GDC 2005: Game Design Track

 

GDC 이제 곧 시작한다. 가보지는 못했지만

(언젠간..꼭 한번 가보고 싶은. T.T) 관심있었던 강의 트랙들을 정리해 본다.

 

Attack of the Design Directors! Speaker: Brian Allgeier (, Insomniac Games) Time/Date: Friday (March 11, 2005)   12:00pm — 1:00pm Track: Game Design Format: 60-minute Lecture Experience Level: Intermediate - Basic familiarity or some experience.

Description: The Ratchet and Clank series has been a monumental effort and each game is representative of the massive scope and complexity of many of today's games. As team sizes sky rocket and budgets pass the 10 million mark, it is no longer practical to use garage development tactics with a staff that wears many hats. It is now more important than ever for the designers to stay on track and choreograph the synergistic blend of story, gameplay, and multiplayer elements. Sharing the vision, communicating the design philosophy, and motivating the team is critical in achieving the level of quality that meets the high expectations of today’s players. This lecture shares the experiences of directing the design for Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando and Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal. It goes into depth on the issues and successes of working with a 100+ person team, including: holding creative meetings, fighting feature creep, taking action with department heads, knowing when to cut, and when to champion great ideas. Idea Takeaway: Developing the vision, coordinating the efforts of multiple departments, and making tough decisions with team leads. Collaborating with a team while fostering leadership, having formal reviews, sharing a core design philosophy, and nurturing a sense of ownership. Intended Audience and Prerequisites: Designers, project leads, managers.

 

Game Design Challenge: The Emily Dickinson License Speakers: Eric Zimmerman (CEO, gameLab), Peter Molyneux ( Lionhead Studios), Will Wright ( Maxis), Clint Hocking (Creative Director Ubisoft Divertissements Inc) Time/Date: Wednesday (March 9, 2005)   12:00pm — 1:00pm Track: Game Design Format: Panel Experience Level: All - Open to All Levels

Description: The Game Design Challenge returns for a second year of innovative and provocative on-the-spot game design. Last year, the Game Design Challenge asked three veteran designers to present a concept for a game that told a love story. This year, returning Game Design Challenge champion Will Wright returns to face off against two new competitors. The theme? Design a game around a highly unusual “license” – the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Licensed properties are a hotly debated topic in the game industry. Does the use of a license hamper design creativity? Or will the unusual “license” of Emily Dickinson spur the Game Design Challenge panelists into new design territory? At the session, each panelist will present a solution to this game design enigma. All three of the Emily Dickinson-inspired game concepts offer a very different approach to this particular challenge. In addition to presenting their ideas, the panelists critique each others’ work, and the audience plays an important role as well. Attendees to the session will join in the critical discussion, as well as vote for the winner of the Game Design Challenge 2005. More than just a design exercise, the Game Design Challenge asks expert game designers to think on their feet as they address important game design dilemmas. What happens when commercial constrains are removed from the game design process? What if developers are free to create games that were radically experimental? How do designers react when confronted with difficult and unsolved game design problems? Their answers to the challenge just might contain the seeds of gaming’s future. Expect an unpredictable session of strange and unusual game design ideas along with free-wheeling dialogue and debate. Idea Takeaway: Each game concept that the panelists will present is a “snapshot” of the early game design process. In this way, the audience will get a peek into how game designers formulate concepts and begin to turn them into full-fledged designs. Critique, discussion, and debate is also an important part of concept development, and there will be plenty of critical feedback among the panelists as well. Attendees will get a glimpse into some very original ways of solving difficult game design problems. Intended Audience and Prerequisites: This session is intended for game designers, project leaders, and others involved in the conceptual aspects of game design and game development. Anyone interested in new ideas and out-of-the-ordinary game designs is encouraged to attend. Bring an open mind and an interest in hearing unusual approaches to game design from some of the most established designers in the industry.

