My GDC Picks

On Tuesday I fly to San Francisco for this year’s Game Developer’s Conference so have drawn up a schedule below, (despite not being 100% fixed on many talks due to the amount of overlap on my topics of interest). Decisions are in bold, while same-time alternatives remain should I change my mind. Hope to see some of you there :)

Wednesday – 2/20/2008

9:00:00 AM — 10:00:00 AM

• Developers in the Crosshairs: Mature Content, Censorship, and Design Choices (Day 1)
• Storytelling in BIOSHOCK: Empowering Players to Care about Your Stupid Story
• The World within – Building Social Environments in EVE Online’s Space Stations

10:30:00 AM — 11:30:00 AM

• A Future Wide Open: Unleashing the Creative Community

12:00:00 PM — 1:00:00 PM

• Advanced Dialogue Techniques for Games
• Censorship of Game Content – A Report from the Trenches
• Semantic Interactivity – Virtual Coherence Using Next Generation Human Computer Interface
• Uncharted Animation: An In-depth Look at the Character Animation Workflow and Pipeline

1:00:00 PM — 2:00:00 PM

• The Real Story on Characters and Emotion: Taking it ‘to the Streets’

2:30:00 PM — 3:30:00 PM

• Standing the Test of Time: A Q&A with Sid Meier
• Stories Best Played: Deconstructing the Best Interactive Storytelling

4:00:00 PM — 5:00:00 PM

• Splash Damage: From Amateur to Triple-A in Five Years
• The IGDA Credits Movement: The Revolution is Already Here

6:30:00 PM — 8:30:00 PM

• 8th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards and 10th Annual Independent Games Festival

Thursday – 2/21/2008

9:00:00 AM — 10:00:00 AM

• How to Break All Rules and yet Make a 90+ Game
• Outside the Box
• STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED: How LucasArts is Building a Game, a Development Team and a Technology Pipeline… At the Same Time
• The Future of Story in Game Design
• The Real Story on Characters and Emotion: Taking it ‘to the Streets’

10:30:00 AM — 11:30:00 AM

• The Next 20 Years of Gaming

12:00:00 PM — 1:00:00 PM

• A Believable Character Postmortem: Motion Capture on the Virtual Set of BEOWULF
• From Mundane to Epic: The Making of the STARCRAFT II Cinematic Teaser
• The Emergent Gamer
• I-fi: Immersive Fidelity in Game Design

1:00:00 PM — 2:00:00 PM

• Interactive Actors That Express Emotion

2:30:00 PM — 3:30:00 PM

• Autodesk HumanIK Middleware Introduction: Complementing Your FK Animation Sponsored by Autodesk
• Dialog Production for BioWare’s Mass Effect: Lessons Learned and Future Plans
• Looking Back at LOST ODYSSEY – The Challenge of Cross Cultural Development
• The Future of Animation is Games

4:00:00 PM — 5:00:00 PM

• Designing Conflict Resolution without Combat
• From DOOM to RAGE: Pushing Boundaries
• NaturalMotion: Runtime Character Animation with Morpheme Sponsored by NaturalMotion

5:30:00 PM — 6:30:00 PM

• ARG Group Gathering
• Autodesk MotionBuilder: Cross Product Integration – Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya – of Animation Assets to Develop Workable Motion Libraries
• Composer Tips and Tricks for Creating Interactive Music

8:00:00 PM — 10:00:00 PM

• Suite Night

Friday – 2/22/2008

9:00:00 AM — 10:00:00 AM

• ‘Do, Don’t Show’ – Narrative Design in FARCRY 2
• Creating a Character in DRAKE’S FORTUNE
• Designing and Implementing a Dynamic Camera System

10:30:00 AM — 11:30:00 AM

• Development – SUPER SMASH BROS. BRAWL
• From Grunt to God to Startup: Career Lessons From the Edge of Game Development by David Jaffe
• Momentum vs. Character Animation
• Taming the Mob: Creating believable crowds in ASSASSIN’S CREED

12:00:00 PM — 1:00:00 PM

• The Technology of FINAL FANTASY
• Writing Great Design Documents
• Pouring Gas on the Flames: Game Designers Rant

2:30:00 PM — 3:30:00 PM

• Stylization with a Purpose: The Illustrative World of TEAM FORTRESS 2
• How to Create the Greatest Boss Battle (and Why Not to Do It!)

4:00:00 PM — 5:00:00 PM

• A PORTAL Post-Mortem: Integrating Writing and Design