This Friday Tog will be hosting a series of short talks about games.

This will be followed by a night of gaming (we will have Board Games, Mame & Xbox consoles, you can bring your laptop and/or any other games). There will be spot prices and competitions run throughout the night.

Schedule of the event is as follows:

6.30pm – Event starts, tours given, time to sign in

7pm – start of talks

• Izzy, TOG – “Intro to the first part of talks”

• Alex Nucu, Web developer/publisher, Riot Games – “The transformative power of video-games”

A story-driven account of how video-games shaped my mind, my life and my career. Answers to the ubiquitous questions of “Why do you play?”, “What’s the point?” and, most importantly, why I believe your gaming history should be on your resume.

• Robin David, Board Games Designer – “Getting into Modern Boardgame Design”

On how boardgaming has changed in the last five years and tools, pitfalls and obstacles in the typical boardgame design process.

• Gleb Lebedev, TOG – “Custom controls on ESP 8266 circuit boards”

An overview of conception Esp 8266 – cheap WiFi enabled solution. Introduction into Toe. Using variety sensors as input controllers – VR racing as an example.

• Brian Kenny, tabletop games journalist , player & GM – “Tabletop board games”

Important things to cover are settings, scale, complexity and balance. Tabletop games usually fall into Fantasy, Historical, Modern and Sci-Fi settings but can vary in scope and scale, from small squad skirmishes to epic regimental engagements and relatively simple rulesets to complex systems that replicate almost every possible real-world scenario. Ultimately though you have to consider balancing realism, simplicity and enjoyment.

SHORT BREAK – 10 min max

• Diarmaid, TOG, “Intro to the second part of talks”

• John O’Connell – animator and storyboard artist, http://jroconnell.com/ – “Visual Storytelling”

John will talk about his process of storyboarding as a tool to develop visual storytelling. By showing examples he will illustrate how storyboarding is a powerful tool that can be used across many disciplines such as animation, games and live action. In the talk he will do a brief breakdown of his own working process highlighting key areas such as composition, the subject in the frame, character development and tracking story.

• Ciara Costelloe, Board Games Designer – “Variety of types of components in Board Games and ways of testing them”

Have you ever wondered why the variety of board games has expanded so rapidly in recent times? Why do some things in games change so much and some things stay the same? I’m going to take a look at the technology involved in making components and what these components bring to the game.

• Jeffrey Roe, TOG CEO – “Projects recap, teaching by playing”

Presentation of photos from events.

• Louise Nolan, TOG – “Digital game design”

What makes a ‘game’?

• Stephen Cameron – “Procedural generation of gas giant planet textures for space games”

Slide deck (contains spoilers, obviously): https://smcameron.github.io/space-nerds-in-space/gaseous-giganticus-slides/slideshow.html#1

SHORT BREAK & the games will start 🙂

We hope to SEE you ALL @ TOG on Friday the 30th of September, 6.30pm arrival for 7pm kick-off!