLab at 6:30 and move to Schell Games at 7:30ish.
Food & drinks provided. Bring your ID if you want to partake of the beer.

Sponsored by: Pittsburgh IGDA, Schell Games, AlphaLab

Map: http://g.co/maps/xkgyx

ENGLISH: 

The IGDA Rio chapter operates mainly through two hubs of participation and discussion: our Facebook page and email group!

If you want to take part and stay up to par with our events, game jams, meetings, talks, and community, check out our Facebook page and become part of our email discussion group.

IGDA Rio @ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/IGDARio

IGDA Rio @ Email List: http://groups.google.com/group/igda-rio

As principais formas formas de participação e comunicação com a IGDA Rio são: nossa página de Facebook e nosso grupo de email!

 This Saturday, Oct 1 @ 11am, Pittsburgh IGDA invites you to join us for a pumpkin picking adventure.

We're organizing a trip to Triple B Farms(http://www.triplebfarms.com/). 
Pumpkin picking, mazes, boo barn, and pretty much all the old fashioned entertainment you'd expect from a farm fall festival. Also a Squirrel Hill Tunnel slide and "Pumpkin land" which you'll have to see to understand.

This trip is open not just to professionals and students, but also to family members, especially kids! 
The cost is $10 for kids and $7 for adults. Everyone will be $1 off if we have at least 20 in our group. 
(pumpkins have to be purchased separately)

As part of the 2010-2011 reboot, the IGDA Toronto chapter promised to review its organization and structure on an annual basis, to ensure that it stays fresh and current with the needs of the local game developer community.
Applications are now open for anyone who is interested in participating in the Chapter Organizational Committee either as a Committee Member, or running for the role of chapter President for 2012. Please note that these roles are on a volunteer basis only, for a 1-year renewable term.

APPLICATION PROCESS

Big thanks to our generous season sponsors! Many of our long-time supporters have renewed, and we welcome a whopping 10 new sponsors! Without their support, IGDA-Montreal simply would not be so awesome. (click on the "read more" link to see the entire list)

 Please see attached

IGDA Philadelphia Summer Picnic 2011
Saturday July 16, 2011

If you have any feedback, comments or questions regarding the July 16, 2011 IGDA Philadelphia Summer Picnic, do not hesitate to contact the Chapter Leadership via email @ philly(at)igda(dot)org

The IGDA Philadelphia 1st Annual Summer Picnic was absolutely increadble! We can not thank you all enough for coming out. This year we chose to hold our picnic at FDA park in south Philadelphia. We were able to really have a great time all day together and it was really great to have an opportunity for our group to really get a chance to get to know one another more personally, relax and just have a good time together!

If you have any feedback, comments or questions regarding the June 1. 2011 Chapter Meeting, do not hesitate to contact the Chapter Leadership via email @ Philly(at)igda(dot)org

Hey Everyone, so we wanted to do a quick blurb about the various outlets that the Philly IGDA leadership and members use to stay in touch and get details out. We've had some forum posts and people ask why there's no life on the IGDA page and the main reason is the functionality and exposure is just not where we want it to be. That's why we have these:

There are a few ways to connect with IGDA Philly and the community members. Here are some of them!

Welcome to the 2010-11 Season Recap for IGDA-Montreal. Below is a list of all the activities we hosted over the past season, with links to videos, photos, summary reports and notes, etc. We had a great year, with many new faces. Big thanks to everyone who participated - and encouraged their colleagues to get off their butts and dive into our vibrant community.

In addition to all the awesome IGDA action, we also saw the first Global Game Jam happening in Montreal, along with other fun stuff like the Prince of Arcade indie showcase during MIGS and the return of Video Games Live.

We're hard at work to ensure we keep you as engaged this coming season (which restarts in September

Enjoy the summer!

** Meeting Recaps **

Here what's we did last season, with links to the summary reports, photos and videos:

From Matt Brenner, Chair

Today Southern California is one of the game industry's largest hubs. What about tomorrow, next year, or ten years from now? Local game industry developers outsource more and more work to other states and countries due to powerful incentive programs promoting those locations. Aggressive recruitment efforts are drawing our best and brightest elsewhere. All of which raises a basic question. Is there anything we can do about it?

Can we incentivize local companies to hire locally? Can we give out-of-state and foreign companies incentives to outsource their work here? Can local municipalities craft incentives that make financial sense to both industry and government? Can we create a California Game Industry Incentive Program?

Let’s find out. Join the discussion on May 26th in Glendale.

NOTE: This event is expected to draw a large crowd. Please RSVP to guarantee admission.

The Program

5:30pm: Cocktails & Conversation

6pm: Introducing the Game Industry

mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:black">IGDA Los Angeles & the City of Glendale invite you to a font-family:Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:black"> conversation between business and government:

Hello Chapter, 

If you have any questions about our meeting on Saturday, April 2nd 2011, please contact the leadership at philly (at) igda (dot) org.

Meeting Notes 04/02/11

Summary:
4:45-5:15 :: Socializing

Last month I started a Google Group to help facilitate mass communication for the chapter.  Of the 50 or so names I have on our mailing list, only half of you accepted the invitation to be in the group.  If you did not get an email about the Group please let me know so that I can fix that.  If you did get the invitation, but just haven't acted on it yet, please do so.  The Group is how I will blast email messages to the chapter from now on.

You can always reach me at        kevin (dot) ogorman (at) igda-nola (dot) org

Stay tuned with the Rio IGDA Chapter through our page on Facebook!

IGDA Rio de Janeiro at FaceBook

Over there we have news updates,  discussions and event invites open to any and all interested members in the region!

 IGDA LA Spring Fling

Thursday, April 14
7pm – 10pm

Call for Participation for IGDA Toronto Spring Gala

As you may already be aware, the IGDA Toronto chapter has a renewed energy and focus this year to support our local game community.  Our goal is to be inclusive of all, and to celebrate our incredibly diverse group of developers and game-oriented organizations, which includes celebrating you and your achievements!

 Start off April with the PIGDA First Thursday social hour, this Thursday!

April Meeting
Our next meeting will be on April 2nd and we want (and need) your help! We are planning to do 3 round table discussion but would like your input on what the topics of those round tables should be. Some ideas we've thrown around are: Programming, Art, Design, Business/Marketing, Student Focused, Production, QA. Which of these would you like to be covered? Or do you have other topics you think would be good to cover? Please email at philly(at)igda.org with your thoughts by March 30th. 

Saturday, April 2
5:00 - 7:00pm