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Game Developers Conference organizers have announced new Design Track lectures for the upcoming March 2013 conference, including a design postmortem for Diablo III, mid-core mobile lessons learned from Lili, and Dear Esther co-creator's case studies on apocalyptic games.
The Design Track is just one of seven focused Tracks for the Main Conference to be held Wed-Fri, March 27-29 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, CA.
The first new talk is a design postmortem from Blizzard's game director Jay Wilson entitled 'Shout at the Devil: The Making of Diablo III.' He will focus on the core design goals his developers set, focusing specifically on those they struggled with and the design lessons they learned during those struggles.
In 'How to Build a Better Apocalypse,' Dear Esther creator thechineseroom's Dan Pinchbeck will assert that end-of-world games can show "perfect fusion of content and mechanics." He will use case studies to demonstrate how a strong, well-honed apocalyptic story and setting can support and enhance gameplay.
Lastly, former Epic lead designer turned BitMonster president Lee Perry will present 'From Gears to Lili, Lessons About Mid-Core and Mobile.' Perry will focus on production, promotion, and design lessons that are shaping his company's choices and thoughts on "the next evolution in gaming" -- the mid-core mobile segment.

Game Developers Conference 2013 organizers have revealed new Summit talks for its March conference, with lectures featuring VVVVVV creator Terry Cavanagh and Porpentine's DIY game curation showcase, Touch Arcade's iOS press promotion tips, and Leti Games' lessons in African video game development.
These talks are part of the Independent Games, Smartphone & Tablet Games, and Localization Summits that will take place Monday, March 25 and Tuesday, March 26 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA during the first two days of GDC 2013.
For the Independent Games Summit, VVVVVV and Super Hexagon creator Terry Cavanagh will share his curation initiative in 'Free Indie Games: Curating the DIY Revolution.' Co-editor and game designer Porpentine will present overlooked indie games from 2012 and will describe "how outsider voices are challenging and redefining the nature of games."
For the Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit, Touch Arcade editor-in-chief Eli Hodapp will argue that 'There's More to Life Than Press Releases and Promo Codes.' He will show examples of a community-building, snowball effect that creates downloads and leads to media coverage without a single press release.
Finally, for the Localization Summit, Wesley Kirinya and Eyram Tawia of Leti Games will discuss the political and cultural sensitivities needed in 'The Emerging Landscape of African Game Development.' Using their 7 years of experience as developers in Africa, they will also explore unique challenges such as a very low internet penetration rate and a need to educate the player in using gaming technologies.

By popular demand, the Game Developers Conference (GDC) is bringing back the Classic Games Postmortem series for the third consecutive year with sessions taking a close look at four seminal games at GDC 2013.

Organizers have revealed that postmortems for Crystal Castles, Myst, Pinball Construction Set and X-COM: UFO Defense are confirmed for this year's conference. Organized by the UBM Tech Game Network, GDC 2013 will take place March 25-29 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California.

The Classic Game Postmortems series provides GDC attendees with sessions that examine the development of some of the industry's most influential landmark titles. The series debuted at GDC 2011 as part of the conference's twenty-fifth anniversary celebration, has featured games including Pac-Man, DOOM, and Maniac Mansion, and has returned each year since due to its ever-increasing popularity.

This year, the original designer and programmer of Crystal Castles, Franz Lanzinger, will discuss secrets of the classic Atari arcade game; Robyn Miller, co-director of Myst, the best-selling PC game of the 1990s, will share how he and his brother created a game that remains relevant more than 20 years later.

