I'm interested in hacking games on mobile phones.
Pinboard
I prefer the open sourced game engine Cocos2D on the iPhone. I know a lot of you don't like the iPhone, but it's the best tool for the job (don't use a hammer to screw a screw, etc.) http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/archives/73139
Anti-Patterns
Turning any game hacking session into a cheezy pr showcase of some game engine by a private company. If they want to pay us to showcase their products we can do a timesharing thing where sudo room members (male and female) show up in heels and short skirts and flip powerpoints at people. That's both uncreative and inhibitive to people without lots of money. [iPhone does charge $99 a year for dev but that's it and provides excellent documentation. a hackerspace shouldn't ask people to blow $400 for software to do a simple hack sessio] I've seen tons of great stuff get done with Cocos2D. It's easy to use.
- showcasing some kind of private serious game / private mobile game company that exists. this will only result in maximum boringness.