I returned home from the Game Developers Conference (GDC) nearly a week ago, but I feel like it has taken me this long to be able to recover from the late nights, the jetlag, the cold I caught, and put things into perspective. I thought I’d share a summary of my experience there, for those who are thinking of maybe going next year.

Executive Summary: SO AWESOME!!!

GDC is held every year in San Francisco. I’ve been in the games industry for over 6 years now, but this was my first time at the conference, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I managed to get an All Access Pass to the conference, so I was there for the summits and tutorials, as well as the main conference.

Let me back up a little and talk about my reasoning for going, as that will help you understand why the conference was so valuable to me. At the beginning of the year I started thinking about what conferences I wanted to attend. 360iDev was a must-attend for me, so I booked that first. However, I was torn between attending WWDC (Apple’s big annual conference) or GDC. I attended WWDC last year and it was great. But this year I felt like what I really needed was general game design inspiration, and less Apple-specific technical inspiration. With that in mind, I chose GDC. My goal for the conference was to focus mainly on game design sessions and take in a few technical and business sessions.

So, I arrived in San Francisco Monday, March 8th, the day before the Summits started. I managed to meet up with a bunch of iPhone devs I know from Toronto, other conferences, or Twitter. We had a few beers and tried to adjust to west coast time. It was a good way to ease myself into the week.

Tuesday and Wednesday were the Summit & Tutorial days at GDC. There were two summits I was interested in: the iPhone Summit, and the Independent Games Summit (IGS). I think I spent about 60% of my time at the IGS and about 40% at the iPhone Summit. I saw some great technical iPhone talks by Noel Llopis from SnappyTouch and Phil Hassey from Galcon. I also saw some great IGS talks that ranged in topic from managing an independent game studio’s creative process, to how to better design indie games. I saw a session by Ron Carmel from 2D Boy, several awesome sessions by the people at thatgamecompany (Flower is one of my favourite games), and a terrific session by Randy Smith from Tiger Style (among so many others!). By the end of the Summits, my head was already spinning with inspiration. The IGS design talks in particular were extremely motivating for me. Getting a chance to meet and hear amazing indie game designers/developers talk about their processes was fantastic. It started me thinking about a lot of things as they relate to my own processes. More on that later…

A tiny segment of the massive GDC Expo

The IGF Awards

Thursday through Saturday were the main conference, expo, and Independent Games Festival Awards. I sat in session after amazing session listening to industry leaders in game design, technical development, and business talk about their processes. I saw Peter Molyneux talk, Sid Meier talk, and even Will Wright talk. I saw a moving and inspirational talk by Brenda Brathwaite on her exploration into board games with serious themes. I saw a head-ache inducing (in a good way!) talk on PixelJunk Shooter’s real-time fluid dynamics system that made me really miss doing PS3 SPU programming. I saw an in-depth and honest look a the successes and problems encountered by Naughty Dog’s attempts to create an active cinematic experience for Uncharted 2. I was blown away by the quality of the content, and I was left reeling by how the talks started forcing me to think about the direction I want to take with my own games.

There were huge crowds in the halls between sessions!

But of course, the sessions are only part of GDC. The other part comes from meetings and parties. I was able to set up a few meetings with iPhone press to show them my new game. That was really great to be able to demo the game in person. I think it was extremely valuable. Then each night there were countless parties happening. Each party was a great chance to meet people in person who I’ve only communicated with on twitter or via email. It was a chance to discuss iPhone development with other people going through the same thing as me. It was a chance to discuss game design in general with other game designers and developers. It was a chance to have fun with people who share in the same daily challenges that I do.

Will Wright giving his presentation!

For me, I got out of GDC exactly what I wanted: design inspiration, new friends, new business connections and a wealth of knowledge. But perhaps most importantly, GDC helped me to put me back on track with where I want to take my games. When I decided to go indie in 2008, it was because I wanted to make the games that I was compelled to make. What I’ve noticed is that I’ve been making more and more design decisions lately based on what I think will sell well. This isn’t how I want to make games. I want to make the games that I have to make, not that I think I should make because I think it might make some money, even though the idea doesn’t excite me. Granted, I would love to be able to make the games that I feel compelled to make and have them also become a financial success. And obviously I can’t ignore the fact that I’m running a business. But GDC helped to remind me of what I want my priorities to be, and that, to me, is the most important part of having gone.

Owen

It has been quite a while since my last post. I would have been posting, but I’ve been doing some contract work, so I haven’t had a lot of my own news to talk about. I’ve also been doing my year-end bookkeeping, and as exciting as that is, I’m not sure anyone wants to read about my adventures in recording business receipts from 2009.

