Board Game Jam Toronto

As one of the organizers of this event I hope you all make it out to Board Game Jam! We’re putting together a weekend filled with building board games and playing them. We figure that through play we can build a bunch of games to bring more fun to the world as well as liven up the gaming community.

It’s happening January 29th-30th and we’d love to see you come out and make a game – particularly if the game is about good things!

Board Game Jam is an opportunity to play creatively with a freedom not normally seen these days. It’s a celebration of simplicity, and a return to some pretty awesome fundamentals. Do you love board games? Then you’re perfectly qualified to do this.

The point is that board games are both wonderfully accessible and quite deep. Everyone can intuitively understand the basics of what goes into making a board game. On a mechanical level, it’s simple arts and crafts. For people looking to be creative, that can be a great change from making a film or any kind of digital media, which require significant technical knowledge and a team of specialists. But making a board game can be lead you down a rabbit-hole into a world of rich creative exploration and sophisticated design. Like the best games of any sort, making a board game is both easy to learn, and tough to master.

Check out Board Game Jam!

Here’s the Facebook event page.

Board Game Jam: Play to Change

Board Game Jam is happening in Toronto this month and it’s a chance for people to explore the world of game making. If you’ve ever wanted to make a game then this is a place to start!

Being a fan of educational and serious games I encourage all of you in Toronto to check out Board Game Jam and participate to make a game that can make the world a better place!

Board Game Jam
Board Game Jam

At the same time, even while videogames seem to occupy the headlines, the world of board gaming is seeing a resurgence in some smaller part of our collective consciousness. All the hipsters know how to play Settlers of Catan, and Snakes & Lattes seems to be packed every single day. If you ask me, it’s part of some broader reconnection to real social interaction in so-called “meatspace,” but I’ll spare you the philosophizin’.

The point is that board games are both wonderfully accessible and quite deep. Everyone can intuitively understand the basics of what goes into making a board game. On a mechanical level, it’s simple arts and crafts. For people looking to be creative, that can be a great change from making a film or any kind of digital media, which require significant technical knowledge and a team of specialists. But making a board game can be lead you down a rabbit-hole into a world of rich creative exploration and sophisticated design. Like the best games of any sort, making a board game is both easy to learn, and tough to master.

Board Game Jam is a low-barrier way to enter the world of gamemaking, and have fun doing it.

Check out Board Game Jam!

Rush Hour in Portland: Almost All Bicycles

Streets Bloog has a great video about rush hour in Portland and how bicyclists have to ‘endure’ bike jams. I thought it was crowded on College Street in Toronto during the summer, but even the traffic on College can’t compare to Portland’s Hawthorne bridge. Unfortunately I can’t find a way to embed the video here so you’ll have to watch it on their blog.

As Greg Raisman from Portland’s Bureau of Transportation pointed out: 20 percent of all traffic on the Hawthorne Bridge is bikes, while the number of cyclists in Portland has risen 600 percent in the last 15 years and shows no sign of letting up.

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