One game. Eight weeks. One night a week IRL, plus Discord in between. Here's how it works.
We kick off with a social evening — meeting people first, game ideas second. Throughout the night, members submit game prompts. The group discusses, riffs, combines ideas, then votes. Must be there in person to submit and vote.
The winning concept becomes the project. The person whose prompt is chosen gets an "Original Concept" credit on the published game.
By the end of the night: Voted-on game concept. Roster started.
Teams form. Team captains step up. Everyone picks a home team and gets set up — tools, environment, how to grab tasks. By the end of the night, nobody's stuck on setup when building starts.
By the end of the night: Captains confirmed. Rosters finalized. Project and tools set up. Everyone's set up and ready.
Everyone together. We turn the prompt into a real game plan — mechanics, features, art direction, scope. What's in? What's out? The project board gets populated with tasks. People can start building after this night.
By the end of the night: Game design doc. Art direction. Project board populated. People can start building.
Three weeks of building. Each night starts with a quick go-around — where everyone's at, what they're working on — then heads down. Grab tasks, pair up, build. Work continues on Discord between meetups.
Tasks range from tiny (name a character, write one sound effect) to substantial (build the inventory system, compose the main theme). There's always something that fits your time and skill level.
By the end of week 6: All the main pieces are in (or close). Playable start to finish. Ready for playtest.
Members only. Play the game together — on screen, with drinks. Give honest reactions, celebrate what works, note what's rough. Then shift to polish: fix bugs, tweak balance, swap in final assets. Last push before launch.
By the end of the week: Feedback addressed. Final bugs fixed. Release-ready build.
Bring your friends. The finished game, on the big screen, with drinks. Everyone who contributed gets recognized. The game gets posted to itch.io — free to play, forever, under the Chicago Game Makers Club name.
By the end of the night: Published game on itch.io. Credits page. Retro.
When you sign up, pick a home team. You can work across multiple. For our first game, we're recruiting team captains from people who commit to the full 8 weeks.
Game vision, mechanics, the board, tasks, scope. The people who see the whole picture and keep things on track.
Visual style, pixel art, sprites, UI. Helps newcomers get started with sprite editors.
Game code, engine, hosting, GitHub, server. Keeps the codebase coherent as people contribute.
Sound effects, music, ambient audio. Helps contributors find tools and get going.
Club format, meetups, venue, welcoming people, social presence, itch.io release. The heart of the club.