The IGC Discord Quick-Start Guide (Patreon)

Hello! Here's the introductory guide for our Discord... This will be going out to new members as an automatic message, but here's an easier-to-read version with some pictures. Take a look to find out what we've got going on... and a big thank you to all of the members who make these features work.

Welcome to the Indie Game Clinic private Discord community! Thanks for becoming a member.

For some new members, this is the first Discord server they've joined, and that can be overwhelming. If there's too much going on, you can set channels to not show notifcations for new messages (or click "all read" on a whole category as and when you need to). Really important events have a schedule listing (right at the top of the channel list) and you can set alerts from there. Try to think of the server as a cafe, a drop-in-workshop or maker space, and not as some kind of magazine publication where you need to read every part of it.

Here are a few things you can do to quickly get up-to-speed on some of the features the server has to offer.

General Help and Learning Resources:

1. Head over to ⁠#helper_roles to see a list of taggable roles, either to assign yourself, or use when you need help.

2. When you feel your game is ready for Indies Under the Knife, the members-only submission form is pinned in the ⁠#playtesting_and_qa channel. You are welcome to post projects at any stage, including prototypes, or to make specific requests (like critiquing a trailer or steam page).

Project Management/Finishing Games:

1. Take a look at the projects forum over in ⁠#project-updates. Here you can start an ongoing thread for your games; like a semi-private devlog which only people here can see. It's also helpful for setting up playtests (or linking to when you post requests in ⁠playtesting-and-qa).

2. 🔜weekly-plans is like a text-based, rolling Scrum standup for the week. Some people find it helpful to do this as a sort of "public to-do list" for the coming week. A new thread should open automatically each Monday.

3. Check the events list for group calls with other members; sometimes members run accountability check-ins, standup calls etc. Anyone can currently set these up, so feel free to organize one for your time zone if it doesn't already exist.

Check the "chat by genre" forum to find folks working on similar games to you. It helps to work with people who are dealing with similar design problems as you, and to discuss design problems with people who are invested in the same genres etc.

General Usage:

1. Visit topical chat for subdiscipline-specific talk/advice e.g. art and animation or engines and tech. You can use these to for targeted help with an issue, or general discussion of the topic.

2. Most channels are usually slow enough to chat at your own pace, but considering opening a topical thread within the channel if there are multiple competing conversations starting up.

3. There is a special channel called pride posting, no critique where you can post games/art etc. you don't want feedback on. We make the assumption that work posted in any other channel is open for (kind, well-explained) feedback.

4. The ⁠⭐starboard aggregates resources which other users have found useful; please only use the ⭐ emoji to send things if they're likely to benefit the majority of devs (e.g. no ⭐s for anything too engine or genre-specific).

Social Stuff:

Please remember to thank other users when you can. We use a bot to keep track of (and reward) members who are consistently helpful to others.

There are some member-organized "show and tell" meetups, which you can see from the Events. These are a space for people to get feedback on something (games/tech/arts) and to practice presenting/speaking, too. As with all of the other member-organized events; you can start your own if these times don't work for you.

The open meetings are organized in quite a casual and ad-hoc way. Try not to get too reliant on a specific mod or member being there to kick things off; treat it like you would a study group at school or college and just start/take turns as you would in an in-real-life setting.

- Please read the rules. They should be reasonably obvious based on the values expressed on the channel and the podcasts, but sometimes people bring bad habits with them from other communities. Mods are volunteers, so I don't expect them to go through lengthy processes of working out if someone is being deliberately obnoxious when it's easier to just not give people the benefit of the doubt.

I.G.C. Content Discussion Channels:

The channels at the bottom are for discussing the content of IGC video essays and the books/games features on Game Developers' Library and One More Run! You can use these to discuss the current GDL book, suggest future books, or talk about the game(s) currently being played for OMR! The Video Topic Discussions forum is also sometimes used for gathering thoughts/questions before a video is scripted.