May Meeting Tonight! (Sat. 5/18)

Posted on May 18, 2013 by

Quick (late) update reminding everyone that the May meeting is this evening, Saturday the 18th, from 6-9 at Bellevue University. The structure will be pretty loose since we don’t have an industry guest. However, a number of people have mentioned that they have stuff to show off. If you have art you have been working on or a game prototype, please share it with the group!

For directions to our meeting location, see our meeting page.

(Note, neither Alex nor I will be there tonight. Ya’ll behave yourselves!)

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Introducing the Omaha Game Club!

Posted on May 9, 2013 by

I received an email from Danny Rerucha, a recent computer science graduate from UNO and occasional OGDA attendee. He wanted to let us know about the recently started Omaha Game Club. In his own words:

Essentially, the club will choose a new digital game every week for its members to play, and then they will write about their experiences on a shared blog.

The blog can be found here.  And a lot of information about how I think the club will operate can be found on the “Posting Guidelines” page of that blog.

I feel as though a great way to learn about game design is through the detailed analyses of games other people have made.  So, any aspiring game designers/developers in the Omaha area could benefit from participating in the club.  Also, playing games at the same time as others who share your passion for games, and engaging in conversations with them about those games is just plain fun.

Again, I am hoping you could post about The Omaha Game Club on the OGDA site to help spread the word.  If people are looking for more information, or if they want to join, they can send me an email at reruchad @ [a very common email domain hosted by Google].

I thought it was a great idea, as I’m sure many of you do! Let’s see if we can help get this jump-started!

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April Meeting this Weekend (4/20)

Posted on April 16, 2013 by

Our regular April meeting is this Saturday, the 20th, from 6-9 at Bellevue University. We don’t have a guest or an agenda. Instead, we hope to work on the backlog of people wanting to show some of their work. If you have something to show off, please comment on it here, as a reply on Twitter, or simply mention it at the beginning of the meeting on Saturday.

In a pinch, there is not shortage of videos from the GDC Vault we could watch.

For those that haven’t joined us lately, we had 37 people at the last meeting and near that number the month before. There are plenty of folks from all game dev disciplines to network with! In fact, there are a few new projects that have been started recently simply by people getting together at meetings! Join us and get involved in a game project!

As has been our practice the past few months, many of us will meet for snacks/drinks afterwards at Applebee’s or BWW. Details that night.

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Meeting this Saturday: Ken Keys — ex EA art director!

Posted on March 13, 2013 by

Just a reminder that our meeting is this Saturday, March 16th, from 6-9 at Bellevue University.

As mentioned before, we are scheduled to be joined by Ken Keys, ex EA Salt Lake and EA Tiburon art director. He has recently relocated to Omaha and started his own studio. For more on Ken, see the prior post.

He would also like us to play test his new game, so bring your iOS devices! Remember, artists, you might want to bring some of your work to show to Ken and the rest of the group!

I will be broadcasting the meeting on our Google+ account. Look for details that night if you can’t make it to the meeting.

The post-meeting plan is to hit up Buffalo Wild Wings this time. It’s right near the Applebee’s we have occasionally gone to but might be more conducive to socializing.

For info on how to find the meeting, check out our meeting page.

 

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March Meeting Guest: Ex-EA Art Director, Ken Keys!

Posted on February 28, 2013 by

This month brings us a new member and a great guest speaker. Ken Keys has recently moved to Omaha and started his own studio, Ludicrous Games. Prior to that, Ken was Art Director for EA Salt Lake from 2008-2012 and before that, Associate Art Director at EA Tiburon from 2005-2008. Before entering the game industry, he worked in traditional film animation for a variety of companies including Hanna Barbera, Warner Brothers, and Dreamworks.

Ken left EA and moved to Omaha to be closer to family. He took this opportunity to start his own company with other industry vets. Their debut mobile title, Crash Test Monkeys, will be going into Beta this week for release on iOS in the next month or so.

I have invited him to speak to us about his experiences in the AAA game world, his experiences as an art director for a major studio, what it takes to be a good video game artist, and the differences that he faces as a co-founder of an indie mobile studio. He has also invited us to help test Crash Test Monkeys live at the meeting — both so we can provide feedback to him, but also as an educational experience for us. (We’ve been down that road before, haven’t we, folks?) Make sure you bring your iOS devices to help test!

If you are an artist, I invite you to bring samples of your portfolio for Ken to look at. I’m sure he will be happy to give  criticism, guidance, and encouragement to all!

Let’s welcome Ken and his new studio to Omaha and show him what a great community the OGDA is!

