La Conferencia de Desarrolladores de Videojuegos (GDG) por excelencia que se celebra un año más en Norteamérica (San Francisco, CA) conmemora su 25º aniversario con la que promete ser la mejor de las ediciones celebradas hasta el momento. Centrando su atención desde siempre en las nuevas tecnologías, la innovación y la vanguardia, en esta ocasión y con motivo de tan importante acontecimiento se llevará a cabo un ejercicio de retrospección con el fin de congregar a algunos de los más prestigiosos desarrolladores de videojuegos que han existido. A lo largo de 5 días (28-Febrero a 4-Marzo) pasarán por el recinto habilitado para esta iniciativa (Moscone Center) nombres de la talla de Jordan Mechner, John Romero, David Crane o Ron Gilbert, entre otros. Todos ellos compartiran sus conocimientos y su talento con todo aquel que se acerque al Moscone Center de San Francisco previa adquisición de pase. Description: More than just the man who created and designed Pac-Man, Toru Iwatani revolutionized an arcade industry filled with space shooters and Pong clones, introducing a new kind of game that was both immediately accessible and highly addictive. Thirty years after its debut, millions of fans are still playing the seminal maze title in spin-offs/remixes like Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, as well as in its classic form through digital download games, smartphone releases, and even Google's homepage logo! In this session, Iwatani will share how he created one of the world’s most successful and beloved arcade games around a circle with a wedge sliced off. View session in Schedule Builder. Description: When it launched over 25 years ago, Elite amazed science fiction fans with its interstellar missions presented with wireframe 3D graphics, eight galaxies to explore, and thousands of procedurally generated planets. And its open-ended design enraptured gamers with dreams of mining asteroids, taking on bounty missions, upgrading spaceships, and becoming space pirates on their microcomputers. Co-creator David Braben, a stalwart in the video game industry and founder/chairman of Frontier Developments, will discuss the genesis of the space-trading sim that went on to inspire titles like Eve Online, Freelancer, Wing Commander: Privateer, and many other sci-fi games. View session in Schedule Builder. Description: Released across more than a dozen platforms since its 1991 debut, Out of This World (a.k.a. Another World) has long been a favorite among critics and sophisticated gamers alike for its cinematic cutscenes and atmospheric presentation. The platformer's distinctive visual style, minimal but effective use of music and sound effects, and ability to convey its story and emotions without any words captured the imaginations of countless players, as well as those of future luminaries like Fumito Ueda (Ico) and Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid). Out Of This World's creator Eric Chahi will reveal his process developing the innovative game and building its memorable scenes. View session in Schedule Builder. Description: Decades before it was a Hollywood film with millions of dollars and hundreds of workers supporting its production, Prince of Persia was mostly the project of a single man. Jordan Mechner, who also created Karateka and later went on to work in the film industry, rotoscoped the game's fluid and realistic character animations, designed its difficult puzzles, crafted its thrilling sword-fighting combat, and penned its captivating story. He will present a postmortem discussion on the landmark cinematic platformer that would go on to influence not just a whole series of 3D Prince of Persia games, but also titles like Flashback, Tombraider, and Limbo. View session in Schedule Builder. Description: Mark Cerny is a legend in the games industry, working as a consultant, producer, and programmer on hits like Resistance, Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, Spyro the Dragon, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Before building that near-incomparable resume, though, he designed Atari's Marble Madness, the addictive and maddening arcade game that ate scads of quarters as players craved another spin of its trackball. Along with the game's catchy soundtrack and Escheresque graphics, Cerny will share insights on how he designed the classic title that paved the way for games like Super Monkey Ball, Spindizzy, Marble Blast, and Kororinpa. View session in Schedule Builder. Description: Few games can match the ubiquity and legacy of Doom, the seminal first-person shooter that ushered in thousands of mods, clones, and successors. Nearly every significant FPS, from Resistance to Half-Life, Call of Duty to Halo, owes its success in part to the Id Software game. Programmer, Game Designer, Level Designer and Doom II final boss John Romero will deliver a postmortem on the game showing never-before-seen material, memorializing its immersive but nerve-wracking 3D environments, networked multiplayer deathmatches, Satanic imagery and themes, Barney WADs, exploding barrels, and BFG 9000. Romero was a co-founder of id Software, among other companies, and also worked on other significant shooters like Wolfenstein 3D and Quake. View session in Schedule Builder. Description: Pitfall! isn't just one of the most successful and cherished releases of the Atari 2600; it's also the game many immediately think of whenever the decades-old console comes up in a conversation. The jungle adventure remains in gamers' memories as one of the first platformers and a technical marvel for the time, what with its smooth animations, detailed sprites, and lack of flickering. Industry legend David Crane, co-founder of Activision and Absolute Entertainment (A Boy and His Blob), will reminisce about Pitfall's vine-swinging hero Harry and the breakthrough game he famously designed with just a blank sheet of paper and 10 minutes of brainstorming. View session in Schedule Builder. Description: As one of the top most popular puzzle games of all time, Bejeweled and its spin-offs and sequels are everywhere – in your video game console, your web browser, your Facebook apps list, your smartphone, your not-so-smart mobile from five years ago, your significant other's game platform of choice, your best friend's favorite gaming device, and even your games that don't have Bejeweled in their titles (e.g. Puzzle Quest, dozens of clones). The man behind the addictive match-three game, PopCap co-founder and chief creative officer Jason Kapalka , will deliver a postmortem talk about designing the franchise that's seen more than 150 million downloads and sold over 25 million copies. View session in Schedule Builder. Description: One of the first god games ever released, Bullfrog's Populous beguiled players with its premise of playing as an all-powerful divine being capable of shaping the earth, growing and guiding a civilization, attracting worshippers, unleashing natural disasters (e.g. floods, earthquakes, and more) against enemies, and sending out knights to obliterate rival deity's followers. Populous' always entertaining designer Peter Molyneux, who went on to found Lionhead Studios, where he helped create the game's spiritual descendant Black & White and popular RPG series Fable, will talk about his work on the ground-breaking (and -raising and -lowering) isometric sim. View session in Schedule Builder. Description: Before he became a household name with gamers, Will Wright created Raid on Bungeling Bay, a helicopter action/strategy title for the Commodore 64, NES, and and MSX. The unassuming game would serve as the inspiration for Wright's much, much, much more popular Sim City series, as it was during his tinkering with Raid on Bungeling Bay's editor that the designer discovered building complex cities was more fun and had more potential than destroying them. Five years after that "Eureka!" moment, Wright released SimCity, and the world still can't get enough of the metropolis-managing concept – one only needs look to Facebook's most popular apps to see its continuing influence. View session in Schedule Builder. Descritiption:Cherished by adventure game fans and reviled by hamsters everywhere, Maniac Mansion was the first adventure game LucasArts developed on its SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) platform – the beloved scripting engine powering and enabling ports for subsequent classics like Sam & Max, LOOM, Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, and the Monkey Island series. Ron Gilbert, famous for his contributions at LucasArts and now working at Double Fine Productions, will talk about his work on Maniac Mansion, touching on the game's multiple endings, point-and-click interface and it's oddball cast of characters. View session in Schedule Builder. Más info: http://www.gdconf.com/index.html Fuente: La Mazmorra Abandon
Que groso estaría poder asistir a esas conferencias... habrá que conformarse con leer resumenes despues