Blog for David Higgins at GarageGames.com

Cacheable Web Resources... Oh My!

David Higgins — 2007-11-19T19:59:44+00:00

A co-worker of mine brought up a question the other day, and I immediately responded with "Yeah, I was just thinking about that a few days ago when I was messing with [XYZ]".

The question was:

Quote:
Why is there no single repository for reusable web resources such as common scripts and image icons?

So, he went off on his own and started up a little project he's calling 'CacheFile.net'. Right now, it's in a production evaluation phase and he's basically asking people to check out the 'service' and provide usable feedback. The general idea is that CacheFile.net will host a slue of commonly used Javascript libraries and image Icons. So far, he has quite a collection of Javascript libraries (including various versions of each) hosted. He is openly asking that anyone and everyone take advantage of the service.

The more people who use the service, the more useful the service becomes. The idea behind it is so simple, it almost makes you wonder why it's taken this long for someone to put it together. The files are hosted on his site, and are fed to the client with an HTTP Cache header set for quite a while in the future. So, if Web Site A and Web Site B both point to the 'Prototype.js' file on CacheFile.net, and a client browser comes across Web Site A and downloads the Prototype.js file and then navigates to Website B which is referencing the same location -- the visit to Website B is sped up due to not having to re-download an already cached resource that Website A already referenced.

So, with that said, I thought I'd bring it up to the community ... as I know were all developers of one sort or another, and the one thing we all should have in common is that we develop websites from time to time (gotta promote those games!). So, if your ever developing a website and using a common library, check out CacheFile.net and try to spare your visitors the pain of downloading resources they already have cached.

The Adventures of Coco the Gorrila in: CocoNuts

David Higgins — 2007-09-29T22:18:09+00:00

So, I hinted toward this in my previous blog, and now I'm writing it up.

I'd like to introduce Gear Worx Productions latest game. The game is titled "The Adventures of Coco the Gorilla in: CocoNuts". It's your standard side-scrolling platformer, with a bit of a visual twist.

The game is being developed by myself, and Steve Adamson. I am heading up all of the coding and Steve has worked on just about everything else (Models, Textures, Sounds, Music, you name it ...)

It's done in 3D, but is toon-shaded, which allows us to get the 2D visual effect we were after, while still maintaining some very nice perspective (3d look). The game it targeted primarily at kids (ages 5+), but has a very 'retro' feel to it and as such ... will be a great addition to any game collection.

So, on to the visual appeal everyone is always after when they open up a GG Blog:

Screenshots

Climbing, climbing, climbing ...

Taking a short breather after the long climb....

We've done it ...

And, for those of you who like to see things in action, Steve Adamson created a Game Play Video and posted it on YouTube.

Now, onto the specifics ...

CocoNuts is currently in an Alpha stage, and is still under development, the current development has taken about 4-6 weeks. We are hoping to finish the game and have a release ready for download within a few more weeks.

We are hoping to have a browser-based 'try before you buy' demo available, as well as a downloadable/installable version for a small fee.

I've not really much to say about the game at this point, but wanted to 'show case' it a little and get some general feedback. So here's your chance to rant and rave ...

Also, recently released by Gear Worx Productions is the Modern Weapons and Warfare Audio Pack, chock full of awesome weapon sounds ...

How's it all Add Up?

David Higgins — 2007-09-23T00:08:52+00:00

Lots of people have ideas, lots of people act on them and build games, but almost everyone asks the same question ... "Is my game good enough?". Well, there's a fairly simple way to tell if your game is good enough to attract even a modicum of success. Here's how I decided;

I recently worked on a game with Steve Adamson, and were going to release it soon -- it's in an Alpha stage right now, and we've submitted it as an entry for a game contest (more on this in a later post). While developing this game, I kept thinking to myself ... "This idea isn't new, and we haven't really thrown anything new into the mix ... will it be good enough?". Shortly after we got into the initial alpha stages, where the assets interacted with each other and the game began to take on a sort of life, my son, who is five years old, came over and said, "Daddy, can I play this game when your done?".

Now, for those Indie's with kids, you might hear this regularly ... and, if your anything like me, your answer might be something like "Sure, when it's done ... but I don't know when that will be.". Well, as we were entered into this contest, the game had to progress on quite a tight schedule, and so it did. We managed to meet 90% of our goals for the contest submission, and ... My son got to play the game.