However, over the last few days I’ve been returning to my own projects and getting back into the swing of things. As you might recall, I took part (remotely) in September’s 360iDev Game Jam night and created a prototype for a puzzle game idea I had. I’m happy to report that I’ve been developing that idea further and it’s coming along nicely. The game now looks very different from the screenshot I posted on Touch Arcade, by the way. As for a preliminary look at what the game is becoming, I might have something to show early next week, so keep an eye out for that!

Yesterday I decided to rewrite the rendering part of my engine to take advantage of a bunch of optimizations I had been putting off making. It turns out that the changes I made over the last day reduced my render time by about 40%! That means that I can render nearly double the sprites on the screen without dropping my framerate. This is great news, and I’m looking at porting the changes back into Monkeys in Space at some point to help out with that game’s performance.

In other news, I thought I’d mention that I’ve decided to attend two conferences this spring: the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March and 360iDev in April. I’m looking forward to both conferences, but I’m especially excited about GDC as I’ve been in the games industry for over 6 years now, but I’ve never gone to GDC! I’m really excited to get a chance to finally go and see what all the fuss is about. I’m also looking forward to attending sessions on game design that are more broad than just iPhone games.

That being said, I’m also happy to be attending 360iDev again. It will be great to see the iPhone developers I speak with every day on twitter in person again. Last year I had a fantastic time at the conference and I expect no less this time. I’ll also be speaking at 360iDev. For my presentation I will attempt to create an iPhone game prototype in 80 minutes based on audience suggestions. While doing that, I’ll be highlighting some of my best practices for rapid prototyping. If you’re attending the conference, I hope you’ll check it out. If you’re not attending the conference, why not? Check out this amazing schedule of speakers. And if you’re thinking about it, go register!

Owen

After yesterday’s excitement my brain was swimming with information and thoughts on the iPad. Last night I didn’t feel like I could be coherent enough to write up my thoughts, so I thought I’d take a crack at it this morning. I feel asleep last night starting to write this blog post in my mind. I woke up this morning to find that Jeff LaMarche had already written up a good part of what I wanted to say on his blog. Because he already wrote it up so well, I won’t go over his points in great detail.

When the iPad was announced at yesterday’s Apple press event the internet was swift and brutal in its condemnation of the device. Why is it that this happens with every Apple device? Reactions yesterday seemed to range from: “It’s brilliant!” to “I’m very disappointed” to “The iPad is stupid and anyone who thinks it isn’t is stupid!” I can understand the people who are disappointed. If you were expecting it to be a MacBook with a touch screen, it’s no wonder you’re disappointed. The anger I don’t get at all. Just because Apple didn’t build exactly what you wanted doesn’t mean the device sucks. Personally, I think it’s brilliant. Here’s why…

One of the main criticisms of the device is that it’s “just a big iPod”. I’m reading this statement all across the internet. However, I think there’s a big flaw in this statement, and that’s the word “just”. One could argue that it’s “a big iPod!” I think what people are missing is that making an iPod bigger doesn’t get you the same device. No one’s had a consumer device with a multi-touch screen this size before. The size of the device will drastically change the user experience on it.

Watch Apple’s promotional video for the device. Look at Safari running on the iPad and compare that to Safari running on an iPhone. It’s a vastly different user experience! I love how amazing Safari is on my iPhone…for a mobile browser. But I don’t like surfing for any amount of time on it. The screen is too small and cramped for it to be a really enjoyable experience for any length of time. As soon as you double the screen size, the way in which you interact with the software totally changes and becomes a different experience.

The biggest thing that will differentiate the iPad from the iPhone and MacBooks will be the software. You can already see that with Apple’s built-in apps. They’re completely different from their iPhone counterparts because of the big screen, but also totally different from their Mac counterparts because of the multitouch. Just looking at iWorks for iPad you can see what kind of amazing things you can do with, let’s face it, fairly boring software. What will be really amazing to see is what 3rd party developers do with it. With the app store integrated into it from day 1, consumers are going to have incredible choices in software. People complain that they prefer their PC to a Mac because there’s more software available for it. Just wait until you see what developers do with the iPad!

I want to touch on Jeff LaMarche’s main point, because I totally agree. This isn’t meant to replace your MacBook. This isn’t targeted at the guy who wants 20 Unix shells open and is running Vim instead of Pages for his text editing. This is aimed at people who want a no nonsense computer that “just works”. You don’t have to worry about where you put your files, you don’t have to worry about how to install an application, you don’t have to worry about how much RAM it has, or how fast the processor is. You don’t have to worry, you just buy it and it works. An article on CBC News about the iPad launch stated: “…interest was split roughly 50-50 between males and females, and the average age of potential buyer was 34.” That’s unheard of in the launch of tech gadgets. What this means is that they’re going after a totally different market than everyone was expecting. What I find even more telling is that CBC filed the story under “Arts & Entertainment” not under “Technology”.

So those of you who are thinking about this in terms of a technology aren’t seeing it the way Apple wants their target market to see it. This isn’t a computer, this is something you need in order to do the fun things you want to do more easily.

