[Day 1] [Teams] Team & Goal Formation Meeting

Instructions

This is a checklist. As you read each item and follow the instructions, check it off.

Legend

🔹 Whole team's responsibility

🟢 Elected team facilitator's responsibility

🥇 Goal: These will help you improvise.
This checklist is detailed, but you can reach the goals using your judgment if you think you can achieve them faster than the checklist suggests.

🟦🟦🟦 Headers, subheaders 1, 2, 3.

🔄 Conditional

🟦🟦🟦 Your Mission

🔹🥇 Today, share your dreams, whether of entering the tech industry, building a hobby project or anything else, with everyone in this meeting. Ready a timer and take no more than 4 min to talk about your dream. Talk about your short term dream "get any job in the industry" and your long term dream "build the next Need for Speed".

🔹 Go back and say "I" in chat now.

🔹 WARNING: Do not use text chat for any part of these meetings, everyone must get on the mic and speak.

Unless people are at work, using text chat will ensure a lack of good communication.

🔹Continue with this list once broken off into teams.

🟦🟦 Appoint a Time Keeper/Facilitator

🔹 Someone must be in charge of keeping things flowing at a reasonable pace. If you are willing to help, speak up in voice chat. If no one is speaking, its your time to take initiative and break the silence. Your job will be to make sure everyone shares no more than 4 min.

🔹 Elect someone to be a facilitator.

Nominate candidates by @tagging them
Or step up by @tagging yourself
Congratulate those who step up 👏
Use 👍emoji for the person you want to lead
Don't elect the same person twice in a row.

🟢 = The elect person's responsibility.

🟢 Say: We have exactly 45 minutes for this meeting. I will set a timer. If we finish a bit early we can take a quick break or chat longer.

🟢 Action: Set a 45 min timer.

🔹 Pull out your phone or set a timer on another device for 4 minutes. Have it ready for your speech to last exactly 4 minutes.

🟢 Make sure everyone shares their dream out loud in voice chat from first to last in alphabetical order taking no more than 4 min each.

🟢 Have the team celebrate each person as they do. Skip those who can't speak as we can't wait for typing and don't want to encourage it.

🟢 Ask each team member to summarize their goal in seven words or less and paste it in chat.

🟢 Merge similar ideas.

🟦🟦 Tally Template

🟢 Summarize and paste five messages, each under 7 words, summarizing five different types of goals heard. Here are some examples:

Here are the most common ones:
Portfolio: Build a portfolio to get work in the industry.
Education: Learn game development generally or learn your field generally.
Teamwork: Understand what it means to work with other people or build a network of people.
Project: Start a project you have in mind and recruit volunteers for it.
Impact: Contribute to humanity by creating open-source or volunteer projects.
Experience: Get volunteering experience on your portfolio.

🟢 Put a 👍under each individual option:

🟢 Say: React with a 👍 emoji to the one you resonate with most. You can only vote for one.

🟢🔹 Now you need to work together to create a list of names for each goal. Start by checking who voted:

🟢 Say: I need help making a list of who voted for each option. Everyone try to create a list, but stop once the first one is posted for an option. We need only one list for each goal.

Here is what the ideal list looks like:

EXPAND PORTFOLIO
John
Sally
Ed

RELEASE COMIC
Bob

BUILD INDIE STUDIO
John
Ed
Fred

🟢 Say: We got to head back to the main meeting and show these lists to the host. Let's go.

🔹 Write down a list of people who you might want to work with in the future based on your interactions today.

🔹 Done early? Talk about your dreams and plans to get there.

🔹 Head back to your original voice channel. The host might be helping another team, so wait patiently for their return if needed to be heard.

=============================================================================================

🟦🟦🟦 Your Mission v2

🔹🥇 Your goal is to determine the precise qualifications needed to create the ideal game or project that will fulfill your goals.

