Game design students report on national conference
The Media School Report
March 9, 2017
From left, students Jacob Koonce, Indiana Reed, Jonathan Brown, Joseph Adams, Kees Luyendijk and a friend they met at the conference, Solomon Liu, had a chance to explore outside the conference venue in San Francisco. (Courtesy photo)
More than a dozen Media School game design students and faculty attended the annual Game Developers Conference Feb. 27 to March 3 in San Francisco.
Several headed to Chicago for the annual BitBash of indie developers, then participated in the “train jam,” which allowed students to network with developers and try out new games.
Here are a few student reports from the conference.
Joseph Adams BitBash: Filthy Pixels
Attendees at BitBash tried out new indie games. (Joseph Adams | The Media School)
We started our trip to GDC off with an event in Chicago called Bit Bash: Filthy Pixels. It acted as a kickoff to Train Jam, and it was a first chance to meet the developers we would be seeing for the next week and a half.
On this night, the focus was not on making games but playing them. The event consisted of game demos, game tournaments and live music. It was loud, it was exhausting, and it was fun.
A big part of this for me was a tournament for the competitive sports game BaraBariBall. This is a game that I had played in an earlier stage of development, but only for a match or two.
I really enjoyed it then and have since gotten really interested in competitive fighting games, so getting a chance to enter this tournament was very exciting. Though I started off the night by playing quite poorly, I began to hit my stride after a couple matches. I ended up tying for third place in the tournament, which was more than OK with me.
More enjoyable than the BaraBariBall tournament, though, was meeting people. I got a chance to speak with a couple of my personal game dev heroes, and I talked to a great number of students. I didn’t know it at the time, but a couple of the people I met while just dancing at the event went on to become good friends throughout the week.
While it was not the best place for having a conversation, the general atmosphere of the event was perfect for getting us all out of our comfort zones and ready to make both friends and professional connections.
The night was way more fun than I had imagined it was going to be, and I was blown away by just how much it did for me in terms of making connections throughout the rest of the trip. I am incredibly thankful that this event was at the beginning of our trip, and I look forward to attending it again next year.
Matthew Higham
Train Jam 2017
Train Jam features game making during the 52-hour trip from Chicago to California. The games are available to play during the conference. (Indiana Reed | The Media School)
Several of us attended this year’s Train Jam, a train ride mashed up with a game jam. On a 52-hour journey from Chicago to San Francisco, more than 300 students, faculty, industry veterans and independent developers collaborated on dozens of projects, racing to finish before our arrival in San Francisco. With representation from all over the world, we were tasked with forming small groups and working round the clock on a small game with a predetermined theme.
The Amtrak train we boarded took the California Zephyr route, which travels through seven states on the way from Illinois to California. The scenery was absolutely beautiful; we woke up after the first night to a blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. Later on in the day, we traveled through the desert-like Utah badlands.
But the most beautiful part of the trip, in my opinion at least, was through the Sierra Nevada mountain range. We were expecting a delay lasting several hours due to 20-plus feet of snowfall in the mountains, but luckily Amtrak was able to deploy some specialized equipment ahead of the train to clear out the massive snow deposits.
I and a couple of other IU game design students, Kerry Norris and Jacob Koonce, teamed up with a few guys from Eastern Kentucky University and cranked out a small physics-based arcade game called Gummy Panic. It was awesome to put the design and production skills we’ve learned in our game design program to work. There was also a team of mentors at our disposal for design and development advice, with our own game design professors William Emigh and Rush Swope being particularly useful.
Overall, I think Train Jam 2017 was an awesome experience and would encourage anyone with the opportunity to buy a ticket to attend next year.
Jacob Koonce
Workshops
Jacob Koonce, left, with a rep from Razer. He attended several workshops during the week, including one from the development company. (Courtesy photo)
After arriving in San Francisco, my roommates and I prepared for the Game Developers Conference. I had never been before but I’m already planning on going back someday. It was an incredible experience on so many different levels.
Much of my week was spent going to different sessions and talks about audio in the games industry. I learned some extremely valuable tips and tricks from industry professionals that I would not have known about otherwise. I’m very grateful for the speakers who came out and shared their knowledge with us at this event. The passion for games that everyone shared there was overwhelming.
On Tuesday, I had the honor of sitting down for lunch with some of the audio team from Square Enix, the developers behind the role-playing game Final Fantasy XV. Audio programmer Sho Iwamoto gave a speech later in the week about the epic and interactive music found throughout the game. I even got to meet one of the composers, Yoshitaka Suzuki.
On Wednesday, I participated in a roundtable discussion about the art of creating great voiceover with Andrea Toyias, casting and voice director at Blizzard Entertainment, the developers behind the popular first-person shooter Overwatch. The information she provided us with was a testament to her hard work to create a dynamic sounding cast of characters.
On Thursday, I attended the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) Awards. I was a little intimidated by the fact that I was sitting in a room full of award-winning game composers and sound designers from studios such as Naughty Dog, the developers behind the cinematic action-adventure game series Uncharted. It was inspiring to see how supportive the audio community truly was.
