Just a quick final reminder today that early registration for the 2019 Game Developers Conference ends tomorrow (Wednesday, January 30th) at 11:59 PM Pacific, and organizers encourage anyone interested in attending to register now at a discounted rate!
If you're thinking about coming to GDC this year, the early registration discount is a great way to save some money and guarantee yourself a pass to the show, which always hosts an industry-leading lineup of lectures, panels, and tutorials for game makers and other industry professionals.
This year there's a ton of great stuff lined up, including the new Game Discoverability Day, a full day of talks discussing practical case studies and strategies for PC, console and mobile game developers to help their work stand out amid the sea of games filling today's markets.
Discoverability Day is just one of many focused Tutorials scheduled during the first two days of GDC 2019, one wholly focused on helping you maximize the chances of as many people enjoying your game as possible.
For example, in her Discoverability Day talk "NOTICE ME: The Grind Behind the $272K Funding Success of 'Boyfriend Dungeon'", Kitfox Games' Victoria Tran will give you an inside look at the lengthy work that went into making Boyfriend Dungeon an instant success. How did the Kitfox Games team attract press? Did social media matter that much? How did a 5-person team manage? How did their community help? Let's lift the veil on the numbers and technical aspects behind the indie discoverability grind!
Tran is also presenting an intriguing Advocacy track talk at this year's show that's all about fashion in games, and why it matters. In "Why Fashion In (Most) Games Sucks - And Why You Should Care", she'll explore the recent history of fashion in games, offer tips on improving the fashion options in your own project, and examine why fashion in games is one of the most downplayed parts of the medium!
Elsewhere, as part of GDC 2019's Mobile Summit, King will give you a behind-the-scenes look at its latest Candy Crush game in "Expanding the World of 'Candy Crush': A Postmortem on 'Candy Crush Friends Saga'."
Featuring principal game designer Jeremy Kang, studio lead (narrative design) Tracey John and senior director of visual development Robert Mackenzie, this session will walk through the process of how the development team expanded the game world and built upon this billion-dollar IP to create a more accessible game, including adding collection and other gameplay elements, redesigning the look of the characters, and retrofitting a new narrative foundation.
Make time to attend, and you're likely to walk away with practical learnings about the game design, art vision, and strategy behind the making of this new Candy Crush game, as well as the goals and challenges of expanding the world of this successful IP.
If you're more interested in the ways different vehicles traverse the open world of the new Just Cause game, check out Avalanche Studios lead mechanics designer Hamish Young's Programming track talk on "Vehicle Physics and Tire Dynamics in 'Just Cause 4'."
He'll show you how the latest Just Cause game copes with a wide range of vehicles and playstyles through thoughtful design of its tire dynamics, and how the right technical decisions were reached during design of the game's vehicle physics model.
You want to be there, because Young also plans to go through the "magic formula" tire model, examine why it may not be optimal for arcade and "simcade" handling, and propose a more designer-friendly approach which is not semi-empirical, has considerably fewer parameters and produces more player-friendly results.
And of course, don't forget about the GDC 2019 Vision Track! It's a special series of high-profile talks exploring the future of the game industry that touch on everything from what game devs can learn from the Walt Disney Imagineering team (in a special talk on "Playing with Magic: Interactive Worlds and Walt Disney Imagineering") to Niantic (Pokemon Go) founder and CEO John Hanke's talk on "The State & Future of AR Games: Rose-Colored Glasses."
Hanke's talk is especially interesting because he'll provide a deep look at augmented reality (AR) tech today -- and help you think through near- and long-term AR games and experiences that can successfully deliver persistent shared experiences in the real world. Don't miss it!
For more details on these and all other announced talks head over to the online GDC 2019 Session Scheduler, where you can check out all the sessions on offer at the show this year.
Bring your team to GDC! Register a group of 10 or more and save 10 percent on conference passes. Learn more here.
For more details on GDC 2019 visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.