🟦🟦 Appoint a Time Keeper/Facilitator

🔹 Someone must be in charge of keeping things flowing at a reasonable pace. If you are willing to help, speak up in voice chat. If no on is speaking, it's your time to take initiative and break the silence. 🥇 Your job will be to make sure everyone shares for no more than 1 min.

🔹 Elect someone to be a facilitator.

Nominate candidates by @tagging them
Or step up by @tagging yourself
Congratulate those who step up 👏
Use 👍emoji for the person you want to lead
Don't elect the same person twice in a row.

🟢 = The elected person's responsibility.

🟢 Say: I've been elected to facilitate this meeting, but you need to follow me on this checklist, or you'll miss important parts of what we do.

🟦🟦 Self-Starting

🟢 Say: We have been placed together with the intention, this time, of forming a team.

🟢 Say: However, if you feel that the team you have been placed with is not ideal for your needs, you can either now, or after today's meeting, simply make your own team and members will be supplied your team in the coming days.

🔹 Save this link in case your team placement does not work out: https://p1oc.net/igniteregister

🟦🟦 Develop a Goal Statement

🔹 Pull out your phone or set a timer on another device for 120 seconds. Have it ready for your speech to last exactly 60 seconds.

🟢 Make sure everyone shares their dream from first to last in alphabetical order taking no more than 120 seconds each.

🟢 Have the team celebrate each person as they do. Skip those who can't speak as we can't wait for typing and don't want to encourage it.

🔹 Work together to summarize your goals in one collective sentence that best represents the diversity of the goals presented.

🟢 Say: React with a 👍 emoji to the one you resonate with most. You can vote for as many as you like.

🟢 Have everyone write down at least one goal statement in the chat. Ask everyone to vote for the ones you think should be the team goal statement using a thumbs-up emoji reaction.

🟢 Say: Now, the statement with the most votes is our goal statement.

🔹 Even if you didn't get the goal statement that you were shooting for remember that compromise is the cornerstone of great teamwork.

🟢 Say: Everyone, write down the goal statement on a brand new document.

🟦🟦 Clarifying 4 Objectives

Goal:🥇Come up with 4 goals for your project in the competition.

🟢 Say: Now that we've shared our goals, it's time to create the ideal project template.

🟢 Say: Anyone with a project idea, speak up now. We'll wait until we have four different ideas.

🔹 Get at least 4 ideas on the table and discuss them. Take as long or short as you like.

🔹 Note: Some teams were confused on how this was worded. What you're doing here is you're coming up with four ideas that you're not necessarily going to keep, but rather just a few ideas that will bring out possible restrictions that will help you.

🟢 Say: Now that we've detailed some projects that would impact our goals, what could help us achieve them. Here are some examples:

If our goal was to build up our game design experience we might say:

We need the project to be playable so we can learn which assumptions we made were untrue.
We need to have something attractive enough that people will want to play it and give us feedback.
We need to upload the project to a platform where people can give reviews such as Steam so we can benefit from player feedback.

🟢 Say: If we've come up with more than four ideas, we need to narrow it down to four. Once we have four, we put them in our personal Word document and move to the next step.

🟢 Say: Make sure you're checking off everything on the checklist as we're going through it together.

🟦🟦 12 Restriction Template

🥇Come up with 12 restrictions you'll adhere to when submitting pitches for the competition.

🟢 Say: Now that we've discussed what we'd like to see in the projects we vote for, let's talk about what we don't want to see.

Constraints inspire creativity - Duane Johnson - Sr. Software Engineer
Synthesis, [P1] mentor.

🟢 Say: Here are some examples:

If our goal was "to get into the industry as a user experience designer" we might say:

Ditch the standard controls like WASD and arrows, encouraging innovation in user interface design.
Ditch the use of instructional language to encourage UX innovation.

Or if our goal was to "enter the industry as a gameplay programmer:"

We should develop a game with Unity or Unreal Engine, considering the expanding job market for it.

Or if our goal was to "impact kids education:"

Make sure the game doesn't provide obvious solutions, but guides players to discover answers themselves in each level.

