Fun Times at GDC
March 9th, 2007So, GDC was essentially everything I expected it to be. A lot less noisy and more developer-centred than E3, and therefore better. In my extremely subjective view, anyway.
I went to the awards show, and saw Tim Schafer make a lot of obviously rehearsed jokes on stage while attempting to MC, as well as a bunch of indie games (some even made by students) that put my present work to shame. I saw Shigeru Miyamoto’s keynote speech, in which he spent most of his time talking about his wife. I went to a bunch of lectures, most of which discussed stuff I essentially already knew through reading about it over the internet, but were interesting to watch regardless. Ernest Adams’s lecture on interactive storytelling was my personal favourite, particularly since he talked a lot about games without challenges, an area I seem to have been exploring as of late. Another favourite of mine was a panel summarizing ten academic papers written about games, which gave me a sudden urge to start considering graduate school (albeit definitely not in the immediate future).
And of course, I reunited with many of my buddies from Telltale, and got to meet Marek Bronstring and Dave Gilbert in person, the latter of whom I ended up talking to for quite a long time and finding a lot of common ground with. (Now all I need to do is, uh, actually play his games.) It was definitely fun times. Don’t you just wish you were there?
March 10th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Yes.
March 10th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Also yes.
March 12th, 2007 at 6:13 am
Also three, yes. Nice meeting you too, Deidra.
And yeesh, John. You have a way of popping up everywhere I go. *wave*
March 12th, 2007 at 6:14 am
I still have to play YOUR games too.
March 13th, 2007 at 8:15 am
I’m like a bad penny. I always turn up.
March 13th, 2007 at 8:30 am
“an MC is a hip hop rhymer. RAPPERS ARE NOT MC’S. MC’s are from the Hip Hop Genre, Which is completely different than Rap. Rappers rhyme about gold jewelry, loose women, and gang-banging on machine-produced beats. MC’s rhyme about real life, everday life, on beats produced by DJ’s. an MC(master of ceremones or Mic Controller) is the main man of the hip hop show/album”
…Now it makes sense.
Games without challenges? Is that just a matter of defining “challenge”, or actually games without anything remotely like a challenge? It’s just that I can’t possibly imagine such a thing?
March 13th, 2007 at 9:19 am
What he meant by “challenges” were things that obstruct your progress in the game, i.e. completing such challenges successfully earns you the right to keep playing. Remove that, and you have something akin to virtual tourism. Which is actually quite fun in and of itself, or so he would argue.
March 13th, 2007 at 11:12 am
He referred to Farcry, and how beautiful it was and how he just wanted to wander around and explore. “But, ” he lamented. “I couldn’t take five steps without some asshole trying to blow my head off.”
I see his point.
March 15th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Sometimes I wish games like that would have additional modes of play that WOULD let you explore an environment. It could be an unlockable option, like you can only free roam a level after completing it, but that would still be something.
March 18th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Must have been fun. I find the lack of pictures saddening, though (which is pretty unlike Dave Gilbert’s site).