Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style
Hamlet's off at GDC this week, and I... Well, I might go out for lunch, so that's something right? All kidding aside, I am pretty jealous of him. The professional focus of GDC means it's miles away from bombastic fan events like PAX, and the sessions on the schedule are a lot more focussed and, frankly, interesting. I guess it's a bit more "inside baseball".
Naturally I've been going through this year's schedule, and a few sessions in particular stand out. If I was at GDC today, here's where you would find me:
Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine - Interpreting Feedback and Maintaining Your Vision
(11:50am-12:15pm)
Monaco is an absolutely outstanding game (I even wrote about it), and the precise topic of this talk seems like good life advice, even beyond the world of game development. The story goes that many players wanted one of Monaco's core mechanics completely removed. This wasn't really an option from the developers' point of view, but instead of ignoring the suggestion altogether, they extrapolated something from it to keep both sides happy. What exactly was that? Well, I suppose you have to attend to find out... Though I'm hoping it will pop up on Twitter, too.
You Need an Editor!
(2:20pm-2:45pm)
Having a member of BioWare's writing team speak about game narrative might be one of the easiest ways to ensure my interest. It would be nice to say that decades into the medium the idea of having strong writers involved in writing and editing a game, just as you would for almost any other piece of media, would be standard practice. Unfortunately these roles are still ridiculously undervalued, and it shows. Let's just say that while the rest of me may not, my eye-rolling muscles often get a great workout when I'm gaming. This panel will undoubtedly make a good case (not that I'm biased on the topic or anything) and I hope a lot of developers will take it to heart.
Pursuing Interactive Suspension of Disbelief
(5:05pm-5:30pm)
GDC's Game Narrative track is very fertile ground, and this session with one of the writers of Telltale's The Walking Dead is another good example of why that is. In what will likely be a good chaser for this talk about how to avoid spoonfeeding players your story, Sean Vanaman will likely be addressing some of those eye-rolly moments in games writing, and discussing how to avoid them all together. Telltale's The Walking Dead is widely recognized for it's gripping, immersive, and most importantly believable story, so Vanaman is probably the ideal speaker for the subject.
If you want to keep up to date on what's going on at GDC 2014, be sure to check out Gamasutra's live conference coverage here.
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