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Why Now Is the Best Time Ever to Be a Game Developer

Ingress: Design Principles Behind Google's Massively Multiplayer Geo Game

Playing with 'Game'

Gathering Your Party with Project Eternity (GDC Next 10)

D4: Dawn of the Dreaming Director's Drama (GDC Next 10)

Using Plot Devices to Create Gameplay in Storyteller (GDC Next 10)

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Making CounterSpy (GDC Next 10)

Luck and Skill in Games

Minimalist Game Design for Mobile Devices

Broken Age: Rethinking a Classic Genre for the Modern Era (GDC Next 10)


GDC 2011 Category

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Creating an Emotional Rollercoaster in HEAVY RAIN
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SKU#: GDC11-12464
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Description: Creating an Emotional Rollercoaster in HEAVY RAIN
SPEAKER/S: David Cage (Quantic Dream)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Wednesday 4:30- 5:30 Room 3007, West Hall 3rd Fl.
TRACK / FORMAT: Game Design , Production / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: In creating HEAVY RAIN, we tried to build an experience entirely based on interactive storytelling, emotional involvement and contextual actions. This new approach forced us to reconsider many traditional paradigms of video games often considered as set in stone. Through the analysis of concrete examples from HEAVY RAIN, we will show how key scenes were conceived, what emotional impact was expected and how the game used visuals, narrative and game play to achieve emotional involvement. Through comparisons with traditional game design, we will try to discover why video games in general struggle to tell compelling stories and what solutions can be found.
TAKEAWAY: Attendees will gain an insight into the key principles and techniques used to create HEAVY RAIN, what led some radical choices regarding interface, game over, interactivity, how we created an experience where player's actions have tangible consequences on the plot. Based on concrete examples, tips and tricks will be revealed about how we dealt to tell a multiple branch story and build characterization through game play rather than cut scenes, and we will expose how we worked to make the player care for the characters, which is of paramount importance for any type of games. With the hope of offering an inspiring and thought-provoking presentation, we will try to foresee how games could evolve to offer more subtlety and complexity in matter of narrative and emotion.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: This session is aimed at designers interested in developing storytelling, emotion and characterization in their games. No specific design skill is necessary to attend, anybody interested in interactive storytelling, emotion and how games could evolve in the future is welcome.


Remaking the WORLD OF WARCRAFT through CATACLYSM
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SKU#: GDC11-12463
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Description: Remaking the WORLD OF WARCRAFT through CATACLYSM
SPEAKER/S: Tom Chilton (Blizzard Entertainment)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Wednesday 1:30- 2:30 Room 3014, West Hall 3rd Fl.
TRACK / FORMAT: Game Design / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: In creating the CATACLYSM expansion for WORLD OF WARCRAFT, we endeavored to re-create the existing core game world in addition to providing new content for fans of the game. We felt the time had come to rejuvenate aging parts of the game world for existing, former, and new players while at the same time preserving and even enhancing what made the game world special from the start. Many difficult decisions had to be made while going down this path, so we'd like to share our approach to navigating those challenges in terms of design philosophy and execution.
TAKEAWAY: Attendees will gain an insight into what approach we took, what works, and what doesn't seem to work when tackling the challenge of breathing new life into aging game content. In addition, attendees will gain insight into the blizzard team structure, how it operates at various levels, and how that contributed to making the CATACLYSM expansion possible.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: This session is primarily intended for designers and producers that at some point expect to update game content while still retaining the soul of the original. Many of the lessons we learned are potentially applicable to a variety of game genres, and some likely hold true regardless of whether the updates are made via a live game or a sequel.