His first reaction? Not quite what I had expected, but not bad either. He was quite opinionated about the game, which I was very glad to hear. He thinks the game is funny, and that some of the things in the game are 'stupid' (yep, he actually told his Dad that it was "stupid" when 'xyz' happened). He also expressed his frustration about how hard certain things were, when he really expected them to be more simplistic and straight forward.

So ... is our game good enough? Can I rely on the input of my five year old son? Yep, I sure can. Why? Because, he's my target audience. The game is being developed with children in mind, but is being done in such a fashion that older audiences can also be entertained. My son may not be a 'test group' and he may not be the 'majority', but if he likes it, I'm almost positive that there's at least a few thousand other kids (out of the millions [billions?]) of kids out there).

Do I think we've met our goal with this idea? Yes, I do. I've had co-workers and friends sit down and try it, and I've sent a video of the game play to those who can't actually play it. Everyone's responded with good feedback. After weeding out the biased aspects of the feedback and getting down to the nitty gritty, I honestly believe that when the game is done, it will be marketable.

Now, does any of this matter? Not sure.

The opinion of me, my family, and friends, does not really add up to any form of monetary success. However, it does instill a small amount of pride in my work, and in the time vested in it. After we uploaded the contest submission to the contest FTP, Steve and I sat on the phone practically giggling ourselves to death because we'd finished our first game project as a team.

What are we going to do next? Well, first we're going to turn our Alpha into a Beta, then we're going to turn our Beta into a Release. Were hoping to possibly find some funding along the way, and maybe a publisher or two whose interested in marketing the game when it's finally done.

Then what? More Games, more ideas, more trial and error.

For those interested, I'll post about the actual game itself after getting feedback on the contest (judging will be held on Sept 24th, so I'll probably post here later that day, or the following day). Why am I waiting for judging? Well, if the game gets ranked, then I'll have something to brag about ... if it doesn't, I'll have something to whine about ... and, Steve can tell you, I like to do both ... </cackle>

Ever wondered how to get your game project update to the rest of the team?

David Higgins — 2007-07-11T18:46:56+00:00

Some of you may remember me posting a blog a few weeks ago about a site I just launched called PhotoDrop.com. One of the key points of the site was the accompanying windows client that allows for easy 'drag and drop' online album creation and storage. I don't recall if I mentioned it in that blog, but PhotoDrop was actually an upgrade to an existing site that my employer hosts called TransferBigFiles.com. Some of you may even already be familiar with the site.

Well, I just launched the originally intended upgrade for TransferBigFiles last Tuesday, this upgrade covered the Web Site and database modifications and we just launched the Windows Client (Link to Usage Video) this Monday.

Now, what does this site have to do with Indie Game Developers? How can it help you? Whats the point? Can you benefit from it's usage?

Let's answer those in a reverse order;

* Yes, You can benefit from using TransferBigFiles
* The point is quite simple, it's a great way to send a friend, colleague or fellow developer (or even your game testers) your files.
* Email is a great way to send simple things like low-res screen shots, a script file or two, but most email services limit the maximum file size you can receive and therefore prevent you from sending large files. TransferBigFiles allows you to easily send these files.

* Now, onto the one question that you've all been waiting for (if you even bothered to read through this far);

TransferBigFiles is a great way to send data files to all your developers, let's say you have a Modeler, Animator and a handful of Developers. Well, your Modeler might have an FTP somewhere that they can send there files too ... but FTP Clients can sometimes be cumbersome and complicated to use, and they aren't always all that user-friendly. What if they just exported the player model, or a really great Interior for your game and all the Developers now need the update -- the Modeler can simply 'Drag and Drop' the DTS/DIF file right onto the TransferBigFiles DropZone and then simply Email or Instant Message the download URL to the rest of the group.

Ever wondered how you could control the number of 'Open Beta' testers for a game your working on? Well, TBF has a 100 download limit and a 10-day file storage when the data is uploaded through the Windows Client. So, if your looking for up-to 100 people to test your game, and you want the door of opportunity to be fairly tight (10 days or less) you can very simply upload the game build through the DropZone and then post the link on the GG forums asking for people to beta test -- it would be advised that you tell them what the expiration date is going to be and that it's a "first come, first serve" (up-to 100) scenario -- but now you've got your limited open beta and a no-cost storage location.

With a TBF Account you can expire your files when ever you like, so if 10-days is too long, you can always log into your account 2-days after posting the files and expire them.