 

Academic Insights: What Researchers Can and Can't Tell You About Your Games Speakers: Dmitri Williams (Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), James Paul Gee (Tashia Morgridge Professor of Reading University of Wisconsin), Jesse Schell (Prof. Entertainment Technology Carnegie Mellon University), Edward Castronova (Associate Professor of Telecommunications Indiana University), Constance Steinkuehler (mmog cognitive researcher university of wisconsin - madison) Time/Date: Thursday (March 10, 2005)   5:30pm — 6:30pm Track: IGDA Format: Panel Experience Level: All - Open to All Levels

Description: Research on games often evokes the image of a cadre of ivory tower types out to prove how and why videogames are out to destroy the world and society. Yet there is now a first generation of game researchers finding positions in the country’s top universities who have grown up with the medium and are neither out to get nor out to defend games. These researchers (who have actually played the titles they study) have studied aggression, but also study topics ranging from how games foster complex reasoning and learning, to how they function to help form communities, to their economic ecosystems. They discuss their findings, game effects, and how to capitalize on research to improve your own designs. The goal of the panel is sustained dialog between the academic and development worlds. The starting point is to give participants a chance to interact with researchers—and vice versa. This may create new lines of dialog, or even opportunities to form collaborations for research. Specifically, the panel will discuss: - Academic research as a design resource. How insights from economics, political science, communications, and other fields can be used to improve gaming experiences. - Games and the news media. How media coverage of games has changed over time. - Game courses at universities. What is being taught right now? What is the curriculum of the future? - Violence. Do games make people aggressive? How to critique and use the research, plus new evidence from an MMRPG study. - The social effects of gaming. How games can make some people isolated, while they may make others more engaged. Idea Takeaway: Attendees will learn how to interpret research, use it, take it to heart and debunk it when appropriate. This information will inform game development practice, and can also help developers understand the uses and effects their games may have. Intended Audience and Prerequisites: Anyone who isn’t currently working at a university but is willing to hear those who are. This session will be particularly useful for game designers who have been on the receiving end of ugly press, those who simply want to know how to justify and/or improve their game designs based on empirical findings or those curious about the impact of gaming.

 

 

Deconstructing Sam: Narrative in the Splinter Cell Trilogy Speaker: Clint Hocking (Creative Director, Ubisoft Divertissements Inc) Time/Date: Thursday (March 10, 2005)   4:00pm — 5:00pm Track: Game Design Format: 60-minute Lecture Experience Level: Intermediate - Basic familiarity or some experience.

Description: The games in the Splinter Cell trilogy push the envelope in the thrust to escape technology driven benchmarks, and to bring emotionally compelling content into the interactive medium. This lecture provides a practical deconstruction of the way narrative can work in a modern game using modern technology. Not a high-level talk about what ideal games could do to surpass Hollywood-standard dramatic structure, this lecture will focus on the realities of creating content that can move players emotionally without sacrificing any of the things that make games great. By examining the games in the Splinter Cell trilogy, this lecture will provide concrete examples of our attempts to deliver an emotionally compelling experience; both those that were successful, and those that were not. Idea Takeaway: Attendees will leave with a solid understanding of how emotionally meaningful dramatic content works in the Splinter Cell trilogy, as well as an improved overall understanding of how to bring emotional content into any game. Intended Audience and Prerequisites: This lecture is open to anyone interested in improving the dramatic and emotional content of their game. Familiarity with core game design terminology is beneficial, though not necessary. Familiarity with conventional modern dramatic structure is also beneficial, though not necessary.

 

 

Dissecting Interactive Design Speaker: Cliff Bleszinski (Lead Designer, Epic Games) Time/Date: Thursday (March 10, 2005)   5:30pm — 6:30pm Track: Game Design Format: 60-minute Lecture Experience Level: Intermediate - Basic familiarity or some experience.