THE SIMS 3 Create-a-Sim User Experience
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SKU#: GDC11-12462
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Description: THE SIMS 3 Create-a-Sim User Experience
SPEAKER/S: Sammi Kim (Electronic Arts)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Friday 2:00- 3:00 Room 3020, West Hall 3rd Fl.
TRACK / FORMAT: Game Design / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: THE SIMS 3 is notably one of the most interface heavy AAA titles in gaming. Create-a-Sim is a massive portion of the game where players spend a substantial amount of time, and also its own standalone application. This talk will go in depth into technical and creative challenges in delivering a highly customizable user experience in CAS - that our novice players, longtime sims fans, and well established modding community would appreciate. We'll explore how CAS maintained a balance between familiarity and innovation and most importantly - remained fun. We'll also go into how various functional & visual design principles were applied to enhance the overall user experience.
TAKEAWAY: Attendees will gain an insight on how to find that balance between creating an innovative interface and maintaining a sense of familiarity for longtime fans. They'll also learn to work within tech and time constraints to deliver more features and content in sequels on any platform. They'll also gain knowledge on how traditional interaction and visual design principles can be applied to games too, and how UI Art/Design can be used to bridge the gap between the player and the computer screen.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: This talk is suitable for game developers who have interest in creating sensible and fun user experiences, but can be most effective for people interested in the UI or game design discipline, and in learning about complex character creation systems.


A Debate: Are Social Games Legitimate? [SOGS Vision]
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SKU#: GDC11-12457
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Description: A Debate: Are Social Games Legitimate? [SOGS Vision]
SPEAKER/S: Daniel James (Three Rings), Ian Bogost (The Georgia Institute of Technology), Curt Bererton (ZipZapPlay Inc.), Margaret Robertson (Hide&Seek) and Nabeel Hyatt (Zynga)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Tuesday 11:15-12:15 Room 134, North Hall
TRACK / FORMAT: Social & Online Games Summit / Panel
DESCRIPTION: Social games are the hottest thing in gaming right now, and have come closer to achieving mass market appeal than anything the game industry has ever done. But they also have many detractors, who find them shallow and crass... or worse, manipulative and evil. Are social games the work of artists, or the spawn or soulless entrepreneurs interested in nothing besides the bottom line? Come watch the sparks fly as Nabeel Hyatt of Zynga and Curt Bererton of ZipZapPlay go head to head with Ian Bogost of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Daniel James of Three Rings. Moderated by Margaret Robertson of Hide & Seek.


Pioneers, Promise & Possibilities: Fitting Together Videogames & Health [SGS Health]
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SKU#: GDC11-12456
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Description: Pioneers, Promise & Possibilities: Fitting Together Videogames & Health [SGS Health]
SPEAKER/S: Paul Tarini (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Monday 10:00-11:00 Room 308, South Hall
TRACK / FORMAT: Serious Games Summit / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: In 2004, America's largest foundation dedicated solely to health & healthcare of all Americans, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, began a multiyear investment supporting the notion that videogames, videogame technologies, and the community of developers and researchers driving them forward had great possibility to drive innovation in health & healthcare. This included support for the Games for Health Project, followed by the creation of a multi-million dollar Health Games Research grant program -- a University of California, Santa Barbara led portfolio of research projects around the country that are investigating the needs and outcomes of a wide variety of games for health.

In this talk, Paul Tarini, manager for the Pioneer Portfolio, the program team which spearheads the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's search for innovation, disruption, and breakthrough approaches to health & healthcare will discuss the thinking behind RWJF's interest in videogames and how they fit into the larger emerging picture for healthcare in the coming years.

While attendees will hear about the latest findings from Health Games Research and the Games for Health Project, the heart of this talk seeks to discuss two larger themes. First, what strategies help to bring together worlds that start light-years apart in culture, goals, and outcomes? Second, where is health potentially headed, as string of new technologies and practices including sensors, open source data sets, social networks, personalized data, health records, personal genomes, and new computing power completely change the landscape for how health is defined, sustained, and treated? By weaving these two issues together in more detail, the hope is to help developers focused on health & wellness products, services, and research better chart their own pioneering goals and approaches toward the promise & possibility of games for health.