So ... yes, this blog is an advertisement for the new site, but ... I wouldn't have posted it here had I thought the site had no use for the community as a whole. I truly believe that both TransferBigFiles and PhotoDrop can be very useful for Indie Game Developers, especially those without the funds to launch their own sites and pay for storage and bandwidth.

And on that note, here's some screenshots ;)

Here's the Web Interface

And here's the website ad for the DropZone client, showing a screenshot of the usage video.

Yes, I took a screenshot of a screenshot, I couldn't resist the irony.

The dog ate my homework, I swear!

David Higgins — 2007-06-30T01:02:02+00:00

Seriously ... the dog just walked up and ate my homework ...

Anyhow, I've got some interested updates ... or so I think, anyhow.

I've decided to attempt making a change in my development platform, from Windows to Mac. Yep, I've been a windows developer for many years now, but I've always had the most fun developing in Linux. I've stopped using Linux as a primary desktop OS, but every now and again I give it it's due and try it out again ... every time, being dissatisfied with the overall outcome ... I try to work through some of the issues, but I eventually just shake my head and load windows back onto the machine.

So, I've decided it's time for a complete change ... OS X has had quite a while on the market now, it's proven it's stability and Apple has shown a large amount of support for development on their platforms (shipping a development tool with the OS? Are they crazy?).

With this change, I'm going to try to make a personal goal to finalize the Dungeon Builder I wrote about a while back. The community in general showed a bit of interest in the project, and I thoroughly enjoyed prototyping it to the point it's at now ... the only thing left to do really is polish it up, make it feature rich and ship it ...

On the topic of shipping it ... as that phrase reminds me of the "Ship Software OnTime" slogan that Axosoft uses, I might as well put a shameless plug in about Axosoft's latest announcement for OnTime. Hamid Shojaee, the founder of Axosoft announced that Axosoft will be giving away free licenses for OnTime 2007 Hosted accounts for Open Source projects related to Microsoft .NET technologies. Is this information relevant to GarageGamer's? I think it is ... If I remember correctly, XNA is a Microsoft .NET technology, is it not? So, if your thinking about trying out TorqueX and dabbling a bit with XNA ... and you want to be ever-so-kind to the community at large and share your source for everyone to see, revel upon and eventually learn from (not to mention enjoy) ... go ahead and give his blog a quick read.

So yeah ... back on topic ... shame on me *tsk tsk* ...

As I was saying, I'm making a major platform change ... Windows to OS X ... so, those of you who develop in OS X currently and scour the forums ... Watch Out, I'm more then certainly going to have a ton of questions while I get acquainted with OS X.

So yeah, Dungeon Builder ... what's left ... ?

The rendering portion of the code is basically 100% solid, I've tested it over and over with various different things ... and it works great, it's fast as hell too ... which was really shocking, being as every move you make clears the scenegraph, generates new sprite objects, and redraws the screen ... it's so seamless, you can't even tell that it's doing just that ... (I might be revisiting the 'clear scene graph' logic though ... may not be necessary -- more on that in a later blog though ... can't give away too many secrets, else you might start expecting stuff ...)

Maps ... now ... there's a tricky one ... I've got all sorts of idea's for maps ... however, I've not yet come to a good solid solution that's good for everyone (Pro and Indie licenses of TGB) ... some of the ideas involve XML files (for those who don't know, I created a nifty libexpat resource for TGB/TGE/TGE(A) -- go check it out ... SAX parsing is fast, clean and just down-right fun to work with ;p). So yeah, I'd like to find a suitable solution that appeals to everyone's needs ... so the most likely route will wind up being some form of external (possibly even a game project in TGB?) program that is able to create the maps ... with layers and all (ceiling tiles, floor tiles ... multiple level dungeons? Oh MY!) and then export to a friendly format that TGB can handle efficiently without the need for added C++ resources ... now, it came to my attention that TGB 1.5 Beta has some form of XML built-in ... if this is stable enough and functional enough for my purposes ...then XML might be the way to go ... otherwise, I might go another route ... maybe a custom TorqueScript file that gets spit out that defines the entire level with a series of SimObject Groups and Sets and custom 'class' objects ... *shakes head* ... never know ... gotta prototype ... return to the drawing board, prototype again and get the communities feedback on my work ... then we'll find out :)

Another feature rich addition would be the ability to some how integrate TGB Behaviours into the code ... have monsters and objects that can have 'interactions' or 'behind the scenes AI' and randomly appear on different 'tiles' in the dungeon as your traverse through it ...

