Happy New Year! Global Game Jam in 4 weeks!

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Eric Renz-Whitmore

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Jan 1, 2013, 6:18:40 PM1/1/13

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And best wishes to us all.

With the new year, there's new opportunity, so I'd like to put a few quick reminders out there...

The local chapter has been mostly active in two locations, so if you're looking for email here... crickets. If there are other relevant groups in New Mexico, please share!

The best places to keep up currently are at the Rio Grande IGDA Meetup Group:

http://www.meetup.com/RG-IGDA-Meetup-Group/

And our Facebook Group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/rg.igda/

We also have some overlap with the Rio Grande ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/rg.acmsiggraph/

And Meetya Thursday (We Miss You - Rachel!):

https://www.facebook.com/groups/pizzathursdaynm/

If possible, try to cross-post events and activities at both Facebook and Meetup so we have a reasonable chance of letting folks know (an email here too would be nice). If there are a handful of you on G+ it might be interesting to start something there as well - each platform has different strengths, weaknesses, audiences, etc.

What's up next?

Ryan's got "Developer's Anonymous" this Wednesday/Tomorrow night at the Flying Star on Paseo (off Wyoming). Info is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/503148316396323/ and here: http://www.meetup.com/RG-IGDA-Meetup-Group/events/97229392/

Here are the basics:

Do you have a game you're developing? Do you spend hours working on it wondering if its any good or your wondering if there are any hidden bugs? Well come join the Rio Grande IGDA for its first ever Developer's Anonymous so you can find and fix your games problems!
We will be at the Flying Star on Paseo Del Norte (& Wyoming) at 7pm on Wednesday January 2nd to kick off a great year of Game Design!

And if it's a new year, there must be a Global Game Jam sometime soon! It's hard to believe New Mexico's been a participant since their first in 2009! So let's make the 5th time something special.

When is it?

Approx 48 hours from Friday afternoon, January 25th through Sunday afternoon, January 27th.

What is Global Game Jam?

GGJ is a creative incubator for game makers to challenge, innovate and experiment within their craft. GGJ brings together thousands of game development enthusiasts participating through many local jams around the world on a single weekend

Where to sign up?

It's easier if there's a single registration point for these, so please visit: http://www.meetup.com/RG-IGDA-Meetup-Group/events/96009982/ And we'd be glad to add other locations there if it helps :) (FYI, we have submitted our site registration with the GGJ mothership - should be up on their site soon too.)

We'll have more info later this month, but we need your help/input too.

If you can't participate for the full 48 hours, but have some professional experience, we'd love to include you for a possible kick-off talk, preliminary workshop, mentor visit(s) and final review.

If you'd like to help... yes! We'll plan a huddle for site hosts/organizers and need help with food runs, PR/marketing and a little bit more. Raise your hand if you're interested.

If you *might* be interested and/or are kinda supportive, visiting the Friday afternoon evening for the talks, theme/challenge announcements, and formation of teams is usually interesting and should give you a feel for whether this is something you or other folks you know might enjoy. I also recommend coming out for the final talks/demos when we can all see what teams have been able to do in 48 hours.

Why again would you want to participate?

There are lots of different reasons. For some of us it's fun, but it's also a chance to try out new skills in an intense yet low-risk environment. It's also a good opportunity to meet other potential collaborators and see them in action to see whether you might enjoy working with them on longer term more professional projects.

We're also interested in doing more professional development beyond the Jams and throughout the year. If you're interested, please share your suggestions and we hope to see you at Global Game Jam 2013!