ALAN WAKE: The Writer Who Made Us Rewrite Our Engine
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SKU#: GDC11-12451
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Description: ALAN WAKE: The Writer Who Made Us Rewrite Our Engine
SPEAKER/S: Markus Maki (Remedy Entertainment) and Olli Tervo (Remedy Entertainment)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Thursday 4:30- 5:30 Room 3007, West Hall 3rd Fl.
TRACK / FORMAT: Programming / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: The technology of ALAN WAKE was built from the ground up with half a dozen programmers in the course of 5 years of development. We cover the reasons why we decided to build new technology instead of iterating with MAX PAYNE's tech or licensing an engine. We explore how we built the technology and what were the biggest successes and problems we encountered on the way; for example why have open world technology in a linear story driven game. We look back at concrete approaches in technical design and programming techniques, as well as end results in a post mortem style.
TAKEAWAY: Hear about specific successes and problems Remedy met while developing a new technology and code base. Attendees will learn about the possible benefits one can get by starting a game engine from scratch, but also about the pitfalls the same choice will involve.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: This session is aimed at technology-oriented programmers and technical leads who are responsible for making technology decisions in a studio, as well as for programmers who do the actual design and implementation of an in-house game engine.


Realistic and Interactive Clothing in Epic Games’ “Samaritan” Demo Using NVIDIA APEX (Presented by NVIDIA)
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SKU#: GDC11-12450
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Description: Realistic and Interactive Clothing in Epic Games' Samaritan Demo Using NVIDIA APEX (Presented by NVIDIA)
SPEAKER/S: Dane Johnston (NVIDIA), Monier Maher (NVIDIA) and Jeremy Ernst (Epic Games)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Thursday 4:30- 5:30 Room 110, North Hall
TRACK / FORMAT: Visual Arts / Sponsored Session
DESCRIPTION: In this session, we will show how artists can generate realistic and interactive clothing using the APEX Clothing module. Step by step, we will demonstrate the full authoring pipeline, from DCC tools to final integration into a game engine (in this case Unreal Engine 3) and present how real clothing can provide a totally new cinematic game experience. This session introduces the full NVIDIA APEX suite of artist friendly tools and runtime libraries (Clothing, Destruction, Particles and Turbulence) which significantly speed up creation and inclusion of scalable, dynamic content without large engineering effort into any game engine.


The Technology Behind the DirectX 11 Unreal Engine Samaritan Demo (Presented by NVIDIA)
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SKU#: GDC11-12449
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Description: Stereoscopic 3D Demystified: From Theory to Implementation in STARCRAFT II (Presented by NVIDIA)
SPEAKER/S: Dominic Filion (Blizzard Entertainment) and Samuel Gateau (NVIDIA)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Thursday 1:30- 2:30 Room 110, North Hall
TRACK / FORMAT: Programming / Sponsored Session
DESCRIPTION: Stereoscopy is the study of techniques for creating the illusion of depth in an image. This field of study has been around since the 19th century, but has recently seen a resurgence in both movies and video games. This presentation will explore the theory of stereoscopy with a focus on computer graphics and real-time applications, to provide the required understanding of stereoscopy and how to make it work most effectively for end users. This will include a discussion on artistic concepts, with a comprehensive overview of the rendering techniques and challenges including examples on how these are solved with NVIDIAs stereoscopic solution 3D Vision. In addition, Dominic Filion will present a real world example of the challenges encountered during the implementation of stereo in STARCRAFT II.


Stereoscopic 3D Demystified: From Theory to Implementation in STARCRAFT II (Presented by NVIDIA)
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SKU#: GDC11-12448
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Description: Stereoscopic 3D Demystified: From Theory to Implementation in STARCRAFT II (Presented by NVIDIA)
SPEAKER/S: Dominic Filion (Blizzard Entertainment) and Samuel Gateau (NVIDIA)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Thursday 1:30- 2:30 Room 110, North Hall
TRACK / FORMAT: Programming / Sponsored Session
DESCRIPTION: Stereoscopy is the study of techniques for creating the illusion of depth in an image. This field of study has been around since the 19th century, but has recently seen a resurgence in both movies and video games. This presentation will explore the theory of stereoscopy with a focus on computer graphics and real-time applications, to provide the required understanding of stereoscopy and how to make it work most effectively for end users. This will include a discussion on artistic concepts, with a comprehensive overview of the rendering techniques and challenges including examples on how these are solved with NVIDIAs stereoscopic solution 3D Vision. In addition, Dominic Filion will present a real world example of the challenges encountered during the implementation of stereo in STARCRAFT II.