Oh and, for those of you with little imagination ... but lots of game design ideas (haha, sounds funny but man oh man ... it's so true) ... given the right set of artwork, the Dungeon Builder code can generate Pseudo-3D 'dungeons' ... which basically just means it can make the levels look like the old school "A Bards Tale" style walk-thru dungeons ... and it's not just limited to 'in door' scenery either ... if your tiles have buildings on them, and you set your ceiling or total level background to a 'sky box' (sky tile?) ... you've got a walkable outdoor '3d' view ... just picture it ... ok ... I said picture it, not drool all over the keyboard, pick your chin up and act right, geez!

Oh and, for those of you who didn't notice ... I've become an official GG Associate ... so, this more or less proves that Matthew Langley wasn't paying attention when he visited Phoenix and attended the 'Arizona Gamers and Game Developers' meeting I host monthly ... he apparently thinks I know what I'm doing, :)

Oh and ... for the ever awaited blog image ...

Oh wait ... I don't have one ... nevermind :)

My latest news, and the new site I just launched ...

David Higgins — 2007-06-20T03:51:15+00:00

This isn't really Game related, but I figured I'd post an update and let everyone know what I've been up to since I've been -very- quiet these past months. Those who know me on the forums probably haven't seen a post from me in weeks ... and, I'm hoping to be able to get back to that but life's eating away at my free time.

So, on to other news, I previously announced my employment with Axosoft in a blog a while back about a Marketing Contest they were running ... I was very pleased to see all the great submissions from the GG'ers (what, you think I didn't track your visits? HAH!). Some of them were extremely unique and seemed very well thought out, however, the company decided to go with the "Buggin Out" YouTube video posted by the "Nerd Core for Life" member "MC Router" ... sorry guys ... hey, you never know, they're might be another one coming at some point ... my boss seems to like doing interesting things like that ...

And on that note ... about my boss's interesting "things" ... I've recently been tasked with what was supposed to be a simple upgrade (feature release) for an existing site that the company had. Low and behold, the simple feature update turned into a completely new site ... who'd of thunk, eh?

Well, my boss and a co-worker created a site a few years back called TransferBigFiles. This site, like the name implies, allows you to send "big" files (1gb max) through the websites upload interface ... now, any one whose ever really tried to send large files (20mb and up) through an HTTP POST knows that it's flakey ... doesn't matter how reliable both ends of the connection are ... even over local LAN you can drop packets and the entire transfer goes to hell ... so ... my boss asked me to make a windows application that allows you to 'drag and drop' the files onto the website ... so I prototyped it ... and the prototype turned into something none of us set out to expect ...

And ... on THAT note ... hrm, we making tunes here or something? Ok ... enough with the 'notes' ...

So, this nifty little windows program wound up getting skinned, and converted into a 'Drag and Drop Photo Album Creation Tool' (we simply just called it "The DropZone"). So, after we spent a few days tweaking the TransferBigFiles.com download page and turning it into a Photo Album page ... we set out to launch a completely new site ... and ... so we did!

PhotoDrop.com was officially launched last Tuesday (or Wednesday) in Live Beta, and the "Photo DropZone" client was officially launched yesterday.

My boss blogged about it briefly, and in his blog (to my own surprise even!), he announced that the company is going to donate $0.05 (Five Cents!) for every Photo Album page created with the Windows Client. Now, there were some minute restrictions to it ... such as capping out at $1,000 a month ... but hey ... $1,000 a month ... DAMN! So yeah, I believe the charity is still undetermined, but the company is going to donate $0.05 to a local charity of up to $1,000 a month for an undetermined period of time ...

Now, thats some pretty cool news, eh?

Oh ... did I mention ... the site is COMPLETELY FREE ... yep ...

We've even got a nifty YouTube video (who doesn't have a YouTube video these days, geez!) that shows just how easy it is to use the site ... check it out here

And, for the blog screen ...

Yeah, how original of me ... paste a screenshot of the site, :)

For the lazy ... if you want to go directly to a sample album (pictures of a trip I took to Sedona, Arizona), you can go here

For those of you who read through this and went "What does this have to do with GarageGames, Torque, Games or Game Development" ... well ... all I can say is ... maybe you didn't read the entire post? (PhotoDrop is a great place to upload your game screenshots, fast and simple ...) and you can share the screenshot gallery link with anyone you want (ie; link to it in your next .plan, :P)

$5,000 sound interesting?