Here are examples from another event:

Examples

Accessibility
Express Yourself: Make a game in which the main input(s) are done through facial expression

Caption Contest: 2023 is the 30th anniversary of subtitling in games. Your game has text equivalents for both speech and important sounds.

Zen: Game has no intense visual effects or sounds, or lets players adjust intensity

Art
Tour Guide: The art of your game showcases cultural aspects of places you like.

Representation Matters: Have multiple options for the appearance of the main character, such as gender identity, race, height, age, disability, etc.

Over 9000 Hours: All of your art assets have to originate in default MS Paint, and stay as MS Paint Driven as possible in your pipeline - you may export a "Final" MS Paint asset to software that lets you export transparent backgrounds - but art should be as MS Paint centric as possible. Or use the open source version https://paint.js.org/

Audio
Kazoog: The music of your game must be played on the kazoo instrument.

Proximity Effect: Make all of your game music using only objects that are in close environment (for example, tapping pen on table to create a beat, etc).

Synesthesia: Use painting accessories, programs and paintings themself to make music / design sounds

Code
Shake 'N Bake: Include the use of gyroscopes and accelerometers in your game.

Off the Beaten Track: Use an open source game engine that is not well known.

No Shortcuts: Create the game without using ready -made engines and libraries dedicated to creating games.

Cultural
Woman, life, freedom: A popular revolution is forming and growing in Iran. "Woman, life, freedom" and "man, homeland, settlement" are the main slogans of the Iranian people in this revolution. Be a supporter of the peaceful Iranian people by making creative games based on one of these slogans.

Prehispanic: Your story takes inspiration from the myths of prehispanic South & central American cultures: Aztecs, Mayans, Olmecs, anything older than 1400!

Year of the Rabbit: Make a game that has rabbits as an element in it, or showcases how your culture/locals celebrate the Year of the Rabbit, or make a game featuring cats for our Vietnamese friends who are celebrating the Year of the Cat.

Slava Ukraini: Recognize the struggle of the Ukrainian nation for freedom by using the shades of blue and yellow in your game palette

Design
Couch Potato: Your game must implement couch local multiplayer (co-op or versus). Ideally featuring potatoes.

An Image Is Worth 1,000 Words: Make a game that has no text.

A Friend In Need: Implement a character that aids you in your goal in the game.

Meta
New Friends Along the Way: Make a game in a team where none of the members have ever collaborated with each other before. Bonus if all of you were strangers before the jam.

The Great Outdoors: At least 50% of your game was created outdoors. Include picture(s) of you or your team jamming outdoors. How you define outdoors is up to you.

The Number 23: It’s 2023. The number 23 represents change, progress, innovation, new beginnings, revolution, and transformation. Integrate one or more of these themes into your game.

Narrative
Creature Feature: Create a game that is played through the eyes of any non-human creature.

Once upon a 404...: Create a game that focuses or centers on the disappearance of information surrounding historical events and/or stories of underrepresented communities.

Is this the end?: Make a game with multiple endings.

🔹 Use the same method to collectively devise multiple restrictions that align with your goals. Don't stop until you have 12!

🟦🟦 Contest Guidelines

🟢 Say: We've seen how adding a few restrictions can bring out our creativity.

🟢 Say: Depending on the contest, we'll have different restrictions to abide by as part of the contest guidelines.

🟢 Say: Everyone, join me in opening the link in the checklist right now and let's read the guidelines silently together. Post "I" in text chat when done.

🔹 Open Guidelines

🔹 If you have questions, now is the time to message the host. You don't have time to discuss the guidelines as a team and they are just as knew to them as you likely and therefore it won't be a productive use of your time.

🟢 Action: Wait for everyone to say "I" in chat before moving on. Help those who might need help.

Ignore this, notes.

🟢 Say: I've been leading for a while now, and the checklist instructs me to pass the baton on to someone else. Remember, stepping up helps you gain experience in a place where failing is okay.

🟢 Give the floor to anyone who speaks up. Explain that they will be reading from "🟦🟦 Pitching Ideas" onward.