NVIDIA Tegra: Zooming to Bang Bang Racing & Next-Gen Mobile Gaming (Presented by NVIDIA)
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SKU#: GDC11-12447
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Description: NVIDIA Tegra: Zooming to Bang Bang Racing & Next-Gen Mobile Gaming (Presented by NVIDIA)
SPEAKER/S: Lars Bishop (NVIDIA) and Mike Clarke (Playbox Limited)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Thursday 10:30-11:30 Room 110, North Hall
TRACK / FORMAT: Programming / Sponsored Session
DESCRIPTION: Tegra is the processor powering super phones and tablets and enabling next-gen mobile gaming. NVIDIA is working with Playbox to bring the amazing Bang Bang Racing from PSN to Tegra powered mobile devices. Attend the session to: - Learn about porting games from PC and console to Android - Hear an honest and open discussion from Playbox on porting from PS3 to Tegra-Android - See NVIDIA's latest Android debugging and analysis tools For those really paying attention, there's even be a shot at walking away with a Tegra of your own!


NVIDIA Parallel Nsight: Accelerating GPU Development in BioWare’s DRAGON AGE 2 (Presented by NVIDIA)
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SKU#: GDC11-12445
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Description: NVIDIA Parallel Nsight: Accelerating GPU Development in BioWare's DRAGON AGE 2 (Presented by NVIDIA)
SPEAKER/S: Jeffrey Kiel (NVIDIA)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Thursday 9:00-10:00 Room 110, North Hall
TRACK / FORMAT: Programming / Sponsored Session
DESCRIPTION: Come see NVIDIA Parallel Nsight in action on DRAGON AGE 2 from BioWare. Parallel Nsight provides the first complete development environment for heterogeneous (CPU+GPU) platforms, integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio, for optimizing and debugging DirectX and CUDA applications. This is the world's first GPU hardware source debugger for HLSL graphics shaders, DirectCompute and CUDA C++ programs. Session attendees will see a live demo of Parallel Nsight running on BioWares DRAGON AGE 2, sharing the experience of using Parallel Nsight for graphics development on a modern, DirectX11 graphics engine. In addition, attendees will see the powerful DirectX 10 and 11 frame capture and analysis capabilities, GPU based pixel history and platform-level performance analysis tools that show computing workloads across the GPU and CPU.


Killer Portfolio or Portfolio Killer: Advice from Industry Artists (Part 1)
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SKU#: GDC11-12444
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Description: Killer Portfolio or Portfolio Killer: Advice from Industry Artists (Part 1)
SPEAKER/S: Greg Foertsch (Firaxis Games), Justin Thavirat (Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.), Jeremy Bennett (Valve), Wyeth Johnson (Epic Games), Shawn Robertson (Irrational Games) and Alison Kelly (Consultant)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Friday 11:50-12:40 Room 303, South Hall
TRACK / FORMAT: Game Career Seminar / Panel
DESCRIPTION: This is a two part panel consisting of five artists from Firaxis, Epic, Irrational, Blizzard and Valve. The first session will focus on the dos and donts when trying to get your portfolio noticed. Panelists will discuss common mistakes that most artists make, as well as some of the more unique approaches they have seen. Audience participation is encouraged during the Q&A session.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Students, education (i.e. faculty), anyone trying to break into the gaming industry through art, and HR.


XBLIG Success Stories - How to Make the Best of Microsoft's Self-publishing Service
Price:$3.95

SKU#: GDC11-12443
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Description: XBLIG Success Stories - How to Make the Best of Microsoft's Self-publishing Service
SPEAKER/S: Brandon Sheffield (Game Developer Magazine), Nathan Fouts (Mommy's Best Games, Inc.), Robert Boyd (Zeboyd Games), Ian Stocker (MagicalTimeBean) and James Silva (Ska Studios)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Friday 2:00- 2:50 Room 303, South Hall
TRACK / FORMAT: Game Career Seminar / Panel
DESCRIPTION: The Xbox Live Indie Games service represents the lowest barrier of entry to home console game development ever. If you can make your game on XNA, you can release it on the 360. It used to be that the service was a den of clones, bad platformers, and massage simulators, but more recently it has blossomed into an indie haven, with top-selling games actually providing a living to their makers. That's great and all, but how do you get anyone to notice your game once you've done it? What should you watch out for? How much should you charge? These questions will always be tough, but our panel of successful XBLIG developers is here to share wisdom, and answer your questions.


