On the weekend of the 20th, 21st and 22nd of October, we shall be hosting the first 57North Game Jam!

What's a game jam?

It's a get together of people to make games! You turn up and create something that you'd enjoy playing. Learn more here [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_jam].

What kind of games?

Any! Board/Video/Card/Crypto/Blockchain/whatever! Just because some of us will be programming doesn't mean you need to do the same. They can be silly, serious, important, easy or difficult.

Who can take part?

Anyone, but we ask that non members of 57N make a donation to the hackerspace. You are welcome to bring friends and team up, or create something on your own. Throw your name on the wiki and/or reply here.

What does my game have to be about?

At the moment, we don't have a set topic to base games on - feel free to suggest one, or to suggest that we shouldn't have a topic at all!

Where is it taking place?

We will be based at 57North Hacklab, 35a Union Street, Aberdeen. However, you are not obliged to spend the whole time in the hackerspace with us. We assume you'd like to sleep, eat and maybe work from a comfortable room for a few hours or a whole day.

Real Life Action & Adventures

20/21/22 October

The below times are a guideline - you can be earlier or later than what is suggested. Hibby just wants to do some sleeping in the morning.

1800: Arrive

0300: Leave

1000: Arrive

0300: Leave

1000: Arrive

1500: Wrap up, game presentation, presentation of “prizes”

1700: Hometime!

If you want to come and play, add your name below or send an email to 57north-discuss@lists.57north.co

• Hibby
• Nordin
• Isandor
• Sam + 3/4

I have shamelessly stolen these from [http://hackandtell.org/ Hack && Tell] as I think they're great, and tweaked them a little.

An important part of removing obstacles to a great community is having a small set of social rules. The Recurse Center's manual does a great job defining these, so we've forked parts for this section.

The rules are intended to be lightweight, and to make more explicit certain social norms that are normally implicit. Most of our social rules really boil down to “don't be a jerk” or “don't be annoying.” Of course, almost nobody sets out to be a jerk or annoying, so telling people not to be jerks isn't a very productive strategy. That's why our social rules are designed to curtail specific behavior we've found to be destructive to a supportive, productive, and fun learning environment.

No feigning surprise. The first rule means you shouldn't act surprised when people say they don't know something. This applies to both technical things (“What?! I can't believe you don't know what the stack is!”) and non-technical things (“You don't know who RMS is?!”). Feigning surprise has absolutely no social or educational benefit: When people feign surprise, it's usually to make them feel better about themselves and others feel worse. And even when that's not the intention, it's almost always the effect.

No well-actually's A well-actually happens when someone says something that's almost - but not entirely - correct, and you say, “well, actually…” and then give a minor correction. This is especially annoying when the correction has no bearing on the actual conversation. This doesn't mean we aren't about truth-seeking or that we don't care about being precise. Almost all well-actually's in our experience are about grandstanding, not truth-seeking.

No subtle -isms Our last social rule bans subtle racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other kinds of bias. This one is different from the rest, because it covers a class of behaviors instead of one very specific pattern.

Subtle -isms are small things that make others feel uncomfortable, things that we all sometimes do by mistake. For example, saying “It's so easy my grandmother could do it” is a subtle -ism. Like the other three social rules, this one is often accidentally broken. Like the other three, it's not a big deal to mess up – you just apologize and move on.

If you see a subtle -ism at the gamejam, you can point it out to the relevant person, either publicly or privately, or you can ask one of the organizers to say something. After this, we ask that all further discussion move off of public channels. If you are a third party, and you don't see what could be biased about the comment that was made, feel free to talk to the organizers. Please don't say, “Comment X wasn't homophobic!” Similarly, please don't pile on to someone who made a mistake. The “subtle” in “subtle -isms” means that it's probably not obvious to everyone right away what was wrong with the comment.

57North does not tolerate harassment in any form.

Harassment includes (but is not limited to) offensive comments related to gender, gender identity, gender presentation, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion; sexual images in public spaces; deliberate intimidation, stalking, or following; harassing photography or recording; sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact or unwelcome sexual attention.

If you are being harassed in a our space, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact the organisers immediately (either grab one of us in person, or send us an email at ctte-private@lists.57north.co). You do *not* need to be the target of harassment to speak up. Making ours the best possible community is everyone's responsibility.

If an incident is reported during an event, the organizers will be happy to help participants contact venue security or local law enforcement, provide escorts, or otherwise assist those experiencing harassment to feel safe for the duration of the event.

We will respect confidentiality requests for the purpose of protecting victims of abuse. At our discretion, we may publicly name a person about whom we’ve received harassment complaints, or privately warn third parties about them, if we believe that doing so will increase the safety of members or the general public. We will not name harassment victims without their affirmative consent.

Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately.

If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from the space and events and identification of the participant as a harasser to other group members or the general public.