Game.Dev

Trying to do something as silly as comparing what we put together at 3am the day before rAge 2005 to the Game.Dev behemoth that rolled its way through the wreckage of rAge this year would be utterly futile. Instead I'm just going to start thanking people for things and let the rest of you guys put together an image of how awesome the event was.

People that need to be thanked for giving us things:

NAG definately wins in the "amount of thanks required" department. Not only did they sponsor R10 000 (yes, those zeros are all part of one number, not just additional nothing on the end there) for me to simply give away on stage to people that had made games and been South African at the same time! But they also gave us an utterly HUGE stand that took Game.Dev from a little-known side note at rAge and transformed it into a crowd pulling spectacle of +3 to geekiness. Seriously... At times there were crowds of people three-deep staring through the glass front of the stand because there was no more room inside! Jacqui needs special mention for organising a projector in 45 minutes flat :)

T2 Events require tribute for making the stand look slick and professional with the nifty rear-projection screen and PA system that helped the various presentations go off without a hitch. From rAges past I know how hard the team behind the show works and I can tell you that they simply don't get enough thanks for what they do.

Luma stepped up and fixed Game.Dev's image problems: Refining the already-impressive logo from Cyberninja; Designing posters, shirts, CD covers and banners (the banners didn't make it to the show I'm afraid) wasn't enough for them, they also sponsored the posters that everyone liked so much they kept getting filched off the walls ;)

IT Intellect lent us two computers for demos that were incredibly handy. If they weren't surrounded by a crowd of people being shown how they too could make games, they were part of an impromptu Monochrome LAN, mini-dev-session or a quick explanation of how to solve a particular problem in GM.

InterSoft sponsored the book prizes for the Game.Dev Idols competition, which proved to everyone that thinking up game ideas is a lot of fun, CoolHand is the very definition of industry veteran and that Miktar just knows too damn much about games. Due to the sheer coolness of some of the books carried by InterSoft, we've organised to get their catalogue on the site. I know that I'm going to be ordering the book filled with postmortems for myself!

People that need to be thanked for being utterly awesome:

Burnabis organised the impressive resource kit DVD that was getting snapped up as quickly as we could burn copies, thanks for that as well as being there most of the weekend to aid in getting the word out.

Cairnswm deserves mad props for being part of the core the stand was built around. That and tirelessly explaining the philosophy behind our little community to people that wandered their way in, taking groups through who knows how many GM demos, presenting on top of all that AND coming up with a really great challenge idea. Fo' life yo.

CoolHand, thanks for pulling so many otherwise innocent people into the stand ;). Thanks for all the ideas before and during planning, without your inputs it would have been a much poorer event. Another one of the people that formed the core team of the stand who seemed to always be talking to yet another group of interested visitors every time he was visible through the crowds.

Dale and the guys from Luma deserve thanks not only for Luma's graphic wizardry and sponsorship, but also for their postmortem of ClubSilo. Muchos gracias guys.

Dan Wagner is nothing short of legendary. Never before has so much game development wisdom been passed on than in his presentation on the history if I-Imagine and all those rare glimpses into the strange world of game development as a profession.

Fengol managed to be indispensable to two seperate stands at the expo, no idea how he pulled that off. I bet he was extra-mean to toddlers for months leading up to rAge just to build up enough nice to go around. From taking people through GM demos that were as slick as rehearsed speeches to keeping the main screen occupied and securing nifty prints and stacks of DVDs, it's all appreciated.

Geometrix seemed to live in the stand and handled problems before they became issues day after day. Thanks for always being available and helping Kensai in dealing with the mundane tasks that needed doing to keep things running smoothly.

Gonzo wasn't around for all that long (it's difficult to balance the LAN, expo and everything else going on when it's your first time at rAge), but thanks are needed for getting those flyers printed and setting up posters that quickly became guerilla marketing :)

Higushi had a habit of popping up just when I was turning around to find someone to do something, so I'm sorry if it seems like I didn't let you get much time off, but thanks for always getting things done and always having a smile and an explanation for people curious about the stand.

Insomniac kept bringing crowds of people to come and see what was going on. Of course, they claimed to be his friends after they saw the coolness that he had brought them to ;)

Kensai, thanks for simply appearing in a cloud of helpfulness and getting things done despite not being a G.D regular. It's because of her efforts that so many resource kit DVDs were handed out.

Miktar was strangely drawn to the stand over the three days, so obviously he was roped in to as many events as possible ;). Thanks for being a judge in the Idols competition and I'm sorry about the discussion group cold-question...

Nandrew has received some of his thanks already, but there's more needed. Not only did he help set up the stand during buildup, but he also tirelessly pimped G.D at the show, took far too many photos, fielded interested people non-stop, gave two speeches, helped behind the scenes every day and generally didn't stop being 100% involved until rAge itself ended. All this at great personal cost to his sleep, nutrition, mental health and university career. Dude, you rock.

Squid deserves thanks for being there every time he was needed and going beyond what he was asked to do every single time: Need someone to go out and pimp the next presentation? Sure! Need more things printed? Not a problem. Need to go find someone in the insane crowds? Done. Squid, you rock. And all that good karma gave you a graphics card ;)

Read on for the report and tons of pictures!

The stand on thursday night, busy setting up


"Stolen" bean bags

Coolhand sending me on a telephonic mission past the 360 stand before they took off the head-cutting lasers

The EA stand being built, where secrets could be found if you were high enough level

rAge's on-off switch

One of the gymnast girls practising for the 360 launch tomorrow


Early morning on friday, installing GM on the demo PCs

Fengol checking the schedule and explaining filming to me, Cuba from ITI is in the background