Green Light! Persuasion Skills to Put and Keep Your Project in the Fast Lane
Price:$3.95

SKU#: GDC11-12442
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Description: Green Light! Persuasion Skills to Put and Keep Your Project in the Fast Lane
SPEAKER/S: Richard Butterfield (Butterfield Speaks)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Thursday 10:30-11:30 Room 3020, West Hall 3rd Fl.
TRACK / FORMAT: Production , Business and Management / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: It takes the power of persuasion to put - and keep - your project in the fast lane of game development. You need to be able to pitch the project, tell the story, inspire continued participation and overcome objections. In this lecture/workshop, Butterfield will help you practice key skills that will supercharge your power to persuade.
- The Powerbite - a nifty short form template to answer crucial questions like: Why should I support your project?
- The Aspirational Story - future casting to capture the imagination of key audiences.
- The Meeting Prep - a powerful preparation template that will get you ready for the high stakes pitch.
- Driving the Message - question and message techniques to keep you in the fast lane.
TAKEAWAY: Powerful persuasion tools to keep your project in the fast lane.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Anyone who has to present, speak, pitch or answer tough questions to keep their project in favor


Iterating Realistic Human Rendering: Boxers in FIGHT NIGHT CHAMPION
Price:$3.95

SKU#: GDC11-12438
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Description: Iterating Realistic Human Rendering: Boxers in FIGHT NIGHT CHAMPION
SPEAKER/S: Vicki Ferguson (Electronic Arts)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Friday 2:00- 3:00 Room 3007, West Hall 3rd Fl.
TRACK / FORMAT: Programming , Visual Arts / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: Iterating on a successful franchise is a difficult task, especially when you are asked to render more with the same hardware and you don't have much to optimize. This is the problem we were facing with FIGHT NIGHT CHAMPION and we'll see how we overcame that by doing more with less, finding the root causes of our visual problems. The presentation will focus mostly on a process that can be applied to any game, but we will also spill some technical beans.
TAKEAWAY: You will learn how to look at game rendering and identify the root causes of visual problems, to do more with less and how good and bad hacks look like.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Rendering engineers, Artists and Technical Artists interested in how to organize and manage visual innovation. The talk will go in some technical details but it does not focus on them.


Lessons Learned in Successfully Marketing Games on PSN/XBLA and PC Digital; What Worked and What Didn't
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SKU#: GDC11-12437
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Description: Lessons Learned in Successfully Marketing Games on PSN/XBLA and PC Digital; What Worked and What Didn't
SPEAKER/S: James Brooksby (doublesix)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Friday 3:30- 4:30 Room 3007, West Hall 3rd Fl.
TRACK / FORMAT: Business and Management / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: doublesix has released multiple titles on PSN, XBLA and iPhone over the last two years. The session will cover the studios experiences of marketing its titles, what has worked and what hasnt. Using Burn Zombie Burn as a case study, a game which is neither a slam dunk high reviewing game, nor a game with a massive budget, the speaker will discuss how it is very successful and use _real_ sales facts and figures to illustrate how any team can do the same. The session will primarily draw on experiences from Burn Zombie Burn PSN/PC but also refer to South Park XBLA for Microsoft, Top Gun PSN/PC for Paramount, Babeorella for iPhone and the upcoming Who Wants to be a Millionaire: Special Editions on XBLA/PSN/PC/iPhone.
TAKEAWAY: The audience should leave knowing much more about how, in the new digitally distributed games age, they should approach the pre-launch, launch and post-launch long tail support of their products. They may not take exactly the same approach as us, but will be informed honestly and openly so that they can make their own judgements on what is best for them. The facts presented should inspire and assist anyone thinking of or already underway in the digital distribution space.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: This session is aimed at any developer considering creating a game in the digital space or is underway developing their game. It may also be useful for those who have just released their game and looking for inspiration for what to now do to make their long tail zing! There is no requirement for any specialist knowledge.