After the award ceremony, I had the pleasure of meeting Michael Salvatori from Bungie, composer of the sci-fi first-person shooter games Halo and Destiny. We had a conversation about how he got started doing music for games. I never imagined I would meet someone this influential on my trip to GDC. We took a picture together to remember the moment. Michael’s words of encouragement really motivated me to continue to do my best.
For anyone interested in game development, I highly recommend going to the conference at least once. I made some very meaningful connections with others in the industry and was enriched by the experience as a whole. I’d like to thank Indiana University, The Media School and the game design faculty for supporting me so I could have this unforgettable career opportunity.
Kerry Norris
Indie Game Summit
One of the students tried out Snake Pass at the conference. (Kerry Norris | The Media School)
Going into GDC, I expected there would be no shortage of grandeur, the biggest devs all in the same place to share knowledge and industry expertise. What I didn’t expect to find was a heartfelt and wonderfully genuine community of Indie devs. I was truly amazed by the level of passion and fervor demonstrated at the Indie Game Summit.
The talks and post-mortems I attended really helped make the conference feel less intimidating, I was able to see tons of devs who were in the same boat as my team and succeed while doing it. I got the chance to see a post-mortem on the game Salt and Sanctuary, a talk on what pitfalls to avoid while playtesting and an in-depth analysis of some absolutely fantastic games that were commercial failures.
IU students gathered before heading out to explore more of the conference. (Official Game Developers Flickr photo, with permission)
However, my favorite talk of the conference was from Sam Coster of Butterscotch Shenanigans about his experience making games while having late stage cancer. He gave an in-depth recount of the highs and the lows, and how making games helped him get through the worst of his cancer. I can say confidently that I shed many manly tears and was counting my blessings after the talk. By hearing him recount all of the misfortunes and struggles he had, I really started to consider what the important goals of my life were, and I felt challenged to stop pursuing the cut out the unimportant bits.
My biggest fear about the industry was that the only avenue for success was to work at some AAA mega-developer, but the IGS showed me how much passion and creativity is attainable and sustainable! I found the experience to be invaluable, and it really got me jazzed to get home and put some of what I learned into action.
Indiana Reed
First two days
Indiana Reed, center, checked out games made on the Train Jam with two other attendees. (Official Game Developers Flickr photo, with permission)
I had a Summits, Tutorials and Bootcamps pass for GDC, which meant I could attend most of the talks during the first two days of the conference. Naturally, I filled the first two days of my schedule with talks to attend.
I spent most of day one in “Math for Game Programmers” talks. My favorite among them was “Predictable Projectiles,” given by one of the programmers at Robot Entertainment. He detailed how the AI fires projectiles in the Orcs Must Die! series.
For day two, I went to a few e-sports talks and some Indie Summit talks. My favorite talk of day two was about how competitive games influence player culture and values. This was told mainly through the lens of street fighter and its early arcade days.
Tom Cannon presented his talk “Arcade to E-sports: How your competitive game influences player culture and values,” at the conference. (Indiana Reed | The Media School)
I also spent some time exploring Indie Megabooth (a bunch of independent game developers showcasing their games). I really enjoyed playing Cosmic Express and talking to the game’s designer, Alan Hazelden. I had actually met Alan earlier on the train jam, so it was cool to see his game. I found out that Cosmic Express started as a train jam game two years earlier.
Another highlight was Keyboard Sports, which has a beautifully simple concept. I talked to that game’s developers for a bit, asking about what rendering techniques they used to achieve their look.
I spent a little time playing games from the train jam and showing off mine. Finally, I capped off day two by going to an after party at the GitHub office. They had a whole host of fun party games to play and it was a blast! Overall, this was an amazing opportunity and I met tons of talented people.
Dakota Hotchkiss
First two days
Dakota Hotchkiss (left) and Max Couch (right) met up with a representative from Faceteam. (Courtesy photo)
The first two days at GDC included summits, tutorials and bootcamps, which were basically talks one could go to and learn about a certain topic.
Monday for me was nothing but UX (User Experience) talks, which is my main area of focus in Game Design. Those talks covered a broad range of topics, including emotional UX design as well as creating good tutorials for games.
Learning from industry professionals provided me with valuable insights and techniques that will show me better ways to conduct my work.
Day two, the UX talks were over, but I attended other talks that provided some insight. My favorite was an inspirational talk from a developer who made a game called Crashlands while battling cancer. He made me rethink my whole work ethic: If someone can make a successful game while battling cancer, I can do just as well!
The remaining three days were the Expo floor, which was a huge room with tons of booths ranging from tech demos, individual studios showing off games, and people trying to sell products related to game development (like payment software, data software, translators, etc.). It was really interesting to walk around and see the newest innovations. I talked to some game companies and did mock interviews, which helped me prepare my portfolio and prepare for any questions I may have been asked.
Overall, GDC made me feel more ready for my career as a game designer and provided invaluable insights I couldn’t have obtained anywhere else.
