Day 4, in which I went to the micro talks, to the #1reason to be, had breakfast with Ron, lunch with Brian, dinner with 2 mikes and Ian, and met Yoda in the form of Bob at the speaker party.
I ran out of water colour business cards mid week, but luckily my luggage arrived from London. Having my stamp, some paper, brushes and colors I could make new ones at the hotel room in the morning.
I ran out of water colour business cards mid week, but luckily my luggage arrived from London. Having my stamp, some paper, brushes and colors I could make new ones at the hotel room in the morning.
I let the paper dry on my way to meet with Ron Meiners for breakfast. As I stamped and cut them out, we missed Patricia Pizer together, who didn't make it to the conference this year. Then we talked about our respective work, and I think we both got the strong sense of serendipity. I very much hope to get Ron's views on the first, and currently most important, game I am making. We meet especially when it comes to how to add elements that aids players in processing emotion, in order to understand, change perspective, and move forward. (With humour)
I went to check out the Expo hall, and immediately ran into Linda Law and Scott Snyder. We talked about how great it would be if we could have a shared online space where we could put together 'bands' when making games. Ask each other if they would like to be drummer/singer/guitar on an album, concert, or just sit in on a song. But when making games. It would be so awesome.
Then, I went to the micro-talks session that Richard Lemarchand had put together. It was really good. I especially appreciated that Emily short brought story making games to attention, there is such huge potential in that design space. Celia Pearce talked about interesting approaches from art that are applicable to game design. All the talks were excellent - I recommend checking them out when they appear in the GDC Vault.
I met Brian Schwab for lunch. We had indian food, caught up; I got to ask what life is like at MagicLeap - he just moved to Florida with his family to work with their augmented reality tech. We agreed that I am entitled to take pictures of all the food I eat since I started doing it when the digital cameras were new as a consumer product and no one had started to complain yet. So there.
After lunch I saw a talk on input devices, and then went to get in line for #1reason to be. Neil Kirby had too made sure to be early and to secure a spot in the room. This, and the experimental game play workshop are the two ones that I wanted to make sure I caught on site instead of watching it in the Vault. It was gratifying to see how long the line was. (very long)
One of the panelists was were Amy Henning, and she sent a strong message to all other women who are in the games industry, or about to join it: "The water is fine. Come on in." She described how she, in her career, had met support and friendship from male and female colleagues alike. She said, "sure, I can make you a sandwich - and a AAA franchise too."
The toxic stuff that has been happening lately is not from within the industry - and this was the general feel I got from the whole conference, in many different small ways: games are for everyone. Brenda Romero said "The mountain lion is not going away, but the fear has to." So we soldier on. All of us, no matter gender, race or whatever category our context places us in.
For dinner I met with Michael Mateas, Ian Horsewill, and Mike Sellers for Japanese food.
Then, we went on to the speaker party. It was nice, I had entertaining short conversations until I ran into Bob Bates: then we had an in depth conversation about writing linear narratives, moments of truth, and ways to relate to important life choices. Bob is yoda.
