Mozilla Festival 2011 – Learn How To Make Games

Mozilla (creators of the Firefox web browser) run a yearly 3-day festival in London that brings together developers, journalists, educators, young people interested in media and many more. It’s a place to share ideas, invent and prototype solutions, create and educate each other about the tools to survive in the web-centric world.

This year’s theme is Media, Freedom and The Web with the focus is on journalism but there are plenty of opportunities to get involved for those of us into gaming. It runs over the weekend 4th to 6th November 2011 at Ravensbourne College in North Greenwich.

The Hive London Pop-Up is running from 12pm to 5pm on the 4th and 5th November. A group of educational organisations will teach young people how to:

• produce a podcast
• edit an interactive video
• develop a mobile app
• design an online game
• remix a website

You can sign up for Hive London here.

The Learning Labs are a series of short sessions that will teach you a new skill. Many of these are journalism-oriented and the two games-related courses are:

• Beginning Development for HTML5 Games
• Convert a single-player game into a multi-player one

And finally, the Design Challenges are for creative people to build something during the festival. Highlights:

• Games that rock the browser – Port a classic game to run directly in a web browser
• Webmaking with Hackasaurus: How can we teach the world to hack? – Use Hackasaurus tools to build games and turn the open web into a giant learning, making, and play space.

Event though the festival ain’t cheap at £60 per ticket, it’s a great opportunity to learn new skills and meet the people who make things happen. I’ll be there.

Get more info from the Mozilla Festival site and check out the Mozilla Festival blog for updates.