Hey everyone! Historically, I haven't been much of a forum user -- but I've been relatively active on the Discord for the past few months. If we have met: Hello, if we haven't: Nice to meet you!.

I just thought I'd let everyone know about something which I'm going to start doing as of this coming Friday (ie. 1st of September): I'm going to start making "one thing a month" (maybe you're familiar with https://onegameamonth.com ?), and I figured that it could be a good idea to share this idea with other people in the Handmade Network to see if we could get a little community going.

I'm someone who has historically struggled with finishing projects (I love over scoping), so I'm doing this challenge because I want to become someone who DOES finish things. If you're in a similar boat, or maybe just looking for a reason to work on a project, or make a team, then maybe you'd like to do this too.

I bounced the idea off of Ryan in the Discord briefly the other day, and it sounds like if there is interest in this sort of thing it could become an officially sanctioned activity -- or maybe at the least get its own channel/forum on the server.

Here are the "rules" which I have in mind (tentatively), if other people would like to join me:

- We would start this coming September
- You may form teams if that's what you're in to
- You can build anything, although it'd probably make sense for it to be software related (tools or games are probably the most standard candidates)
- You have a month to work on your project: scope can be however big you want it to be (though I would advise starting with something as small as possible...)
- Your work _should_ embody the Handmade philosophy to some extent, but this is up to interpretation
- You can dedicate as much or as little time as you would like. (I'm planning on dedicating 1 full weekend a month + 2 weeks of part-time work as a minimum, but this is totally up to you)

If we do get a group of us doing this, I think it would be good to have some way of collecting weekly progress updates on how everyone is doing -- to help with motivation.

Anyway.

If anyone is at all interested, sound off in a reply to let me know.

Sounds like fun, I'm in!

I'll give it a shot if we get enough people involved.

That would be fun. I was just thinking of trying to do something similar, make something each week like a prototype or something just for creative fun. But monthly sounds more reasonable and allows for bigger projects. I was inspired by this talk , where he made a small game in 8hrs.

It would be good if you could share the binaries at the end (for whatever platform) and get feedback also share the source code? Was also thinking it could be a reusable header file like the stb libraries.

I like the idea of forming teams. It'd be a nice opportunity to maybe work together on something where the stakes aren't so high or it isn't necessarily a long-term commitment, so the barrier to teamwork is lower.

Sounds cool! I'm definitely interested

Sounds interesting, but I already have a project to work on. Though if it becomes a regular thing I might join later.

OK everyone!

We've now got a channel in the Handmade discord: #one-thing-a-month.

If you want to participate: join up there, and introduce yourself. Also mention if you want to join a team.

OliverMarsh
It would be good if you could share the binaries at the end (for whatever platform) and get feedback also share the source code? Was also thinking it could be a reusable header file like the stb libraries.

This is a good idea. If people are actually interested in participating, I'll make sure this happens.

Sorry for the bump, AGAIN.

Here's the sign-up sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadshe...ilczGyyOlvUgxx-g/edit?usp=sharing

Heads up, I'm probably not going to maintain this thread going forward so if you are interested in participating you really need to be in the Discord.

Discord invite link if you want to join: https://discord.gg/awz66AN

TLDR down the very bottom.

So I'm going to start posting any official announcements in here, as well as in the Discord channel -- I don't want anyone who doesn't frequent there to feel left out (and I'm kind of worried that my messages are getting drowned out from the discussion).

Firstly: I was not expecting such a great turnout, we're sitting at around 25 people at the moment. I was expecting about 3 others. This is great, but I was not prepared for it.

If we continue into October and onward, I plan on running at least one dedicated "team building" session to enable people to have an easy way to form groups of similar skills and desires to work together in. Obviously this didn't happen this month, and I'm a bit concerned that people are not going to form teams and subsequently won't form groups.

So here's the deal: column E in the sign up spreadsheet now contains somewhere for you to place some information about yourself. If you still are trying to find a team (which I think is most of the people who wanted to merge into teams) then you should do the following:

a) Write down your information into column E, including your experience levels, what you're interested in working on (games? software? a story about a mouse making its way down a factory line only to be spilt Mountain Dew on by a factory worker before being shipped off to a loving owner who attempts to make it whole again?)

b) Find other people who have written in column E and have a similar experience and preferences to you (ie. Maybe you REALLY don't like Mountain Dew...) and send them a message through Discord (or if you want to do it publicly, in the #one-thing-a-month channel).

Secondly: I want to make sure that people feel some sort of accountability (or maybe a nicer way to put it is "support") when taking part in OTAM. What I would like to do, is have everyone:

• Go to the second sheet of the OTAM spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadshe...zGyyOlvUgxx-g/edit#gid=1609126269)
• Write down the basic information about your project
• Then, at the end of every week you should write a little update in the spreadsheet about what you've done. Even if it's nothing. I will get in touch with people who do not post updates!
• I want to host a little "end of September OTAM party" when we're done, hopefully it'll involve everyone using everyone else's projects -- maybe some demos. I'm not sure what it'll look like, we'll see what I come up with.

I think the feeling of seeing other people making progress will be very motivating for those of us who get a bit put off at times when doing this sort of work.

Anyway -- please feel free to send me any feedback / suggestions you have on things I can make better about OTAM.

Happy hacking! (and make sure you make your projects small enough to finish in a month!)

TLDR:

• If you are looking for a team, check out column E in main OTAM sign-up spreadsheet and write down your details / find someone with a similar skill level / experience. https://docs.google.com/spreadshe...zQyJ_cilczGyyOlvUgxx-g/edit#gid=0
  
• If you are working on a project, please go to the Project Info sheet and write down what you are working on. (https://docs.google.com/spreadshe...zGyyOlvUgxx-g/edit#gid=1609126269)
  
• I would like people to post updates on how their project is going at the end of every week. Do so in the relevant columns next to your project's description in the Project Info sheet. I will be reminding people.
  

Hey everyone. It's your friendly neighborhood paked here.

First week of the event is over.

That means that you need to post your project updates in the OTAM September spreadsheet!

https://docs.google.com/spreadshe...ilczGyyOlvUgxx-g/edit?usp=sharing

Give a quick description of what you've done, and put in any cries for help should you feel the need.

(and if you want, feel free to cross-post into this thread or the Discord!)

If you're struggling to figure out where to put your update, please reach out to me wherever and I'll be happy to help out.

Quick ping for anyone who gets their OTAM-news from this thread: Week 2 is over, please write a project update in the relevant spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadshe...ilczGyyOlvUgxx-g/edit?usp=sharing