This weekend David and I found ways to be in London (Richmond to be exact at the Paypal HQ ) for 9.30, bleery eyed and full of bacon we were there to attend the second Gamecamp http://gamecamp.org.uk/. Organised by @katylindemann @trippenbach @rainycatz, @jameswallis and @rachelclarke this was the second time a gamecamp had been run.

Chromaroma had used the last of it’s marketing budget to sponsor a paper made by the @newspaperclub team. We had collected a bunch of stories from around the web, @stml had designed a real world snakes and ladders game, and we had put it together with the ARTHR system. You can download a copy here.

Once there I was really surprised to see the audience. A high proportion of women, many game designers, and a minority of console developers. I had come prepared with an Unitary Urbanism talk and how it relates to both urban gaming and chromaroma but the quality of talks on the talk grid meant I never really got off of a bean bag.

highlights for me were:
@adrianhon ’s talk on cheating (a topic close to my own heart LINK), which was more of a cheaters anonymous meeting than a talk.
@infovore ’s talk on cows and thermodynamics. His thesis was how to cows exits in a world that is governed by the rules of thermodynamics, without really ever reading any ….. The answer is Rules. Tom then discussed a number of examples and how rules are at the basis of all good game design. we must extrapolate aesthetics from the rules and focus on KEY dynamics. For example Gears of War is a game about being a soldier in an alien invasion, but at the core are some fundamental mechanics that sit on very basic rule sets. We discussed how to make reloading a “fun” exercise, one that encourages skill, and avoids random acts of unusualness. We discussed Maelstrom (a role playing game we used to play A LOT) and how it’s Magic system discouraged use.
@minkette ’s talk/panel started out as a joke – “how do we get more men into games, as they are being marginalised in the fight for casual and social games” but very quickly moved to a heated and interesting debate on games education, the industrial focus on console development, and the scary world of “liberal arts” non vocational courses, and the role of education in society.
@naomialderman ’s talk was insight for me, titled “what i learnt from a creative writing MA in 30 minutes” focused on character development (ever character, no matter how inconsequential should have MOTIVE) and the three part story arc.

I have uploaded some photos here