Indie Games 101?

[ping]

I was over in the archives sifting around and saw that there were games tagged as "Indie Games 101" at GPNW 2007. For those that were there in 2007, how'd it go? What happened exactly and was it useful?

For any new folks out there - does "Indie Games 101" sound like something you'd be interested in?

I am assuming that there will be people coming to GPNW who have never framed scenes or stabbed anyone in the face, but I'm not sure exactly what Indie Games 101 means as far as running a game goes. Maybe it's just being more mindful that there could be people in your game new to indie games which we should all be doing anyway as good facilitators and players.

Just throwing this out for brainstorming.

[Ben Robbins]

We kicked around the idea last year too, but nothing (overtly) came of it:

GPNW Scheduling Idea -- L33t Ninja Skillz

[tonydowler]

In 2007, Indie Games 101 was envisioned as a way to introduce new players to indie games, but in practice it become more about indie gamers being introduced to games they always wanted to play. Only a few truly new players joined up, and I think only a couple of games were run as Indie Games 101.

[sage]

I dig the idea, especially as it sounds like there may be more new (to indie games, to GPNW, whatever) gamers this year. But doesn't the group hug kind of take care of that?

I guess with more people in the hug this year, it might be a way to split of a group early. "Not too familiar with the games you see being signed up for and played? Step over here, we'll make sure you get an introduction."

[ping]

I guess with more people in the hug this year, it might be a way to split of a group early. "Not too familiar with the games you see being signed up for and played? Step over here, we'll make sure you get an introduction."

With more people saying they want to play pick-up games this year, we definitely have to streamline the group hug (group huddle?) for efficiency so that's in the works.

This thread hasn't received a lot of action, but I think it's still early yet, especially for the people who are new to GPNW. I'm still open to the idea of putting in an Indie 101 flag or procedure. Official or not, GM/facilitators can always say their game is intro-friendly, and at the very least, it's always important to find out the experience level of your players before you start any game.