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On the rest of GDC.

I’m conflating the Thursday and Friday of GDC because I’ve been doing this for what feels like forever.

What rocked:
Exploration: From Systems to Spaces to SelfClint Hocking talked about notions of exploration, and how they pertain to game design. Not only was his talk exhaustively researched, but it was also incredibly well-constructed, funny, and invaluable to my work. The exploration and discovery of a system by a player is one of my favorite aspects of digital game design, and hearing Clint focus on it with such enthusiasm really made me feel confident in my approach. Clint even posted the slides and transcript from his talk! What a guy!

Writing Great Design Documents – It was the last session of the conference, but that didn’t stop Damion Schubert from giving a great talk to a FULL audience (they were actually turning people away at the door!). Possibly the most practical talk I attended all week, Damion emphasized the importance of design documents, and reminded all the designers who they were writing their docs for (hint: the coders), and to keep that in mind when deciding which details to include. And he posted his slides, too! How awesome’s that?

What was really great:
The Metagame: A Battle of Videogame Smarts – I already talked about this, but it was a great session with a lot of my favorite people in the industry.

Small Changes, Big Results: Redefining a PC Franchise for Nintendo Wii – Probably the hardest choice I made during the conference, as this talk was held at the same time as Goichi Suda’s “Punk’s Not Dead,” Chaim Gingold’s “SPORE’s Magic Crayons,” and the “Pitch your Game Idea” session. Nevertheless, Robin Hunicke‘s breakdown of how to properly adapt a franchise for a new console was fantastic. Robin all but ignores the Wii Remote as she discusses how best to fit a familiar franchise to a new console and a new market, keeping a keen eye on the smallest details while never losing sight of the big picture.
Sadly, no slides from Robin. :(

The Game Design Challenge: The Needle and Thread Interface – I’ve wanted to go to one of Eric‘s game design challenges for years, and was happy to finally make it to one. It would’ve been worth it for Alexey Pajitnov alone, but Harvey Smith and David Jaffe both gave great presentations as well.

What was so-so:
GameBoss: Simplified Online Game Creator – I caught an early-morning session on GameBrix, a collaborative online platform for designing and developing small digital games. Unfortunately, the company didn’t seem sure of the target demographic for the program; its relative simplicity was certainly accessible by any age, but the bright colors and cute games developed seemed skewed toward a pre-teen age group. Still, I’d be grateful for any program that allowed me to build simple games or prototypes, and the open-platform, flash-based approach of GameBrix was a definite sell for me. I’m looking forward to trying out the closed beta whenever they get around to it.

Gangs of GDC was quite enjoyable, even though I got owned every time

Reflections of Zelda – Eiji Aonuma’s talk on the development of the last several Zelda games didn’t really wow me. I was expecting more details of the design process, rather than developmental issues like whether players like the “toon-shaded” look. He also seemed to be contradicting himself, blaming the poor reception of Wind Waker on its cutesy style, yet then creating Phantom Hourglass which shares the same look. He also asserted that Four Swords Adventures did poorly because it was too difficult to understand, and yet is now integrating a multiplayer mode of Phantom Hourglass so disconnected from traditional Zelda gameplay that I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what to do. Still, Aonuma’s slides were cute, and his presentation was very clean.

What disappointed me:
The Nintendo Keynote: A Creative Vision – Yes, it’s true. Miyamoto’s keynote was nothing special, at least in my opinion. I understand that the man couldn’t reveal anything new, but he could’ve at least talked more about his creative process, and maybe revealed some non-stock-threatening insights into his design process and his experiences at Nintendo over the years. Instead, he talked about gaging successful gameplay on whether or not his wife likes it, and about how he tried for years to implement some form of Mii’s into Nintendo products.

On top of that, his presentation was sloppy. All the slides were loaded onto a Wii’s photo channel, but the system wasn’t meant for that kind of presentation. Miyamoto had to constantly resize images to make them fit on the projector, and the flashing cameras from the crowd caused his Wii remote cursor to go crazy (he actually had to hold a finger over the remote sensor while talking). Contrast this with Phil Harrison’s presentation, which was loaded into the photo gallery of a PS3. He simply walked around the stage with a sixaxis, depressing one of the shoulder buttons to advance the slides. Every slide fit perfectly, and there was practically no way of knowing it was being run off a PS3 (except for the controller in Phil’s hand). He even had the PS3 review the “photos” at the end of his presentation, going into a unique autoplay mode with each slide falling onto a table as a polaroid. It just looked great.

And that was GDC. Back to game design, I promise.

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