GDC-Day 4

I spent much of the morning of the 4th day wandering the Expo halls at GDC.  However, I did attend the experiements in game design session.  This is usually a very good session in the past so I definitely wanted to check it out.  The experimental game design workshop/lecture features games designs that are different and new.  I tried to get the names of the games/authors sites as much as I could but sadly I’m not always able to type as quickly as the slide flashes off.

• Worlds within Worlds – maquettegames.com.  A recursive world where inside a big world is a little world.  If you do something in small world it affects big world and vice versa.
• sense of connectedness by michael brough – mightyvision.blogspot.com.
• Loop Raccord Nicolai Troshinsky: wwww.troshinsky.com.  Raccord is a film term that refers to fluid movements between two scenes.
• Opera Omnia by Stephen Lavelle.  Increpare.com.  Time manipulation mechanics (rewinding, time slowing, self cooperation/competition, changing the past..  idea in the game is that the prsent can not be change, the game is finding a path from past to explain present.
• inside a star filled sky json rohrer insidestarfilled sky.net – recursive game play
• mantra by agustin perez fernendez www.tembec.com – about concentration – there is a mantra being chanted constantly in the background. playing and meditating at the same time.
• Experimentation in User Generated Content – Andy Schwartz
  • The Abrupt Goodbye http://www.HelloDotDotDotGoodbye.com
    • conversation generated by users.  Database remembers previous resposes
  • PlayPen

During this session the panel also described a folk game(like hide and seek) they recently learned to play called Ninja. It was an interesting end to the talk.

Classic Game Postmortem: Populous given by Peter Molyneux

This was a great talk given by Peter Molyneux, who was also the creator of other games such as Syndicate and Fable.

The talk was interesting in that the creator of this game went on to describe how the game came about partly due to his lack of ability to program.  The play area was small because it allowed him to double the frame rate.  The core game play element of the game came about because he couldn’t code a wall hugging routine.  In the end, it seemed that he had iterated through the game design process building and prototyping as he went until he had an actual game.

Day 4 of GDC was an interesting one.  The populous talk was really good and gave some good insight on how games were developed.

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