Welcome!
This is the first Jam our small community has tried to arrange. We are amazed at the great response we've had and the massive number of signups. We have roughly around 120 people Involved in the jam both here at LSBU and working from home.
As a small Intro my name is Daniel Gallagher. I've worked with Mind Candy, Bossa, Super Massive and most recently Nintendo. I would say I am the "enabler" of this community rather than the creator. I saw so many cool talented Dev's in London that never seemed to socialize or hang out! When they did it was in small pockets and it seemed that a lot of less confident people were left at the sidelines. I knew lots of people working alone and missing out on the great culture in Games Development. So I started a slack and started inviting people and soon after we began our monthly meetups. This has been amazing! The slack is super fun and busy now and please ask me for an invite.
At our last meetup I got into a discussion with a few devs about a term that was real loose at the time. "Slow Gaming". In 2015 Olivier and myself attempted to create a "slow-game" prototype. We took this from becoming interested in the concept of "slow television".
Wikipedia definition:
Slow television, or slow TV (Norwegian: Sakte-TV "sock-ti"), is a term used for a genre of live "marathon" television coverage of an ordinary event in its complete length.
Slow television originated with Andy Warhol's 1963 film Sleep. Sleep showed poet friend John Giorno sleeping for 5 hours 20 minutes. This has since been broadcast on TV stations in Britain, Germany and Norway.
In 2009 the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK) saw an interesting opportunity and broadcast a 7 hour train journey from the driver's point of view. The train was on the Bergen line and was broadcast on 27th November 2009. Shortly after this they broadcast the MS Nordnorge's point of view during a 134 hour voyage from Bergen to Kirkenes in June 2011.
Example : WPIX in New York - Yule Log 1966
Example : Night Walk/Night Moves/Night Ride in Canada in the 1980's was a nighttime walk/drive through downtown Toronto to a Jazz Soundtrack. See Prowl by House of Wire for game reference ... ;)
So that's where we are now. Me and Olivier never finished our original prototype and the *cough* "movement" has never seen the light of day. When I talked about this in the pub at our last meetup everyone got really excited and someone said "Let's do a Jam!". If you have ever met Rosa then you will know that things said tend to actually happen.
So finally here is a quote by Olivier Van Acker on what he believes is slow-gaming:
"The way i see slow gaming is that it's counter to the traditional game loop. It actually tells you that you can stay out of the game because it will run it's course. you only need to dip in if you are curious what's going on or want to tweak a thing or two. The barrier for entry is very low and the automation very high. it has to be stress free and you should never have the feeling you're missing out on something. The game is not necessarily slow in pace. E.g. with slow cooking you sometimes have to do something fast to get the desired result. It's the mindset of getting away from instant gratification, letting things develop and mature without haste. And through this getting a more rewarding and less superficial experience."
The way I see it, the point of slow gaming isn't about the interaction being slow or monotonous. It's about the game loop being slow and revealing itself to you over a large period of time. There can be interesting, tactile and difficult interactions. The entire game loop itself however, should be slow and award patience. Think of for example, a narrow-boat, cruising along canals at no more than 3/4 mph. Every now and again you hit a lock and you have to do an extremely complicated involving exercise, but the entire game loop, and journey between these locks, is slow and peaceful and rewarding in it's entirety as opposed to through dishing out rewards.
Peace, Love, Community
Danny