This year’s Game Developer’s Conference was super fun and super busy. So busy that I didn’t have time to make my own video blog series! Fortunately our good friend Raymond was there to document the proceedings in HD.
It was a crazy week, and here are some scraps that I can remember…
* Chris was part of the “indie game maker rant” at the Independent Games Summit. He talked about the auteur theory in film and applied it to games. It went over really well and he ended up talking to some dude from the New York Times for a few hours after.
* We got to share our booth with fellow Winnipeg game developers Complex Games and Tom Korp. Good times.
* We handed out a ton of printed material, and had numerous artists approach us looking for work.
* Good buddy Tommy Refenes and I rocked the last IGS talk: “How to finish a game project you … HATE”. I thought it was going to suck, but it ended up being a lot of peoples’ favorite. It ended with friends Kyle and Tommy reciting a dramatic speech from “Independence Day” to cheers from the crowd.
* I realized that “Triple-A” sounds a lot like “Chipotle”.
* We had some very positive meetings with representatives from the major consoles.
* Chrissy and Raymond, while not officially part of the team, helped run our booth. They did a really great job, and it turned out to be invaluable – Chris and I could leave for meetings while they held down the fort. Raymond got really good at explaining the difficult UI of “Heroes and Villains”. (I’m -so- gonna fix that)
* We managed to get three people from TIGSource free expo passes.
* Met Charlie Cleveland! Mega64! Will Wright!
* But the best parts were hanging out with the whole indie crew. There is no group of people as talented, funny, creative and easy-going as this bunch – and the group is growing every year. Derek Yu, Phil Fish, Erin Robinson, Edmund McMillen, Kyle Pulver, Adam Saltsman, Ben Ruiz, Brandon McCartin, Cactus, Petri, David W, Alex May, the 2D Boys and so many others – thanks for a totally awesome time. At one particularly awesome partly, I drunkenly decided to spontaneously form a “human Katamari ball”. In any other group of people, this would have been an embarrassing failure – but with these fine gentlefolk, we had 15+ people hugging, running in a circle while singing “Na Na Na-Na Na Na Na-Na Na” while gathering more. Awesome.
* Baiyon.
So what’s next for IA? Its an open-ended question right now. Stay tuned for more updates! (and the eventual posting of our GDC footage)
Two Jacks wrote a Comment on March 29, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Bitchin’! ;D
Esquar wrote a Comment on March 30, 2009 at 10:43 am
I don’t think there are a lot of crowds with whom you can form a human katamari, sounds awesome!
PLeXSoy wrote a Comment on March 30, 2009 at 11:25 am
Cool!!
If there are video images we want to see them soon!
Sparky wrote a Comment on March 31, 2009 at 12:36 am
It was great meeting you guys. Thanks again for the pass!
Andy wrote a Comment on April 1, 2009 at 7:45 am
That’s great, haha. I was wondering, when I saw pictures of you having sushi with the Fortune Cat fellow, I wondered, “Where is Complex Games… or Tom Korp, or other Manitoba game studios who are affiliated with Fortune Cat?” I’m not exactly sure what those guys look like, but I was wondering if they were there, so yeah I guess so.
Two Jacks wrote a Comment on April 15, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Is my internet broken, or has there not been an update for a long time? Just sayin’.
Andy wrote a Comment on April 16, 2009 at 11:30 pm
It’s the flood. Washed the whole city away. They say ’twas the ice that kilt ‘em. A-yup.
IAfan wrote a Comment on April 17, 2009 at 7:33 am
im guessing they’re going to finish the game and the next post will be some big H+V finale post
JacaByte wrote a Comment on April 18, 2009 at 9:26 am
There just hasn’t been an update in a long while, Two J. It has me kinda irked too.