Jeppe Carlson (Playdead): 4:30pm
(official GDC brief) (note: I was 5 minutes late)
SUMMARY:
puzzle designer discusses his process for designing much-lauded physics puzzles in recent indie game hit, Limbo.
EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVE:
Mostly interesting to hear about the tools they used. One of their programmers created an AI element which automatically playtests the level every time you compile it (run the level, and instantly see what most players would do in it). I think this was a huge insight into why the game turned out so well. Ingenius idea (to simulate the average player). Read the rest of this entry »
Chris Hecker (definition six, inc.), Kyle Gabler (2D Boy), Matthew Wegner (Flashbang Studios), Kyle Gray (Tomorrow Corporation), George Fan (PopCap Games) and Brad Wardell (Stardock) : 3pm -4pm
(official GDC brief) (note: I was 5 minutes late)
SUMMARY:
Each speaker described a game they’d made (or prototyped) which they considered a complete failure. They went into detail about why they exactly they thought it failed.
EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVE:
Some very interesting stories about their quick prototypes (much like the exercise I’d quickly whip up for various instructors at OSU’s Ecampus), and a strong theme around “get to prototype asap, and start testing it.” Read the rest of this entry »
Jason Booth (Harmonix Music Systems) and Sylvain Dubrofsky (Harmonix Music Systems): 1:30am – 2:30am
(official GDC brief)
SUMMARY:
I went to this because I’m a big Rock Band fan. Was hoping they’d expose their development process, but they didn’t really go into useful detail.
EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVE:
Hard to say really. They have a lot of cooks. They made a lot of prototypes. They didn’t have time for a lot of careful testing. There are lessons to be learned, but this talk wasn’t as directly useful as others.
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(many speakers) 12am – 1:00pm
(official GDC brief)
SUMMARY:
A series of respected speakers gave “5 minute/20 slides” mini-speeches, to explain “how they play.” They mostly offered personal philosophy and arty thoughts.
EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVE:
It is interesting to note that many of these game developers mentioned that they think the modern U.S. educational system is broken…
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Clint Hocking (LucasArts): 10:30am – 11:30am
(official GDC brief)
SUMMARY:
This talk builds on Chris Hecker’s question “How Do Games Mean.” (which is a play on words. not “what do they mean,” but “how?”)
The gist of Hocking’s talk was to push for an answer to this question by studying the current dynamics that create meaning in games. He focused on the ways editing is known to create unique meaning in the medium of film, and suggested we need to find similar mechanisms for conveying meaning in gameplay.
EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: Read the rest of this entry »
Satoru Iwata (Nintendo): 9am – 10am
(official GDC brief)
(it occured to me that from OSU’s perspective: my notes and personal perspective might seem useless. So I thought I should try to explain how this relates to the Ecampus perspective – which turned into a huge rant unto itself)
EDUCATION PERSPECTIVE:
1)It is interesting to consider Nintendo’s transition from old-hardware business models into modern-online territory (sort of like education’s transition from on-campus to online?). it’s fairly widely known that Nintendo built their legacy product by product, by re-purposing existing hardware components and then creating innovative games to make the hardware look good. Their games expertly engage the player, but the key to their success is that their hardware was cheaper to manufacture (existing calculator parts, cartidges from factories they owned, etc.). Competitors tend to gamble the farm on expensive (often unstable) innovations, and hope someone else can make nice software.
The key point for online learning is really: Engage your audience with expert experience design, if you want to sell them on whatever platform.
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One-Page Designs
(GDC Summary)
My Summary:
Probably the most useful talk I attended. Basically nobody reads design docs, so it’s more useful to make a poster which will attract attention, and convey the core ideas/vision. Lots of thoughts on the presentation of information. (slides posted on his website)
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From Metroid to Tomodachi Collection to WarioWare: Different Approaches for Different Audiences
(GDC Summary)
my Summary:
Yoshio Sakamoto talks about the path that brought him here (teen detective games to metroid to wario). A charming dude with some interesting stories/inspirations.
(Some news services later claimed that his translator got several things backwards. Not 100% i understand the confusion. but, i believe he said the new Metroid:Other M game would have been purely 2d side scroller, like the original, but the translator said “on rails” which made many think of no movement controls at all. which would have been weird.)
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Creating Multi-touch, Multi-user Games on Microsoft Surface
rm301 (sponsored) (GDC Summary)
Eric Havir (MS Surface) , Dyala Kattan-Wright (Carnegie Mellon University – D&D), Gretchen Richter De Medeiros (MS Surface), Joe Engalan (Vectorform)
My Summary:
Pretty damned useful sales pitch, actually. All my questions were answered, and I was left pretty excited by the possibilities. If this catches on. Later I talked to some industry mocap people and my excitement was reeled back in a bit (because they can track more dots with single $500 camera than this entire $10,000 5 camera system can handle).
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Answering the AI Wish List
rm310 – 5:15 (15 min. late – had to change buildings) (GDC summary)
My Summary:
Uh, basically this talk was way over my head. But I found it fun to sit in on a couple talks like this, just to see how the big brains rollllll. when the roll out. the discussion. stuff. uh…
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