If you are less than six people in the voice chat, then you should probably just stay together as a single team. But if you're more, then you have to break up even if you don't have perfect complementary skills, as we will do recruiting for the teams later.

🔹 Write down every different idea that comes to mind and then simplify it all down to one idea that fits with both the goals and restrictions.

🔹 Decide which 2 ideas you are going to officially pitch. Debate kindly, being objective and letting go of ideas, as emotional attachment to ideas is dangerous. Building consensus through conversation is always superior to voting.

🟦🟦 Individual Registration

🟢 Say: The first thing we need to do is register as individual participants.

🔹Paste the link.

🟢 Say: Let's do that together. I'll share my screen, and we can help each other.

🔹 Complete the form thoroughly and ensure everyone tries and understands the / commands.

🟦🟦 Leader Election

🟢 Say: 🔹 In [P1] our project teams operate democratically, with leaders elected via polls, specifically using the slash poll command.

🟢 Say: At [P1], we're all about leaders who support their teams from the ground up. They're not bossy but help bring out great ideas from the bottom up. They create a place where everyone wants to pitch in. This approach is known as servant leadership.

🟢 Say: Now we're going to learn a little bit about servant leadership together.

🟢 Say: Servant leadership means lifting others from the ground up. We need someone sociable with a long-term commitment to the end of this game jam to facilitate our cooperation. If you are willing to help, speak up in voice chat. If no one is speaking, its your time to take initiative and break the silence. Your job will be to make sure everyone shares no more than 4 min.

🟢 Say: We'll watch the first 4 minutes of this video together.

🔹 Use the "Activities" feature in Discord to play this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buXl_N06mb8

🔄How to use Discord Activities

🟢 Step 1: Click the 🚀

🟢 Step 2: Choose "Watch Together"

🟢 Step 3: Put in the URL

🟢 Step 4: Have everyone click "Join Activity"

🟢Say: A crucial requirement for our leader is to attend tomorrow's meeting at this time.

🔹 Elect someone to be your team leader.

Nominate candidates by @tagging them
Or step up by @tagging yourself
Congratulate those who step up 👏
Use /poll to choose who will lead your team.

🔹 Congratulate your new leader! 👏

🔹 Have a discussion on the advantages of servant leadership together. Possible questions:

Have you seen servant leadership in action before, and if so, did you like it?
Why do you think servant leadership was created, and what is it seeking to achieve?
When it comes to one person being responsible for everybody or individuals being responsible for their own work, what are the advantages and disadvantages of each model?
How does servant leadership influence decision-making processes in a team or organization?

🟢 = The elect person's responsibility.

🟢 Say: Thank you [fill in your words here].

🟦🟦 Team Registration

🟢 Say: Awesome! Let's register our team, which we need to do regardless of whether we registered earlier for the last competition. We need to register using the second link here.

🔹Paste the link.

🟢 Say: Give me 1 second as I fill in the first few slides then I will share my screen. I want you to follow me when I share my screen.

🔹Choose the correct link and proceed solo with the from until it says to share your screen.

🟢 Say: Okay I'm sharing my screen say I when you can see it.

🟢 Say: Since tomorrow's pitch is part of registration, we'll leave some sections blank and continue then.

🔁 If you're re-registering your team, you need to complete the 3rd link in the same way as the first 2.

🟢 Say: Now we need to learn how to use hammertime together. Let's open the website share the link and see if we can figure out how it works.

🔹Discuss. If stuck use guide.

Go and rest until tomorrow!

END OF DAY 1 - END HERE OR FIND DAY 2 AND CONTINUE

Ignore

🟢 Say: Now we need to come up with a simple pitch for our games. It should be so short and sweet and really break down what makes our idea special in 1 shot.

🔹Make pitches, discuss them and challenge each other until you have something short and sweet anyone can understand.

🔹Continue this same process for each item on the list, helping each other make awesome slides, sharing feedback and working till you drop 😉.