Living in a Stressful World: Real-time Stress Calculation for Destroyable Environments
Price:$3.95

SKU#: GDC11-12436
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Description: Living in a Stressful World: Real-time Stress Calculation for Destroyable Environments
SPEAKER/S: Eric Arnold (Volition)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Wednesday 4:30- 5:30 Room 3020, West Hall 3rd Fl.
TRACK / FORMAT: Programming / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: With ever increasing levels of environmental interaction and destruction, games today need more than smoke and mirrors to make the environment feel alive. In this session I will describe how we were able to simulate stress on everything from a waist high wall to a multi-story office building in real time in Red Faction: Armageddon.
TAKEAWAY: Attendees will gain an understanding of the theory and design decisions behind the real-time stress system used in the Red Faction series. With that knowledge they will be able to tailor a custom solution to best fit their particular game and serve the needs of their design staff.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: This talk is intended for programmers looking to add a new level of interaction and immersion to their physics simulation. Some background in basic physics equations is helpful, but not required.


Player-Driven Stories: How Do We Get There?
Price:$3.95

SKU#: GDC11-12435
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Description: Player-Driven Stories: How Do We Get There?
SPEAKER/S: Kent Hudson (LucasArts)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Wednesday 4:30- 5:30 Room 3006, West Hall 3rd Fl.
TRACK / FORMAT: Game Design / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: Do you wish your actions as a player mattered more in the game worlds you explore? Are you tired of the game industry copying Hollywood and spending more and more money on elaborate cutscenes for linear stories? Do you want to explore ways in which games can harness interactivity and take advantage of what's unique to our medium? If you answered yes to any of those questions, then this talk is for you! It will describe values and techniques with which you can put the player in charge of his or her own narrative.
TAKEAWAY: Attendees will leave with an understanding of what a player-driven story is and how they can build one. They will learn techniques with which to create a narrative that reacts to the player's actions and evolves the game world. These techniques will be illustrated with examples and analysis of existing games.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: This talk is intended for any developer interested in creating unique, player-driven narratives. Game designers and writers in particular will benefit and learn new ways to think about story in games.


Levelshop: From Grid Paper to Playable, Whiteboxes on Demand from 2d Drawings
Price:$3.95

SKU#: GDC11-12432
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Description: Levelshop: From Grid Paper to Playable, Whiteboxes on Demand from 2d Drawings
SPEAKER/S: Harvey Fong (Bioware)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Wednesday 10:30-11:30 Room 3006, West Hall 3rd Fl.
TRACK / FORMAT: Game Design / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: Levelshop is a novel and cost savings EA tool used for rapid prototyping and pre-viz of environments. It handles multi-level buildings, ramps, atriums, pits, railings, portals, and junctions entirely expressed as a 2d floorplan. The markup is simple enough for our programmers, QA and producers to create test assets while our level designers can use layers, marquees, variables and lists to go from idea to whitebox in minutes. It procedurally synthesizes game-ready assets.
TAKEAWAY: Faster iteration and a focus on design instead of construction details during prototyping are the same benefits people have gotten through other pre-visualization tools, like storyboards and screenplays. While nothing can beat words like Matthias stood on the craggy mountain overlooking the ancient forest, the more time/tools (like grid paper prototyping) we use on the pre-viz end of the production spectrum, the more we can validate our design ideas before we commit energy to building the mountain and the ancient trees. Attendees will get a glimpse at new EA technology (used on Darkspore and in production on 2 unannounced EA titles) helping our level designers focus on design instead of construction details during prototyping. By separating the act of designing environments from the labor of polygon construction, we are creating a workflow uniquely tolerant of aggressive design changes. Ultimately attendees will see the various benefits we have achieved by marshalling whitebox results at a grid paper effort.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: The session, while primarily aimed at level designers, will be of interest to anybody who is a champion of pre-visualization tools. For anybody who appreciates storyboards for movies or blueprints for architecture or any other shared brain-storming document that fosters a healthy dialogue on design decisions for basically pen on paper costs.