I called my dad last night to talk about the launch and he had an interesting point. He said that he pictured people treating it like a book. You generally keep it on the coffee table and pick it up when you want to look something up on the web, or play a game. You carry it into the dining room or kitchen when you want to look up a recipe. You take it to bed to read a book. It’s always there and you don’t think about it like it’s a computer…it’s just something you always use.

Personally, I think this is a big step in a new direction about thinking about personal computers that started with the iPhone and iPod touch. I think that as developers start creating amazing apps designed specifically for the device, everyone will start to see how important this could be. As Apple releases future versions of the device, we’ll start to realise that things are changing and that personal computing isn’t about technology, it’s about how you use it.

Owen

I’m so excited about the potential news of an Apple tablet on Wednesday that I can’t help myself. My father and I have been sending each other articles with the latest rumours for the past week or two. Today we traded our predictions for what Apple will announce on Wednesday and I thought I’d share mine with you, dear readers.

This is all pure speculation. I don’t know anything that everyone else reading the rumours doesn’t know. I have not been contacted by Apple and asked to port Monkeys in Space to the tablet. This is just my guess. [end disclaimer]

With that said, here’s my prediction for what the tablet might be:

Name: I think it will be something no one’s guessing… I think it will be 2 syllables (see: iPod, MacBook, iMac, iPhone), so I think that rules out iTablet. But I don’t think it will be iPad because it’s too cute and clever, and Apple doesn’t work like that; and I don’t think it will be iSlate because of Microsoft using the word so much at CES. So my guess is that it’ll be something no one’s placing money on.
Cost: $899 in the US (which means about $1200 in Canada…zing!)
Screen: 10″ touch screen. A lot of sites are guessing two models: 7″ and 11″, but I think 11″ is too big and 7″ is too small for what this will be, and I think they’ll start with one configuration and expand to other models if they sell enough.
Battery life: 6 hours no WiFi, 3 hrs with WiFi
Agreements: Major newspaper subscriptions, new online bookstore through iTunes, since Amazon won’t want to distract from the Kindle, and B&N won’t want to distract from the Nook.
Stylus: No. I think a lot of people would like to see it, but I think they’ll concentrate on multi-touch with fingers and design the UI around that. Designing the UI for use with both a stylus and fingers would be incredibly difficult.
Other Interaction: There are some rumours that the back of the device might be multi-touch sensitive (so that you could move your fingers on the back while holding it), which would be amazing, if true. I don’t think it will be, though I hold out hope.
Camera: Front-facing so that you can do video chat with it on the go.
Software to show it off: Games. A lot of gaming sites have been invited to the press event, who have never been invited to Apple events before. All of them take this to mean that games and multimedia are going to be the primary “wow factor” that shows this thing off. I think the emphasis will be on this device being for fun above all else. I think that’s the only way to sell it: by differentiating it from a laptop and an iPhone at the same time.
Connectivity: Wifi for sure. I think it may also have 3G connectivity (like the Kindle) so that it can always be connected, though I don’t think it will be used like a cell phone…just for downloading email, etc. If they make it connected, I really hope that the wireless plan is either optional, or can be rolled into an existing iPhone plan somehow (tethering?). I don’t want to pay for 2 wireless data plans a month. If it releases with 3G connectivity, I worry about its availability outside the US at launch. I’m hoping we don’t see another long wait for Canada to get it.

So there you have it: my prediction. On Wednesday you may berate me for my stupidity, or you may book me on your television program as an “analyst” for future predictions relating to Apple technology.

Regardless of whether I’m right or wrong, if Apple does announce a tablet on Wednesday, I think Apple could once again change the way we think about personal computing. A truly portable computer with an intuitive touch interface and Apple’s ability to design beautiful form-factor could be revolutionary. I guess we’ll see…

Feel free to dispute/discuss or post your own predictions in the comments.

Owen

I read two great articles on art games last night, one by Emily Short, and one by Leigh Alexander, both at Gamasutra.com. Both articles were critiques of art games that have come out recently. Both articles were very well written and examined many aspects of what worked and didn’t work in the games. The games they discuss are also worth playing. However, I was shocked to find a few angry, bordering on vicious, comments posted to the articles. There were some people who were extremely angry about these art games being treated seriously. I was taken aback by the comments I read. At first I couldn’t understand why people were so upset by the idea of art games. The more I thought about it, the more I decided I needed to write it all down.

A lot of the anger seemed to stem from accusations of pretentiousness. In Ms. Short’s article on aging and death in games, she starts by talking about hating when the word “pretentious” is used in art criticism. I love that she talks about this. She starts her article with:

I hate the word “pretentious” in art criticism.

