A lot of artists I know have great ideas for videogames, but no programming skills. A lot of videogame makers I know wish there was more creativity and innovation happening in the field, but don’t know how best to foster it. I started the Artsy Games Incubator to try to address both issues.
We just had our first prototype set of sessions, with four of us meeting once a week for four weeks, and I kept notes. Using point-and-click game creation tools we made games and game elements for the sessions and invited feedback and discussion from the other members. It’s based on the writer’s-circle model that I’ve also used for movie making, but I wasn’t sure it’d work for games — but when the other members were playing and talking about my game Space Invader I was getting feedback as useful as I did with those other groups.
There’s going to be another iteration, so whether you’re a Toronto artist looking to get into the next group in January or an interested party who would like to get involved in some other way (Metanet and Queasy sponsorship are what made starting this possible), read more about it here.
Ooooh, I know someone in Toronto who would be interested in this, will pass the info on, thanks!
That’s awesome Jim! (and Jon…and Metanet folks…)