Additionally, we will be seeing work from a number of people who are participating in the “1 game a month” challenge. Check back as I get confirmation from people on who will be showing what.

(I will be attempting to broadcast the meeting via our Google+ channel. I think I have the bugs worked out now!)

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Meet Virindi Interactive

Posted on February 18, 2013 by

Just a note… forgot to add Tim Kelsey’s Virindi Interactive to the studio list (at right). From their site:

Virindi Interactive is an indie game development studio based in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. We make niche games that don’t suck.

In addition to building our own games, we also collaborate with other companies to work on projects related to game development and 3D visualization.

Tim noted that he just put the site up recently so there isn’t a lot of content. Regardless, check out what is there and keep an eye on things!

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February Meeting Was Huge! Recap here!

Posted on February 17, 2013 by

Quick recap of last night’s meeting. First off, Aaron Mark gave a very detailed walkthrough of the Skyrim Creation Kit. We broadcast the session live and recorded it. Oddly, because I haven’t completely gotten the hang of how Google+ matches up with YouTube, it ended up on my channel instead of on the OGDA one. Also, because of the web cam setting, the video is actually mirrored left-to-right. Therefore, him clicking on tools, text, etc. is backwards. You can watch the video here.

Secondly, we had a LOT of new people last night. Off the cuff, I would have to say that there were about 8-10 new faces. Add those to the 6-7 people who were showing up for their 2nd meeting and we had a decent sized crowd! Overall, we had about 25-30 people at the meeting and about 15 at Applebee’s afterwards! (Sorry, no pictures!)

Forgot to mention this last month, but there is another studio in town. Please check out Never Sun Games! Also, I added a link to Jeremy Carter’s page, JC Lee Interactive, where you can see a portfolio of his work.

For those of you on Twitter, we have a number of these new people joining us on there. Best bet is to go to the list of accounts that the OGDA follows and see if there is anyone missing from your list.

Standard reminder: if you want to be in the game biz and you are not on Twitter, you are missing out on major opportunities!

Anyway, from the looks of it, the new members will be sticking around — and I can guarantee you there will be a few new faces next month as well.

Next month’s meeting is Saturday March 16th. See you then!

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Meeting this Saturday: Skyrim Creation Kit and more!

Posted on February 12, 2013 by

Hey all… been a month already!

This weekend’s meeting will have a presentation by Aaron Mark on using the Skyrim Creation Kit. He’s been working through the tutorials and starting to create his own levels. He will show that, even if you aren’t planning on releasing Skyrim levels to the public, it is an excellent and rewarding way to practice doing level design. He will walk through the process, demo some of the features, and show off some of his completed work. You can follow his musings about his journey on his blog.

We are also hoping to see some of the final products from people who are participating in the “1 Game a Month” project. We will probably mix in a GDC video since the past few have gone over fairly well.

If you have any other ideas for what we should do, please speak up!

As a note, I know there are people looking for artists, programmers, and designers to collaborate with. We will leave some time at the end for general social networking. If you are looking to work with someone on your project or on theirs, make yourself known! Together we are stronger and all that rah rah stuff!

We will be at our usual spot at Bellevue University from 6-9 this Saturday. See you there!

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Green Bein is now Gear Five Studios!

Posted on January 29, 2013 by

Hey folks…

Not sure how many of you are/were familiar with Green Bein Studios in Lincoln. I just got word from Collin Caneva that they are in the process of rebranding. They are now Gear Five Studios and will be launching a new “gamified employee engagement platform” called AMPT.

They are hosting a launch party this Friday. Details below. If you are in Lincoln or want to swing down there, show some OGDA love to the folks at Green Bein Gear Five!

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January Meeting this Saturday (incl. Public alpha test!)

Posted on January 17, 2013 by

Sorry for the late reminder, but our regular monthly meeting is this Saturday, the 19th, from 6-9. (Optional drinks afterwards down the street.)

For this month, we will be helping out our fellow OGDA member, Dave Homan of Slouch Couch by doing a live alpha test of his HTML5 sidescroller, Drugbound. Dave submitted Drugbound to the Independent Games Festival at GDC. It was not chosen as a finalist, but he remains undaunted. It is a fun and engaging game nonetheless (and has received a startling amount of press for its theme!). In the meantime, he needs help seeing real live people play his game and give feedback.

If anyone else has something to show, please let us know so we can accommodate you!

We may also dip into the GDC Vault again and watch another 1-hour lecture on a topic that interests us. Also, Alex Meyers is bringing J.S. Joust to the meeting. He has 4 Move controllers… if anyone has any they can bring, it will make things even more interesting!

We are also expecting some new people… so let’s make sure they see how enthusiastic our group is!

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