(Japanese Version) In Days of Yore
Price:$3.95

SKU#: GDC11-12431JP
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Description: In Days of Yore
SPEAKER/S: Chris Crawford (Storytron)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Thursday 10:30-11:30 Room 135, North Hall
TRACK / FORMAT: Game Design / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: The earliest days of computer games were times of technological swashbuckling, shoestring budgets, amateur designers, amateurish products, and wild experimentation. Just getting things to move around on the screen was a huge technical challenge. Nobody knew what the hell they were doing, but everybody knew that we were creating a new medium and a new industry. Come back to the Wild West days of game design, when games were created by individuals and sold in zip-loc bags. You'll be amazed by the differences -- and stunned by the similarities.


(English Version) In Days of Yore
Price:$3.95

SKU#: GDC11-12431EN
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Description: In Days of Yore
SPEAKER/S: Chris Crawford (Storytron)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Thursday 10:30-11:30 Room 135, North Hall
TRACK / FORMAT: Game Design / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: The earliest days of computer games were times of technological swashbuckling, shoestring budgets, amateur designers, amateurish products, and wild experimentation. Just getting things to move around on the screen was a huge technical challenge. Nobody knew what the hell they were doing, but everybody knew that we were creating a new medium and a new industry. Come back to the Wild West days of game design, when games were created by individuals and sold in zip-loc bags. You'll be amazed by the differences -- and stunned by the similarities.


(Japanese Version) An Apology for Roger Ebert
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SKU#: GDC11-12430JP
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Description: An Apology for Roger Ebert
SPEAKER/S: Brian Moriarty (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Friday 2:00- 3:00 Room 135, North Hall
TRACK / FORMAT: Game Design / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: In November of 2005, internationally renowned film critic Roger Ebert unleashed a firestorm of criticism with a blog entry claiming that the nature of the medium [video games] prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art. 4+ years and thousands of angry comments later, Ebert wearily admits that he was a fool for ever mentioning video games in the first place, but will not retract his opinion that games can never be art. Who is this Roger Ebert guy? Is he right? Does his opinion matter? Why should we even care whether or not games are art? Just what is this art thing, anyway? Professor Brian Moriarty, 29-year gaming veteran and renowned lecturer and teacher, was the first (in a 1998 GDC address) to hail computer games as the defining art form of the 21st century. He has pondered long and hard on these questions, and finds himself reluctantly siding with ... Ebert! In this ill-advised lecture, he foolishly dares to enter the belly of the beast, offering a passionate defense of the beleaguered film critic at the game industrys most prestigious event. He will reveal his own eye-opening definition of art, explain why current game designs dont aspire to it, and argue that its both practically and spiritually essential to pursue it anyway. Has the Professor finally lost his mind? Will you bring tomatoes, or rotten eggs? Prepare to have your mind bent and your soul seared in one of the Professors legendary presentations, his first GDC appearance since 2002.
TAKEAWAY: Attendees will have deeply-cherished ideas about the nature and importance of art challenged, and find renewed inspiration in a vision of computer gaming as an unprecedented break with our cultural heritage, as well as a dazzling opportunity for those willing to innovate.