David Higgins — 2007-05-09T01:57:39+00:00

I knew that title would get some attention!

Ok, so, I thought I'd write a blog about this contest that my employer is running. I was talking with my boss earlier today and he expressed some concerns and disappointments in the contest entries thus far ... so I thought I'd try to get the word out a bit more by telling everyone ...

As the title implies, the prize for the contest is $5,000 -- the contest ends in about a week though, so read quickly and submit your idea's ... oh, did I forget to mention that? The whole point in the contest is to submit idea's ... simple as that ... HOWEVER, if you want to RISE above the rest ... the best way to do so is to not only have a great idea, but also prove your idea ... or at least conceptualize your idea in a really cool way (Show your idea ... don't just say it!)

So, whats this contest all about? Simple ... it's a Geek Marketing Contest ... heh, so now you know why I bring it to your attention ... I figure at least 9 out of 10 of us GG'ers are fairly in tune with the geekier side of life.

To link directly to the contest page, go here ...

Oh, I might note, if I weren't an employee and my idea's "counted" (for the contest of course) ... I'd keep this little secret all to myself and buy a new MacPro with my winnings ... but, since I don't qualify ... I figured I'd open the door to the community ...

So, back to that conversation I had with my boss this afternoon, eh?

We were chatting and he mentioned that lots of people had great idea's, but no one has brought there idea's to life yet ... and he's just waiting for someone to show off there talents and put the rest of the geek community to shame (gotta love paraphrasing, haha). He mentioned the idea of a really addicting (dare I say, VIRAL) video game ... of course, it'd have to go with the flow of the contest ...

So ... if you've got some fun addicting games you've written in the past just for fun ... classic remakes or what have you ... and you can find a way to tie it into the contest ... you could win $5,000 ...

Simple as That!

Oh and, for those that have small attention spans ... here's the latest update to the contest blog, it's in LARGE letters and bolded ... must be important, eh?

Quote:

MAY 8TH: As of May 8th, 2007, with approximately 45 idea submissions, we have not yet received any submissions of viral videos, flash animations or applications that might help spread the word virally. I want to emphasize that if you can create a viral video, flash animation or even an application that can help promote Axosoft's OnTime, your likelihood of winning the $5,000 prize is extremely high! There's still time to create and submit your videos, flash and other potential viral apps!

My Blog at Work

What Time is It?

David Higgins — 2007-05-01T03:32:22+00:00

Ok, the title might sound strange, but ... my 6 year old just recently got a watch as a gift and now she needs to know how to read it to tell what time it is ... immediately, I thought to myself, "What a great thing to do in TGB!". So, what did I do ... I whipped together a real quick clock in TGB so that she can experiment with things ... right now, it's extremely rough and doesn't really do much ... but with a little more time and thought put behind how to turn it into a really useful educational tool ... I'm sure it will be useful, as it is now ... I can move the hands and ask her to read the clock ... then get her feedback, etc ... no need to play with the old analog clock in the closet ... or drawing things down ...

This entire thing took about, 10 minutes ... not counting the 15 minutes I spent in Photoshop making the artwork (yes, I made all the artwork myself, no, I'm not an artist)

I've also created a small problem generator for her, called "It's Math", which can be found on my website:

It's Math - Download

I'm not exactly sure which version of "It's Math" is currently on my website, but the latest version that she's been playing with uses art work from ArtPakz.com (specifically, Lady Bug Run) -- It uses the fruit images as 'counter' objects and a simple t2dTextObject to display the problem ... I used some free artwork from BittBox to implement an 'on screen keyboard' of sorts ... so she can use the mouse to enter the numbers. It updates the t2dTextObject in real-time, so as she enters numbers (keyboard or mouse) the t2dTextObject is updated so it looks like she's actually typing into a 'text box' ... she seems to enjoy it, even though it's extremely basic.

Anyhow ... I figured I'd write this post so that anyone out there with kids and thinking of whether or not to pick up TGB ... has some good reasons to do so -- Educational software for kids is hard to find, especially software thats useful and actually educational ... so ... everyone should start making some, :)

I place the code and artwork to "What Time Is It" on TDN as a working example of simple game functionalities (Rotation and Mounting)... but basically, here's the simple side of things;

The clock hands, as you can see, are not the same size as the clock face, so rotating them obviously would cause a weird effect ... so what I did was create a t2dSceneObject (invisible object) and made it the size of the clock face graphic, then mounted the Small Hand to it ... and I rotate this t2dSceneObject ... to rotate the small hand around the clock ... the same logic is applied to the big hand ...

