GDC Vault is up! It's time for 2016 learnings

dislekcia

So, links to cool free content people want to watch?

Here's the 1ReasonToBe panel that Tsitsi and Sithe utterly rocked!

Alexis Kennedy's (Failbetter Games, Sunless Sea) talk about narrative - This is my best talk of GDC.

Bensonance

I recommend Jolie Menzel's talk on Designing Puzzle Games (only slides are free). Really intricate look at designing puzzles, both at a micro/individual and macro/collection level.

dislekcia

More talks worth watching:

Jake Birkett talks about life as a no-hit indie and how he's still making a living with game development after 11 years - I really enjoyed this talk and I feel like it's a great thing for indies to watch whether they're starting out or they've been at this for a while. I felt a special kinship to this stuff because Jake talks about starting around the same time I started thinking that maybe this whole indie thing might be doable, in the middle of the casual revolution ;) (I've been waiting for this talk to be fixed)

Also, here's a link to my own talk for those of you who might be interested (and didn't see it in prototype form in CT) - Shipping Kills Studios.

francoisvn

Still working through my backlog of talks to watch, but so far...

William Chyr's talk on Level Design in Impossible Geometry

francoisvn

Some more:

Brandon Sheffield on How to Almost Bankrupt Your Game Company which is also an interactive twine game...

A bunch of 5min microtalks: Everyone Loves to Play

David Edery's Alphabear Postmortem

Ojiro Fumoto: Polishing the Boots - Designing 'Downwell' Around One Key Mechanic

Cheatsi

Hey Guys we should set up a day and get together and watch some of the talks and watch it off of someone's account that has access? l

Zaphire

Cheatsi said:

Hey Guys we should set up a day and get together and watch some of the talks and watch it off of someone's account that has access? l

Doesn't everyone have access?

Cheatsi

There are some stuff that are apparently not free i'm not too sure

dislekcia

Cheatsi said:

Hey Guys we should set up a day and get together and watch some of the talks and watch it off of someone's account that has access? l

The plan has been to watch a voted-for talk at each CT meetup, seeing as we have internet access at the Barn :)

Also, yes, there's loads of content that isn't available for free - you need to have Vault access (which you should have as a speaker @Cheatsi). Would still be keen on organising a viewing get together if there are 2 or 3 talks everyone wants to see but can hold off watching right now ;)

dislekcia

Woo!

On a bit of a VR schtick at the moment, so...

Colin Northway talking about How Menus Suck in VR - so much coolness and learning here. Argh.

A couple of talks by Kimberly Voll (also working on Fantastic Contraption with Colin, but also at Riot Games), she's a VR researcher, so I was planning to get to these talks in person but I just couldn't :(
This is your brain on VR - unfortunately her other talk isn't free content, sorry.

francoisvn

Antoine Routon - Distilling A Franchise: A Lara Croft GO Postmortem

francoisvn

Empowering the Player: Level Design in N++ - Mare Sheppard, Raigan Burns

It was really interesting to hear about the design process of a game that's been in dev for 10 years. I still remember playing the original N and had no idea they had quite so many levels in N++. There's a lot of general purpose level design knowledge that Mare talks about, so recommended for anyone looking into level design.


Twenty Years, Twenty Lessons - Mark Rosewater (head designer of MtG)

francoisvn

I finally watched Jake Birkett's No-hit Wonder talk and it's really good. Unlike a lot of other stuff (talks, articles, etc.) that focus on trying to make the "hit" game, he really drills down into some of the interesting aspects of creating a sustainable business through iteration. I think he might skip over a few of the "beginner" details, and I don't think he necessarily has the perfect process, but it's the way he approaches the task of running a business and making decisions that is the real take away IMHO. Personally been super inspired by that talk.

francoisvn

Ok, last talk on my list: A Torch in the Dark: Using Creative Direction to Light 'The Darkest Dungeon' by Chris Bourassa.

Sorry for the quad-post. Enjoy the talks :D