| Gosh, it’s taken me nearly a week to write about GDC! I’ll start by saying one thing; it really takes it out of you, especially if you catch the GDC bug! Jet lag and 24 hour delayed flights aside, there are a lot of sessions to attend, people to meet, parties/ events to go to etc. but yeah, I could have done more than I did. I learned a lot. First things first; get a flight two days before the event, not one. When you miss your connecting flight, you miss out on the first day of the event! Not cool when GDC newbies and indie developers are attending welcoming parties and you’re not! Boo! This also gives you time to get over jet lag and get your bearings around San Francisco, if you’re new to the city that is. On Tuesday, I got right into the swing of things and met a few other friendly developers and attended some awesome sessions. Tuesday’s sessions were mainly focussed on writing, so I found them especially helpful as I am more an artist than a writer! Telltale Games had an interesting discussion on When Story is the Gameplay (you can catch it here). I scribbled down so many notes on this, like “This is all awesome information!” Characters can be the puzzle element of a game, and the choices can bring the fun. Who cares if this isn’t deemed to be a game or not? If people enjoy playing, have fun and are entertained, being labelled “game” really doesn’t matter (though please remind me of this once my visual novel has launched as people tell me “it’s not a game.”). That night was the IMGA awards and I got to see lots of famous indie developers receive well earnt awards. It was a small venue, but felt very cool to be there! They had some weird, funky pop art on the walls, plus the sunset that night was simply beautiful! (see right) Wednesday’s sessions really heated up with Hearthstone and Curiosity, Courage and Camouflage: Revealing the Gaming Habits of Teenage Girls. Two completely different topics, but both highly engaging and interesting. Guess what? Hearthstone’s UI is incredible and teenage girls play games! But seriously, they were both really inspirational and I’m so glad I was able to get in as they were completely full! |  |
I also saw a visual art session on Believable Humans, which went into how games like The Last of Us and Uncharted, achieve some of the best human emotions in games. Then Mark Sagar, from the University of Auckland, showed us BabyX, which was so amazing yet bizarre; it made me think AI really is something we can accomplish. On a side note, I saw ExMachina before I went to GDC, and that was on the same level of amazing yet bizarre; though BabyX is real… like, in our world right now! Anyway, it was mentioned during the session that creating humans this believable is actually an understudied area, so if this really intrigues you, look into it! They need you!
Wednesday night is when the GDC bug/ flu got me, so that was a bummer as I’d hoped to have dinner with some friends. I managed to attend all the sessions I wanted to on Thursday, apart from the ones that ran at the same time as others; I’ll have to catch up with them on the vault… But yes, there was a great one from an ex-Pixar artist who worked on Counterspy. That started with his work at Pixar, including WALL.E and The Incredibles, which left me simply in awe. It was great to see how his journey has lead him to create the cool, slick Counterspy, but I loved hearing about his Pixar past!
The final session I went to was The Art of Monument Valley and, as you can probably imagine, it was incredible. Truly inspirational and a great help to any indie developers or artists. My take away from that was “aesthetics is free marketing”; a game with good aesthetics will sell itself, and that’s something I always tried my best to do when working on App store icons, presentations and store fronts at Chillingo. It’s something I will do for my game, and continue to do into the future.
Wednesday night is when the GDC bug/ flu got me, so that was a bummer as I’d hoped to have dinner with some friends. I managed to attend all the sessions I wanted to on Thursday, apart from the ones that ran at the same time as others; I’ll have to catch up with them on the vault… But yes, there was a great one from an ex-Pixar artist who worked on Counterspy. That started with his work at Pixar, including WALL.E and The Incredibles, which left me simply in awe. It was great to see how his journey has lead him to create the cool, slick Counterspy, but I loved hearing about his Pixar past!
The final session I went to was The Art of Monument Valley and, as you can probably imagine, it was incredible. Truly inspirational and a great help to any indie developers or artists. My take away from that was “aesthetics is free marketing”; a game with good aesthetics will sell itself, and that’s something I always tried my best to do when working on App store icons, presentations and store fronts at Chillingo. It’s something I will do for my game, and continue to do into the future.
Thursday night was lovely; I got to see more of San Francisco with friends, then went to watch the world premiere of GameLoading: Rise of the Indies, but sadly I didn’t sleep that night and my cold/ flu got the better of me. Friday was mainly spent in bed, though I got to check out the end of the expo. Still, I wished I could have done so much more. If I’m lucky enough to go back to GDC, I would like to do more networking and meet with press. I didn’t realise how soon those guys get booked up; I gotta be quick! Though, without a prototype to show yet, perhaps it was too early anyway. Fingers crossed for next year!
So, since returning, I have been sorting paperwork, getting lots of rest, really thinking about my game’s art style/ aesthetics and coding my game. The GDC bug has gone now, though I’m sure I’ll be seeing plenty of bugs in the upcoming weeks!
So, since returning, I have been sorting paperwork, getting lots of rest, really thinking about my game’s art style/ aesthetics and coding my game. The GDC bug has gone now, though I’m sure I’ll be seeing plenty of bugs in the upcoming weeks!