Seattle area IF meetup reboot

A few of us are restarting the Seattle area IF meetup.

We’re getting together at 7:00 pm on Wednesday, August 22, at the Four Generals Brewery in Renton. The plan is to play through Ryan Veeder’s new game “Curse of the Garden Isle.”

If you’re in the area, feel free to join us!

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I’m going to be there. I look forward to meeting everybody!

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Y’all can bug me @rcveeder on Twitter if you need any hints.

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Real-time hints - awesome! Thanks, Ryan!

I was in Seattle for a contract gig on the 22nd. I would have dropped by, but the smoke and general miasma of Seattle sapped my energy.

The air quality was really bad in the Seattle area the last few days - maybe the worst I’ve seen in the 13 years I’ve lived here. I think there were some bad forest fires in the area. The air’s not usually like that.

We had a good time at the meetup, though. There were six of us, and we’ll probably do it again in a couple of months.

Speaking from personal experience, I recommend setting up a meetup on meetup.com. (The Bay Area meetup gets a steady stream of people that way.) I also recommend setting a regular schedule, e.g. the 2nd Saturday of every month. It provides a forcing function to ensure the meetup actually happens.

“CoG” (I, myself) also sponsor the event with pizza and paying Meetup’s dues. That’s convenient if you can arrange it with some sponsor who’s willing/able to attend. (That’s probably not me, at least not this year.)

Thanks for the good advice.

The next Seattle area IF meetup:

Time: 2:00
Day: Sunday, October 21
Location: Room 374 of Thompson Hall, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma
Parking: There’s a general parking lot next to Thompson than anyone can park in.

Use the door at the southeast corner of the building (near the parking lot but facing the main part of campus).

We’ll discuss IFComp and play through an IFComp game or two.

(I apologize for the non-central location, but I had a lot of trouble finding a public space that was (1) free, (2) large enough to hold ten or so people, and (3) had display capacity for an overhead projector.)

We had a good time at today’s meetup, playing through Tethered and LET’S ROB A BANK (multiple playthroughs of the latter) from the ongoing IFComp. We dipped into several of the other games in the competition as well.

It looks like the current location works, at least for now, so we’ll plan for another meetup in maybe early December.

Our next Seattle area IF meetup will be Sunday, December 2, from 2:00 to 5:00 in Thompson Hall, Room 374, at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. (It’s the same location as last time.) The parking lot next to Thompson Hall is visitor parking, so you can just park there without a pass or anything.

Mathbrush and I will start the meetup with a discussion of game design - how you go about writing an IF game. Depending on the interest of those in attendance, we can discuss game design the entire time or switch to playing a game together after a while.

Anyone in the area is welcome to join us!

Oh man, so bummed that I missed this notice until today. Seattle is hard to get to but UPS would have been great. I hope I can get together next time you meet in Tacoma!

The next Seattle area IF meetup will be Sunday, January 27, at 2:00 p.m. in Room 374, Thompson Hall, at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. (It’s the same place we’ve met the last two times. Again, the parking lot next to Thompson Hall is available for visitors to park in, and it should be quite empty on a Sunday afternoon.)

We’re fortunate for this meetup to have David Dunham, creator of the commercial games “King of Dragon Pass” and “Six Ages,” joining us! He’ll be giving a presentation on how he uses text to create a sense of immersion in his games.

Anyone in the area is welcome to join us!

The next Seattle area IF meetup will be Sunday, March 24, at 2:00 p.m. in Room 374, Thompson Hall, at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. (It’s the same place we’ve met the last few times. Again, the parking lot next to Thompson Hall is available for visitors to park in, and it should be quite empty on a Sunday afternoon.)

We’ll be playing through some of “Cragne Manor,” the massive “Anchorhead” tribute game organized by Ryan Veeder and Jenni Polodna and featuring over 80 authors.

Anyone in the area is welcome to join us!

How many people were at the previous meetup?

Eight, including the speaker.

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Our next Seattle area IF meetup will be Sunday, May 5, at 2:00 p.m. in Room 374, Thompson Hall, at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. (It’s the same place we’ve met the last few times. Again, the parking lot next to Thompson Hall is available for visitors to park in, and it should be quite empty on a Sunday afternoon.)

This will probably be the last meetup Mathbrush will be able to attend before he moves out of the area in June, so some of us thought it would be nice to play through one or more of his games. Mathbrush, of course, is the most prolific IF reviewer of the past few years, as well as the author of multiple XYZZY-nominated and top ten IFComp games such as Color the Truth and Absence of Law.

We’re thinking about playing Mathbrush’s Ether to start with, and then we can decide where to go from there.

Here’s a link to the list of Mathbrush games on the IFDB: https://ifdb.tads.org/showuser?id=nufzrftl37o9rw5t

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The next IF meetup will take place on Sunday, July 21 from 2-4 PM in Thompson Hall at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. The room we have been meeting in previously is being used for a summer class, so we’re meeting in Room 399.

For this meeting we thought it would be fun to have brief demonstrations* and discussions of some works in progress. Anything from story pitch all the way up to beta testing is acceptable. This is more of a show and tell than a formal critique, but you are welcome to request specific feedback on anything you’d like. If you would like to show your project, please let us know in advance so that we can make sure there is enough time for everyone. If there are too many requests to fit into one meeting, anyone who isn’t able to present on the 21st will get time at the next meetup.

*Note that Mike has confirmed that showing a work in progress to a small group of people does not affect eligibility for IFComp.

If you are going to bring a project to show, I highly recommend bringing your own computer and a backup, either as a private web site or on a Windows-compatible USB stick with any necessary software to run the project. We don’t want technical problems to derail your demo. Mike should be able to share details about the projector inputs available in the new room.

Also, since there has been some discussion at previous meetings about alternating between the Seattle and Tacoma areas, feel free to submit suggestions for the date and location of the next meetup (September?). Ideally it would be someplace open on a weekend, with free or inexpensive access and a projector.

Hope to see you there!

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The next Seattle area IF meetup will be Sunday, September 22nd from 2-4 PM in Thompson Hall 310 at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. As always, there is parking available in the lot next door.
This month David Dunham, the creator of the games “Six Ages” and “King of Dragon Pass,” will give a brief show and tell about his current project. We’ll also play through the newly released game “Renegade Brainwave” by J. J. Guest.

Hope to see you there!

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This year’s Seattle area IFComp meetup will be in Thompson Hall 409 on Sunday, October 27 from 2 - 4:30 PM to play as many games as we can in the time allotted. Usually we will have one person drive / read aloud and the others will suggest what to do next. This was a lot of fun last year, and led to some good discussions about the games, styles, and technologies in the competition. Mike will be limiting his comments because he has an entry in the competition, but ask him all the questions you want about his game Sugarlawn.

Hope to see you all there!

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