May 11, 2010 by Alec Holowka
You can now register for TIGJam: Winnipeg!
What is a TIGJam? Well it stands for “The Independent Game JAM”. What is THAT?
Basically: Bunch of game developers get together, bring their laptops and work on whatever project they feel like.
New projects will be born, long-lasting friendships will be formed, skills will be gained – epic levelling-up! – and little or no sleep will be had…
It’s just sort of awesome.
Yes, Bring!
- Laptop (conserve space)
- Good Pair of Headphones (so you can get in the zone)
- Working Workflow (engine/tools set up ‘n ready to go)
- Your Game Development Skills (code, art, design, music, etc!)
No, Do Not Bring!
- Bad Vibes
- A Huge Setup
For more info and discussion: Visit the TIGForums
Dates: May 29 – May 30, 2010 (optional setup Friday evening, May 28)
Location: Fortune Cat Games Studio, 201-62 Albert Street Winnipeg
Province: MANITOBA.
Country: Canada. (duh!)
These indie fellas from out of town have booked travel already:
Adam Saltsman – Canabalt, Paper Moon
Kyle Pulver – depict1, Snapshot, Verge, Time Lapse Jam
Greg Wohlwend – 4fourths
Matthew Wegner – Off-Road Velociraptor Safari, Minotaur China Shop
Shawn White – Blush, Time Donkey
Mark Johns – stdBits, Owl Country, Das Cube
Eric McQuiggan
Local Manitobans:
Robin Debreuil – Video Profile
Marlon Wiebe
Tom Rab
Eileen Holowka
Chrissy Chubala
James Swirsky
Noel Berry
Evan Harasem
Dylan Fries
Chris Lobay
Kenley Kristofferson
Always remember to brush your teeth – and don’t forget to register!
HEY! We’re Looking for a TShirt Design!
I’m on the hunt for a funky and talented 2D artist to design a unique TIGJam: Winnipeg t-shirt. In previous years, the illustrious and batty Derek Yu has designed wonderfully twisted pieces to commemorate our jams. See the appropriate example below:
I would absolutely love to throw some money at someone who can mash together visual ideas unique to “indie games” and “Winnipeg”. The Golden Boy riding a curling rock whilst playing Game boy? The Weakerthans as 8-bit Nintendo characters? Surprise me! 
If you have a design that you’d like to submit for consideration, fire it over to Chrissy and myself at hello@infiniteammo.ca or post a link on this here blog.
P.S. Due to my disorganizational skills, we’ll need to get this design wrapped up pronto so we can get shirts printed in time for the jam. But extra pressure just makes us more creative, riiiight?
Special Thanks To:
Fortune Cat Games Studio
New Media Manitoba
Matthew Wegner
Questions or Comments? Hit that “Read More” Button and Fire Away!
Nov 26, 2009 by Alec Holowka
I want to do a TIGJam in Winnipeg! “Great!” you say, “What’s a TIGJam?”
TIGJam is a game jam format that grew out of the TIGSource online indie game community. There have been two very successful iterations in Phoenix, one in the US midwest, one in the UK and one in Berlin! The formula is really simple, but leads to good times and valuable learning experiences.
* Show up for a day or two
* Bring your laptop, your positive/creative vibes and your experience
* Work on a new project, an old project – in a team or by yourself
* Meet new people that are working in the games scene in Winnipeg and make new friends!
* Share your experience with others with short presentations (e.g. a series of 5 minute rants)
* Not just for game programmers! Composers, artists, modellers, etc should definitely attend.
* We’d probably charge a small registration fee, like $5-10 to cover the cost of some food (and maybe some t-shirts for everyone?)
I’d like to run this out of the Fortune Cat game studio incubator, it’s on Albert street in the exchange.
If you’re interested, please leave a comment and let us know what you think a good time would be! (December -> Summer? [our poll plugin broke])
Sep 29, 2008 by Alec Holowka
TIGJam – the gathering of indie game developers in Arizona where I’ve been stationed for the last few days – is winding down. It was an awesome weekend, spent with some of the most friendly, funny and talented people that I know! The premise is indies from all over North America flying down to Phoenix to team up to make some game prototypes. My buddy Adam Saltsman and I decided to make a curling game using Unity.
The prototype has the basic input phases and physics in place. What’s missing are the game rules (teams taking turns, scoring, etc), more refined physics, sound effects, and other details. We had a lot of fun playing around with visual effects, like depth of field, changing camera angles, motion blur and animating the camera’s field of view when the rock fires. I think our prototype is pretty impressive for about 2.5 days of work. (we both stayed up for about 40 hours straight near the end) Big ups to “Shawn”:http://capnrat.com/ for lending us his post processing script!
[Vimeo 1843536]
Overall TIGJam was a lot of fun – I only wish it’d lasted a few more days. We had a webcam streaming from the office for most of the jam, and it was entertaining (and slightly creepy) to interact with the rest of the TIGSource community online. You can check out some photos from the jam here and here.
Sep 19, 2008 by Alec Holowka
For those that haven’t heard of it, “The Independent Gaming Source” or TIGSource, is a super rad indie game development community. Its run by my good buddy Derek Yu, and its become a positive, upbeat place to meet like-minded indie game developers. TIGSource has grown from a blog to include a massive forum and even an interactive database of independent games. Regular competitions are held at TIGSource around really creative themes: B-Games, Procedurally Generated content and Retro Demakes for example. Heck, back in the day there was even a Sexiest Indie Gamer compo!
But most recently, Derek and a few other folks have been organizing a TIGSource community gathering called TIGJam. At the end of September, a bunch of us are going to get together in Phoenix for a few days to collaborate and bust out some awesome games. I’m really looking forward to this, because I’ll get to hang out with some of my American friends who I only get to visit whenever there’s some kind of game development convention.
There will also be super rad T-Shirts, natch.
