If you haven’t checked out Casey’s Contraptions for iPad yet, you really should. @noel_llopis and @mysterycoconut have created a really wonderful puzzle game. Each level can be solved in many different ways, and the beautifully-integrated solution sharing really helps you see other creative ways that your Game Center friends are doing things.

The puzzles are excellent, and the difficulty ramps up really smoothly. But the level editor is the icing on the cake. Create anything you can imagine and easily share levels with friends via email. Definitely give it a try; young or old, everyone will like this game.

I was chatting with Craig Sharpe (@TeaRascal) about GDC and iSketchADay, and he mentioned that I missed out on some impromptu sketch sessions. This got me thinking of doing some kind of live art-based performance session at @360iDev this fall. We’ve been talking a bit about it on Twitter with @LordBron and @arielmichaeli. It was starting to become a “more than 140 characters” conversation, so I thought I’d jot down some ideas here, and get more feedback from the rest of you.

Picture this

In an auditorium with several projectors, a game artist at each one, armed with their Wacom tablet. Through audience participation, a game theme is chosen (I really liked Owen’s method of choosing a location, an object and an adjective, but I’m open to other improv ideas).

To a loud Daft Punk soundtrack, the artists sketch, as quickly as they can, as many game elements as they can. Environments, characters, objects, obstacles… anything they can think of. While watching, the audience could shout suggestions or comments — though unlike the theme, these do not need to be drawn!

A game jam for artists

Why would we do this?

• To explore and expand the creative process of creating game art (and even game ideas) that you wouldn’t normally create.
• To witness and participate in part of the visual creation process involved in creating a full game’s worth of art.
• To have fun!

Afterwards any or all of the artists could be available to talk about game art, in whatever capacity.

I’d also love to have each artist’s screen recorded for the span of the session, and create a video out of it afterwards. If you know me you know I love time-lapse art-creation videos!

So what?

John (the 360iDev organizer) was saying it might be possible to do it at lunchtime one day, but this is about as far as we’ve come.

Here’s where you come in:

• If you’re coming to 360iDev, would you be interested in coming to a session like this?
• Would you be interested in drawing in a session like this? The number of people we get signed up for it will determine a number of things, primarily the amount of time given to each set of artists, and the physical space we’ll need to have — projectors for everyone may not be possible.
• Do you have any ideas for how to make a session like this += awesome? We’re making this up as we go, so all feedback is welcome!

As has been known to happen, something extremely cool has been created out of nothing more than a Twitter conversation. @mysterycoconut, @LordBron, @tearascal, @rje, and @chaoticbox were talking about sketching more, and #iSketchADay was born.

It’s a casual, no-rules way to encourage all of us wannabe artists to sketch more, and share it with everyone. Draw whatever you like, post as often as you want, and don’t worry about it looking “good”. We want to draw more. Join us.

Here’s my first entry. I hope to see many more of my own, and all of yours.

I’ll post more sketches as I do them, after the break:

Click here to continue…

Disc Drivin’. You push discs around a track, and it’s awesome. I’m starting a little round robin tournament. Check the details.

Leading the way in indie awesomeness, Noel Llopis – @snappytouch – has rounded up a group of developers (including yours truly) to sponsor the 360iDev Game Jam in Austin next week. We’ve been talking a lot about how to take it up a notch. There was a lot of interest expressed, so we decided it was important to open it up to developers around the world, not just 360iDev conference attendees.

I’m working on a website (full site coming soon) for the game jam that will allow anyone who wants to participate in the game jam to post their progress and get seen, as well as comment on and support other devs as it all goes down. When the site goes live you’ll be able to register for an account and create a post for your project for all the world to see.

If you need some inspiration, or just want to get psyched, check out these posts:

• 7 simple but proven game mechanics to prepare you for the 360idev Game Jam by @36peas
• Game Idea Generator by @OwenGoss

Here’s the rest of the awesome sponsors:

I’ve said it many times before, my trip to 360iDev in April was a catalyst for an explosion of game dev activity for We Heart Games. Previously I was a lone game designer, hiring programmers to make my iPhone game. I got invited to speak about the process I used to make the game at 360iDev. Let’s break down the things that have happened since then:

• I got to meet and build tangible relationships with a boatload of awesome devs (Twitter is great, but nothing beats meeting people in person). 360iDev has a unique atmosphere of friendliness and approachability.
• I got to rock the game jam with 360iDev mini-superstar Owen Goss, to make a prototype of Atomz in 7.5 hours.
  
• I helped Owen out with his LandFormer icon. (Go get it, it’s free to try) This icon was also featured on the cover of this month’s MacWorld magazine! Woo!
  
• Dan Byers of Manic Gaming liked the work I did on Atomz and asked if I’d be interested in doing the graphics to finish his own game jam prototype and get it ready for launch. Star Fighter X2 for iPad hit the App Store August 31st. I did all the graphics for the game (except the asteroids) and made their website as well. Here’s my original post with some of the graphics I made, as well as a cool time-lapse video showing the making of the 3d ship model.
  
• Tom Hoag of Cluebucket also noticed the game jam art, and asked me to help him out with some themes for his iPad game, Short Path.
  
• Ken Carpenter of Mind Juice Media asked me to take some Charmed vector graphics and turn them into nice high res 3d models that could be animated (image links to a QT video).
  
• Matt Martel of Mundue asked me to do a couple of themes for reMovem 2, and there are 3 more in the pipeline.
  
• I’ve helped Kirby Turner of White Peak with an update to Labor Mate, and have some new themes for Hey Peanut coming.
• I’m now working on a proposal for another project that would involve making art for an entire game, but I can’t talk about it yet. But if you go to 360iDev in Austin, you might catch a glimpse of it!

In related news, I was also approached by Noel Llopis of Snappy Touch to submit artwork for Casey’s Contraptions, but the timing didn’t work out for me — and Miguel’s stuff just plain looked better! I’ve also go an “on the side” project of my own going (slowly, as on-the-side projects go), with another dev that I met at 360iDev.

And as they say, work leads to more work. In the coming months I expect I’ll be shifting more and more of my attention away from web and print design and towards game design. And that feels pretty fantastic.

I can say with absolute certainty that none of these things would have happened if I hadn’t gone to 360iDev. These are all people I met at the conference for the first time. If you’re on the fence about going, and you’re able to, you should really go. It’s well worth it.

UPDATE: Don’t just take my word for it. Noel (SnappyTouch, Flower Garden) and Rod (cocos2d Book, Payload) have since posted on this very same topic.

Note: I just saw in Twitter that you can get 15% off using @mmartel’s discount code: martelRocks. Thanks Kirby! Check out the schedule and register on their site: 360idev.com

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with 360 Conferences in any way; I get no compensation for writing a post like this, and nobody asked me to write it. Unfortunately I’m unable to make it to Austin, but I’m hoping to do another one next year.

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