I understand why people use it. Often we call something pretentious when we think the artist might be concealing a lack of meaning or vision behind obscurity, jargon, or a set of conventions currently hallowed by the art establishment. It’s a way of saying “I don’t get this, and I don’t know that there’s anything to get” that shifts the blame (if blame even applies in so subjective an area as one’s response to artwork) onto the artist rather than ourselves.

The on-going debate over whether or not a video game can be considered art and art gaming is an area of great interest to me. I grew up in a family of artists, and so for a long time I assumed that everyone enjoyed art as much as I did. As I got older, and understood more about politics and people’s differing views on the world, I started to see that not everyone had the same love of art that my family did. In the age of the Web 2.0 (oh, how I hate that term) where everyone has a voice on the internet (yes, I’m aware of the irony of writing that on my blog), a wider contempt for art is becoming more and more apparent to me, especially in gaming circles.

Ms. Short’s article brings up the issue when she mentions the use of the word “pretentious”. Reading the comments on her article and on Ms. Alexander’s article, you can see the anger that erupts from some people when the concept of art is discussed. This is an attitude that greatly saddens me.

Let me take a little aside here to talk about a professor I had for one of my art courses in school. Every Monday in class we would all hang our work from the previous week on the walls and everyone would critique each others’ work. It was an important exercise for two reasons: it taught you how to think critically about someone else’s work, and it taught you how to accept criticism of your own work. However, there were also two rules: any criticism had to be constructive, and you weren’t ever allowed to use the word “interesting” when describing someone’s work.

Our prof’s reasoning for the “interesting” rule is that people use the word interesting when they don’t want to commit to a response. It shows that they haven’t thought about the work, that they haven’t even tried to understand how the works makes them feel. I think this is why Ms. Short’s article affected me so much: the word pretentious works the same way. Except that Ms. Short is right, the use of the word pretentious isn’t just about not understanding the art, it’s a statement that the viewer feels the artist is laughing at them for not understanding.

It’s here that I think a lot of the anger towards art stems from. People are intimidated by art for some reason. When they don’t understand a work, they assume that the artist is laughing at them. They are afraid of being embarrassed by art.

Complicating all of this, of course, is the fact that there are some artists out there who create work with the expressed purpose of making people angry that they called it art. I think this is also why a lot of people are afraid to express an opinion about a particular piece of art: they’re afraid that if they do form an opinion and comment on it, the artist will say, “Ha ha! It was all a joke, don’t you feel stupid.” Well I say: enough. It’s better to have an opinion on a piece than to be afraid that it’s the wrong opinion.

Other people would tell us that art can only be enjoyed by those who are educated enough to understand it. Statements like that upset me deeply. Anyone who tells you art can’t be appreciated unless you understand it is probably afraid that they themselves will end up looking stupid.

I’ve taken enough art history classes to know that you can learn to understand historical contexts that help you appreciate why a particular art movement appeared when it did. And knowing about an artist’s life and past work can help put their work into a context that can let you enjoy aspects of their work that you wouldn’t otherwise. But that’s not the point. My point is that even if you’ve never taken an art history course, even if you’ve never looked at a painting before, that should never stop you from going into a gallery and making up your own mind about the artwork in it.

This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t try to learn more about art. We should read about the artist, learn about the movements that lead to their work. This will help you enjoy the art at different levels. But we need to get over this feeling that art can’t be enjoyed without being understood. Art is for everyone! Ultimately it doesn’t matter what the artist intended for you to feel when he/she painted/sculpted/film/programmed the piece. What matters is what you feel when you experience it. We have to get rid of this idea that there’s a right way and a wrong way to feel about art. Focus instead on how it makes you feel.

Take a look at one of Mark Rothko’s paintings. This is called “Orange and Yellow” and was painted in 1956. The original piece is 71″ x 91″. That’s big! Imagine yourself standing in front of this painting that is over seven feet tall!

If you know about Rothko’s evolution from his early paintings that were much less abstract into abstract expressionism, then great. If not, I would argue that it doesn’t really matter. Look at the painting. If your first reaction is “it’s just two blocks of colour. I could have painted that” then fine. But now move on and really look at the painting. Take your time. How does it make you feel? Do you like it? What do you like about it? Do you hate it? Why do you hate it? Look at the way the colours interact. Consider the proportions of the blocks of colour. Really look. Take the time to let it affect you. Reflect on it. Don’t just make a snap judgement based on the first two seconds of looking at it. Now describe it without using the words “interesting” or “pretentious”. And remember, there’s no wrong way to look at this painting. Whatever you feel about it is valid, as long as you’ve actually taken the time to give it a chance.

So let’s please leave the ignorant yelling about how art is pretentious behind. Let’s look at art and art games with an open mind. Not every painting or art game is going to be considered good or appeal to you, just as not every book or movie will appeal to you. I’m just asking that when you criticize an art game because you don’t like it, tell us why.

As mothers everywhere have been saying to their children for generations: use your words.

Owen