Super-interdisciplinary-friends at Miao!

Things have been quite calm on the Super Friendship Arcade front of late. In part, this has been the result of the party’s founders (Peter and Richard) traveling the world to promote their respective games (Broforce and Cadence) at a bunch of events across The States (GDC, PAX East, SXSW Interactive). The guys returned to Cape Town last weekend and we made some very last minute plans to magic up an SFA Jam, this time focusing on getting as many different sorts of people there as possible. The concept of the first Super Interdisciplinary Jam was born.

I set to work on chopping up photos of cherry blossoms, a tiger, office morale stock photography and kittens in leather jackets. Richard got in touch with  our favourite venue, the awesomeness palace known as Miao, to see if they could host us. And so, in the space of a few hours, the jam suddenly had a poster and a home.

Fast forward to Saturday morning, and I’m very happily walking through Miao’s front door. The venue’s been an awesome home-base for the weekly Modern Alchemist meet ups, and was a wonderful home to the previous SFA jam. Anja, Dan and I arrive to find Richard had already befriended the handful of people who arrived early. I start to set up my workstation. Our friend Mhlaks arrives, commissioned to document the day, and from  here, things become a bit of a blur.

Looking back on the day, bouncing between making things and meeting people, I’m mostly just left with lots of warm fuzzy feelings and very few concrete memories. The turn out grows by the hour, with people tapping in and out.

Past Richard, Peter and I, we’ve only got a handful of old Super Friends in attendance. This leaves the vast majority of people in the category of new faces  – and what excellent faces they were! I’m also really stoked to have my long-term, but-never-see-you-enough friends (hi Leigh, Egbert, Dean, Daniel!) from outside the MGSA gang there.  I don’t even get to meet everyone, but we’ve managed to entice a small army of people into getting together and making things.

Between welcoming all these new Super Friends, Richard and I try get some work done on Bear Party. This is a 4 player platformer about a ball full of bears smashing it’s way through people’s lives. We’ve designed the game for use on Quadrabutt, and while we don’t manage to get the game running on the cabinet on the day, the progress refuels my excitement for what it will be.

Meanwhile, Dan is modeling 3D whales. The other Ben (not me) is working on a platformer of his own. Jason’s making musics.

Egbert’s melting brains with his light drawing magics.

Mhlaks is bouncing between drawing and photographing the fun.

Nanna is working on her not-yet-announced new comic.

Dean and Daniel are finishing off a song for their not-yet-announced new band.

Jeanne is making lines for her awesome Lunimaries 2015 playing-card-based project.

Ryan, our youngest super friend, spends the jam building a voxel-based world.

Frank’s actively blowing my mind, playing around with feeding elements back and forth between Unity 3D and an excellent piece of VJ Software called Resolume.

I didn’t get to meet  Caitlin, or find out what she was working on, but we spent part of the jam listening to a record of instrumental songs she made with her friends and it was rad.

Shaun was studying quadrabutt and drawing up plans for a MK 2.

Leigh’s was creating illustrations for a children’s book.

All too soon we need to wrap things up. Richard ropes some jammers into playing a bit of Spaghetti Stand-off and on that fun note we start to pack things in.

We high-five our ways out of Miao, with a bunch of fun work finished and new friends made.

The gang is currently making plans for the next Super Friendship Arcade, so watch this space for details!

*pics by Mhlanguli Gcobo and Nanna