gfxgangsta

Overall, I would say there is no level of knowledge *required*. You might even learn something new. (i.e. I got started with Unity at a jam). But I think it's important to communicate this to potential teammates. Usually there's a bit of mingling that happens during the first 30-60 minutes of a jam, and you can use that time to find a team in which you fit in.

Any tips for a first timer?

Two things:

1. I don't mean to nitpick, but Infinity Blade isn't really turn-based. But perhaps your game will be.

2. If this is your first game ever, I suggest starting with something less ambitious. Infinity Blade reportedly took 5 months to develop, with a team of 12 people (http://www.joystiq.com/2010/12/14/first-infinity-blade-update-next-week-multiplayer-coming-soon/). Perhaps it's best if you start with simpler gameplay and with 2D.

I encourage you to create your game, but I also encourage you to get more experience first. As for the engine, I think Unity would be a good one to try, since it's easy to get started, and there are several tutorials on YouTube. It also exports to both iOS and Android (for a fee). You could also go with UDK or even a different engine, but you'd have to look at their specs to see if it's what you want.

EDIT: HappyCoder beat me to it, but I'm keeping my post to second his opinion... start with smaller projects first... but most important, *finish* them

I really like the idea of a monthly theme.

+1 on ByteTroll's request for topics like advanced rendering techniques... sometimes these are covered in different forum posts, but it would be great to see articles.

Other theme ideas:

-experimental gameplay

-native code for mobile

-a specific OS

-build systems (assets/data/code)

-use of scripting languages

-script language compiler implementation

-scripting integration with game engines

-making a game in a tool not meant for games (like Excel or Powerpoint)

-monetization

-"three-chord song" (many musicians write songs that just use different combinations of the same three chords.. perhaps three simple mechanics could be mixed and matched to make a great game that seems complex, but is really made up of just those three basic elements)

-animation (UV, vertex, skeletal,etc)

-texturing (programmers could chime in with procedural texture generation or articles about packing textures into an atlas)

-specific game genres (racing, shooters, etc)

-postmortem month (what went right/wrong/etc during someone's project)

-hardware (something you tried with Sifteo Cubes or Oculus Rift)

-motion control (gameplay opportunities, filtering motion input, etc)

If you do end up using ETC1, just know that it doesn't support Alpha, but there are workarounds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson_Texture_Compression

Thank you very much!