Description: Bleszinski takes a scalpel to the interactive experience, breaking down bit by bit the numerous titles he's worked on, along with other popular titles and even some famous failures. He outlines his theory of how any game can be split up into a series of "loops" of varying complexity. He analyzes and discusses how designers can leverage interactivity, responsiveness, and visual and auditory feedback into a more compelling product. Finally, Bleszinski makes the case for the fact that, in many instances, graphics do in fact contribute to fun. Idea Takeaway: Designers will leave this lecture not only armed with an improved ability to communicate their design goals to other team members, but also with added understanding of the ever elusive concept of fun. Intended Audience and Prerequisites: Designers and programmers who often have a hard time discussing and identifying what fun is. Previously shipped titles and/or current active development experience is suggested.

 

 

Effective Quest Design in MMORPG Environment Speakers: Gyuhwan Oh (Senior Game Designer, Nexon Inc.), JuYoung Kim (Senior Game Designer Nexon Inc.) Time/Date: Friday (March 11, 2005)   2:30pm — 3:30pm Track: Game Design Format: 60-minute Lecture Experience Level: Intermediate - Basic familiarity or some experience.

Description: Quests are one of important game contents in RPG(Role Playing Game). Usually, in a single-player RPG, a player first receives a quest from a NPC and then, performs its mission and finally, receives a prize after finishing it. During performing the mission, the player interacts with the games world to unravel the quest or understand the plot behind the quest. In MMORPG(Massively Multiplayer On-line RPG), many players enjoy the game together by connecting the same game server. Since many players enjoy the game together, there are various interactions : interactions between players, interactions between players and the game world as well as interactions available in the single-player RPG. When we design a quest in MMORPG, it is extremely important to consider such various interactions to make the quest more fun and give various stories. This presentation first gives a survey and classification of quests in various MMORPGs according to types of interactions and tasks. Then, we also discuss how to design a quest in MMORPG effectively, by considering such interactions. Upon use of these surveys and discussions, game-designers could get the inspiration of how quests are designed to give fun and various storytelling in MMORPG environment. Idea Takeaway: Participants are provided with a survey and classification of quests in currently famous MMORPGs according to types of interactions and tasks. Moreover, They will learn effective quest design techniques considering such various interactions in MMORPG environment. Intended Audience and Prerequisites: The presentation is primarily for game designers who are interested in designing quests in MMORPG environment. Attendees are expected to understand basic concepts of RPG such as MMORPG, Single-player RPG, quests, interactions, leveling, and storytelling.

 

 

Interactive Narratives Revisited: Ten Years of Research Speaker: Ernest Adams Time/Date: Wednesday (March 9, 2005)   4:00pm — 5:00pm Track: Game Design Format: 60-minute Lecture Experience Level: All - Open to All Levels

Description: In 1995 Ernest Adams gave a lecture at the GDC called "The Challenge of the Interactive Movie," in which he outlined some fundamental problems with interactive narrative at that time. He identified three in particular: the problem of internal consistency; the problem of narrative flow; and the problem of amnesia. In this lecture, Adams looks back on the last 10 years and examines how both academic research and the game industry as a creative business have addressed these and other issues in the design of interactive narratives. He draws on the published literature and on his own experience as a player and a professional game designer to illuminate the progress that has been made, including numerous examples from real games. This lecture will also be a partial summary of Mr. Adams' Ph.D. research. Idea Takeaway: The lecture brings the attendee up-to-date on the current state of the art and offers direct suggestions for further work. It includes a history of efforts to merge interactivity with narratives; a statement of the key issues faced in combining the two. It incluseds an examination of the work done over the last ten years, with comments on the degree of success of different approaches, and examples taken from published games. It also includes concrete proposals for future research, development, and experimentation. Intended Audience and Prerequisites: The intended audience is game developers and researchers with an interest in the theoretical and practical problems of creating interactive narratives. Some experience with thinking about these issues is expected; however, the lecture does not use any academic jargon.