Well today (actually about 2 weeks days ago at the time of this writing) was the first IGDA Karachi chapter meeting. I think everyone that turned up learnt something new. The meeting was held at Anilogix in their meeting room (!). Irshad Ahmad, the CEO of Anilogix and Shehzad Khan the CEO of Code Freaks were both present at the meeting - Anilogix and CodeFreaks are the only two game development studios in Karachi. The Code Freaks were the first company in Pakistan to officially release a game to the public, and two days later it ended up with the pirates :(. Anyway, the Code Freaks are hard at work on their next project. Anilogix is the first Venture Capitalist owned game development studio in Pakistan. And since the VC guys are the one with the big guns, we can all expect some hot stuff to start coming out from Anilogix (not that money is the only factor). The following is what went down in today's meeting:
- A little chit chat with introductions and general "get to know one another" talk went on for a while. Various discussions took place about the state of the gaming industry in Pakistan, and what can be done about it. The only solid conclusion that was drawn was that having this chapter is a "Good Thing" (tm) and a step in the right direction. Different ideas about getting the government involved in promoting the industry in the country were also tossed around without any real conclusions though.
- After everyone got comfortable with each other, Syed Shams ul-Haq gave a presentation on implementing a sound engine for in a real time environment (AKA - videogames). He gave out some really nice details on the topic. A lot of performance factors and implementation pitfalls were gone over by him as well. He basically laid out the design they had used when creating their sound engine to get the sound system to seem as realistic as possible, while maintaining acceptable real-time performance. Some of the key points he went over in his presentation were:
The points mentioned above are the main areas that were covered by Shams. There were quite a few other bits and pieces that were mentioned here and there.
- After the presentations there was a short question answer session on the topic, and a little discussion. And then finally, one of the attendees won a game development book titled "Game Coding Complete by: Mike McShaffry". The book was given away courtesy of Paraglyph Press.
All in all it was a very informative and progressive first meeting. There were about 8 attendees in total which is actually quite an OK turnout considering the 2 people turn out in the first few meetings that took place in Islamabad. We'll definitely have another presentation for the next meeting, and probably even a round table discussion. I look forward to seeing even more people attend the next meeting - I know for a fact that more people are out there...