In addition, Bill Budge, father of the seminal Pinball Construction Set will lay out one of the earliest examples of an in-game editor - a title that game developer legend Will Wright has credited as a key influence on the simulation games that launched him to stardom; and Julian Gollop will reveal tactics he deployed in directing, co-designing, co-programming and co-drawing X-COM: UFO Defense. Additional details for each postmortem are as follows:

Game Developers Conference 2013 organizers have revealed new Summit talks for its March conference, with topics including lectures on the Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn web video series, smarter tactical behavior in Hitman: Absolution and Lichdom, and the BBC's challenges in building worldwide game brands.
These talks are part of the AI, Localization, and Game Narrative Summits that will take place Monday, March 25 and Tuesday, March 26 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA during the first two days of GDC 2013.
Part of the Game Narrative Summit, 343 Industries's Kevin Grace, Frank O'Connor, Kiki Wolfkill, and Matt McCloskey will speak on creating the Halo 4 web series in Bringing the Game to Life - Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn (Postmortem).'
343 Industries will share the challenges of introducing the Halo world via episodic content to newcomers while satisfying its legion of fans. Along with building partnerships with Hollywood, the studio will also discuss the creation and marketing of episodic content and how it integrated these episodes into game planning.
For the AI Summit, Mika Vehkala of IO Interactive and Matthew Jack of Moon Collider will examine more intelligent modern shooter and action game agents in 'Spaces in the Sandbox: Tactical Awareness in Open World Games.' The two will use examples of Hitman: Absolution, their work developed at Crytek, and Xaviant's upcoming RPG, Lichdom, to explore two different approaches to dynamically processing spatial information, which leads to AI acting in believable, tactical ways.

Game Developers Conference 2013 organizers have revealed its new Free to Play Design & Business Summit for the March conference, with TinyCo on using analytics for mobile game improvement, Zynga on why FarmVille won't go away, and more.
The Free to Play Design & Business Summit is just one of eight total Summits that will take place Monday, March 25 and Tuesday, March 26 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA during the first two days of GDC 2013.
Nick Ross of TinyCo, developer of mobile hits such as Tiny Village and Tiny Zoo Friends, will share how to find and exploit data in 'How to Lie with Analytics.' His discussion will include topics that help improve a game's success such as tracking, sampling, and balancing significance versus execution.
Zynga's Mike Perry and Abhinav Agrawal will share the platform expertise, game design, and development processes for its social gaming giant in 'Why Won't FarmVille Go Away?'
The two will discuss "how to leverage platform opportunities and use design refactoring methods to extend the lifetime of a social game. In addition, attendees will gain insight into the rapid design, scoping, and development process of features for FarmVille."

The Independent Games Festival has announced the eight Student Showcase winners for the fifteenth annual presentation of its prestigious awards, celebrating the brightest and most innovative creations to come out of universities and games programs from around the world in the past year.

This year's showcase of top student talent include the first-person meta-videogame ATUM, from the Netherlands' NHTV IGAD, the similarly meta-game-ified pen & paper RPG Knights of Pen & Paper, from Brazil's Instituto de Ensino Superior de Brasilia & Universidade de Brasilia, and the Jet Set Radio-esque Zineth, a game which "celebrates speed, movement & Twitter", from students of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

In total, this year's Student Competition took in over 300 game entries across all platforms -- PC, console and mobile -- from a wide diversity of the world's most prestigious universities and games programs making the Student IGF one of the world's largest showcases of student talent.

All of the Student Showcase winners announced today will be playable on the Expo show floor at the 27th Game Developers Conference, to be held in San Francisco starting March 25th, 2013. Each team will receive a $1,000 prize for being selected into the Showcase, and are finalists for an additional $3,000 prize for Best Student Game, to be revealed during the Independent Games Festival Awards on March 27th.

The full list of Student Showcase winners for the 2013 Independent Games Festival, along with 'honorable mentions' to those top-quality games that didn't quite make it to finalist status, are as follows:

Bungie, a little over 20 years old, has spent nearly half of its life working on the multi-billion dollar franchise, Halo. After its long run with the IP, Bungie's developers faced an enormous challenge: how to tackle their next adventure?
In a session at the upcoming 2013 Game Developers Conference, writer and design director Joe Staten and art director Christopher Barrett will offer a glimpse at what their team has built for where the "next ten years of great Bungie adventures will unfold."
The hour-long lecture will cover the team's building techniques for the new world - widely reported to be codenamed 'Destiny' - that they aim to fill "with even more amazing mysteries, places, creatures, and opportunities for player investment." The duo will also use concept art and design case studies to illustrate Bungie's world building ideas.
While the talk is focused on art and design collaboration, it will also benefit all developers who are eager to improve their team's world building process.