Rotating clock hands to tell the time is fairly simple too, 24 and 60 divide into 360 perfectly and you get 30 and 6 ... so, a rotational increment of 30 increases the small hand by one hour, and a rotational increment of 6 increases the big hand by 1 minute ... fairly simple, and kind of neat, eh?

The up/down buttons with the words "HOUR" and "MINUTE" are basically just attached to functions that change the rotation of the small and big hands ... there is also a function called "updateCurrentTime()" that is going to be attached to a hot-key (enter or something) so that the teacher (parent) can move the clock hands ... without actually visually displaying the digital version of the time ... and then ask the child to read the clock, when the child answers, the teacher (parent) can then hit the hot-key to let the kid see the correct answer ...

I'm thinking of adding in some game play ... where perhaps the clock randomly changes time and the child has to answer the question of "what time is it" to advance to the next question ... any idea's on how to make a "how to read an analog clock" game fun for kids, let me know.

GGE: AZ Gamers and Game Developers Announcement

David Higgins — 2007-04-23T15:49:35+00:00

AZ Gamers & Game Developers Announcement

The Arizona Gamers and Game Developers group on GGE, which has been meeting monthly since early this year, has rescheduled it's May meeting due to a surprise visit by Matthew Langley. Matthew will be in town the last weekend of April, and so, the group has rescheduled it's "first Sunday of the month" meeting to be the last Sunday of the month to accommodate Matt's trip to town.

As such, I figured I'd toss a post up on the GG Site to let everyone know. For those of you in Arizona, the group meets in Downtown Phoenix, and the next meeting is scheduled to be on April 29th at 2pm. Additional information is available on the groups page (Address, Google Map, Current Updates and Discussion Threads).

Currently, the group has 14 members, and we've been meeting in a coffee shop downtown. In one of our previous meetings, it was brought up that the coffee shop was no longer capable of supporting the groups size and needs (too noisy, inadequate seating, but they have free WiFi!), and so I've been looking into getting one of the local libraries to allow the group to utilize a conference room on the first Sunday of each month to hold it's meetings. More details about this, when I have them -- for now, the meetings are still tentatively scheduled to be held at the coffee shop.

For those of you who already attend, hope to see you next week, and ... for those of you who have not attended, hope to see you there as well.

GGE - AZ Gamers and Game Developers

David Higgins — 2007-04-08T19:50:57+00:00

Ok, some of you may have seen the .plan I wrote a while back about the first GGE AZ Gamers and Game Developers "get together", and I'm just writing up another plan to announce some updates, changes, and to bring more awareness to the group so that if anyone else is interested in joining, they can.

The AZGGD group on GGE is basically a combination of Gamers and Game Developers, and we get together on the first sunday of every month in Downtown Phoenix, AZ. We have been doing this since the first Sunday of February, and have had 3 meetings so far.

We are currently in the process of trying to find a conference room we can rent, most likely in a local downtown library (cheap, or free) as the coffee shop we've been meeting at is no longer capable of supporting the groups size. I've posted a message to the groups discussion thread on GGE regarding this, and if anyone has any input on other alternatives in the Phoenix Area, they would be greatly appreciated.

As for the group itself, we have 13 members, of which, 7 have attended meetings in the past 3 months. Not too bad, eh? Our meeting regulars are Myself, James Spellman and Richard Van Stone, who have so far attended all of them (I think Rich missed the first), our latest "new comer" was Robert this week, and he broke the "developer only" flow by being our first Gamer to show up.

So far, we've kept the meetings extremely informal, more of an open discussion, anything goes, type of thing ... but in our last meeting, we discussed the possibility of creating a slightly more formal atmosphere and having a specific agenda ... we tossed around the idea of possibly doing a group project of some sort, something small, that could benefit the group and the Gamer/Game Dev community at large (no real ideas, just the idea of an idea) ... we are also going to try out a "show and tell" type thing, where we can all show off our current and past projects, discuss the problems and the joys that went along with it, etc, etc ...

So, for anyone else out there in the Phoenix area, the group is open and you are all welcome.

You can check the group discussion thread, and member list on the GGE group page;

GGE - Arizona Gamers and Game Developers