(English Version) An Apology for Roger Ebert
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SKU#: GDC11-12430EN
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Description: An Apology for Roger Ebert
SPEAKER/S: Brian Moriarty (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Friday 2:00- 3:00 Room 135, North Hall
TRACK / FORMAT: Game Design / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: In November of 2005, internationally renowned film critic Roger Ebert unleashed a firestorm of criticism with a blog entry claiming that the nature of the medium [video games] prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art. 4+ years and thousands of angry comments later, Ebert wearily admits that he was a fool for ever mentioning video games in the first place, but will not retract his opinion that games can never be art. Who is this Roger Ebert guy? Is he right? Does his opinion matter? Why should we even care whether or not games are art? Just what is this art thing, anyway? Professor Brian Moriarty, 29-year gaming veteran and renowned lecturer and teacher, was the first (in a 1998 GDC address) to hail computer games as the defining art form of the 21st century. He has pondered long and hard on these questions, and finds himself reluctantly siding with ... Ebert! In this ill-advised lecture, he foolishly dares to enter the belly of the beast, offering a passionate defense of the beleaguered film critic at the game industrys most prestigious event. He will reveal his own eye-opening definition of art, explain why current game designs dont aspire to it, and argue that its both practically and spiritually essential to pursue it anyway. Has the Professor finally lost his mind? Will you bring tomatoes, or rotten eggs? Prepare to have your mind bent and your soul seared in one of the Professors legendary presentations, his first GDC appearance since 2002.
TAKEAWAY: Attendees will have deeply-cherished ideas about the nature and importance of art challenged, and find renewed inspiration in a vision of computer gaming as an unprecedented break with our cultural heritage, as well as a dazzling opportunity for those willing to innovate.


NBA JAM 2010 - Bringing Back the BOOMSHAKALAKA!
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SKU#: GDC11-12429
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Description: NBA JAM 2010 - Bringing Back the BOOMSHAKALAKA!
SPEAKER/S: Trey Smith (Electronic Arts)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Wednesday 4:30- 5:30 Room 130, North Hall
TRACK / FORMAT: Game Design , Production / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: The crux of this presentation is the sharing of how we revived NBA JAM using the Sequel Rule of Thirds. It was overwhelming, to say the least, when we were faced with the monumental task of meeting and exceeding 17 years of expectations from the rabid fans of the beloved video game classic, NBA JAM. Many strong dev teams have attempted to do it in the past, but the reception had been luke warm at best. We decided to throw out those versions completely and focus entirely on where it all beganthe original NBA JAM arcade cabinet released in 1993. Using the Sequel Rule of Thirds to begin Pre-pro was incredibly helpful in helping us identify the core pillars of the experience we wanted to create. Fleshing out What to keep The Same, What to Improved, and What was New early, allowed us to enter Production with a firm understanding of what we wanted to create and why we were creating it.
TAKEAWAY: This presentation is intended to give attendees a further understanding of the following:
- How to Produce and Design a successful sequel
- How to create assets and tools to communicate the final Vision of your game, well before Productions begins
- How to develop a Visual Style for a sequel that is Fresh, but still familiar
- The importance of a strong prototype and how to build it
- How to design and develop Motion Controls that enhance the experience instead of
INTENDED AUDIENCE: This primary intended audience for this presentation is experienced producers and designers, especially ones working on iterative titles and sequels, however it is my hope that attendees from all disciplines of game development walk away with new knowledge and processes to take back to their teams and studios for future use. The stickman prototype and visual target portions of the presentation should be appealing to Engineers and Artists as well.


From AAA to Indie: Three Start-Up Stories
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SKU#: GDC11-12421
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Description: From AAA to Indie: Three Start-Up Stories
SPEAKER/S: Daniel Cook (Spry Fox), Ichiro Lambe (Dejobaan Games, LLC) and Jake Kazdal (Haunted Temple Studios)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Monday 4:15- 5:15 Room 135, North Hall
TRACK / FORMAT: Independent Games Summit / Lecture
DESCRIPTION: Whether by choice or by circumstance, the number of developers striking up new indie startups is clearly on the rise. And while much has been said about moving from the bedroom to your first office, what lessons can be learned from developers that have spent a decade in the company of thousands, now working in companies of less than 10? In this session, Daniel Cook (originally at Epic MegaGames & Microsoft, now designer on STEAMBIRDS), Jake Kazdal (part of the team behind Space Channel 5, Rez and Steven Spielberg's 'lost' game for EA, now co-creator of SKULLS OF THE SHOGUN), and Ichiro Lambe (developer on foundational MMOs like LEGENDS OF FUTURE PAST, now creator of games like AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!) give us an inside look at how they've managed to make the transition.



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