[Hey folks, the following is a guest post from my summer intern, Nicholas Brown. It'll be the first in a series of at least a few posts from him talking about what he's been up to this summer. This post is kind of an overall discussion of his encounter with the Boston area and the Boston game dev scene. -Darius]
Being in Boston for the summer has certainly been an interesting experience. I came up here in a bit of a hurry with no place to stay lined up and I’d never been to Boston before, so I was a little nervous and didn’t quite know what to expect. I came up here to work for Darius as an intern for the summer and also to meet the famously large Boston community of game industry pros and indies.
Getting an apartment in Boston was a somewhat trying experience. Craigslist has hundreds of sublet listings, especially in the summer because, I’ve been told, about 40% of Boston’s population is students. Oh and you want a place with off-street parking if you have a car. Boston and the surrounding cities have permit parking on the streets and you can get ticketed for almost anything. It doesn’t matter too much though since Boston has great public transit. The Red Line is the main artery through Boston, Somerville, and Cambridge and there are lots of buses and other metro lines so if you don’t mind walking a bit you can go almost completely without a car.
Boston has two large Game Developer meet-ups that I’ve attended. The first is the local IGDA chapter meetings, the Boston Post Mortem, which is held second Tuesday or Wednesday (they alternate months) of the month. It’s a meet up of about 200 game devs, enthusiasts, and even a few people who just like games. The meeting starts at about seven with the presentation of the night starting around eight. They also invite anyone who has an announcement to take the mic around fifteen minutes before eight. This is also a great networking opportunity so get there early. After the event wraps up there’s a bit more time to hang out and network and things finish around ten.
The other area meet up is Boston Indies which is a monthly meet-up for Boston’s independent developers. It’s a similar format to the Post Mortem but the location seems to vary a little since it’s a newer group and smaller. It’s definitely a great group of people though and a good event to visit if you’re curious about the indie scene in Boston or just independent development in general. Oh yeah and pretty much anyone can show up to either of these meetings.
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I’ve also been making inroads into the Boston game dev community. Recently graduated from Champlain College’s Game design program, up in Burlington, Vt. A few months beforehand I started coming down to Post-Mortem meetings and getting to know people, and it was well worth the 5-hour trip. I’ve been to a few IGDA chapters, most notably the one in Montreal, and I’ve found the Post Mortem to be easily the most open, laid-back, and entertaining of them all. And useful, of course. I met my current employer at a Post-Mortem Meeting, and was hired within a week.
I’m still commuting into Boston (only two hours away, now!), so I haven’t had a chance to make it to the Boston Indies. It’s on my list as soon as I move closer to the city; at this point I’ve met a large portion of the Indie community via other venues, and they’re a fantastic community.
Don’t forget to mention the Boston Unity Group, which had it’s first meeting a month or so ago: http://bugaugust2010.eventbrite.com/
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