The popular GDC Europe conference in Cologne, Germany is coming up fast, and as organizers continue to line up great talks for the show they're excited to announce that longtime game designer Mata Haggis will be there delivering a great talk on interaction design in games.

In "Narrative Experience First: Interaction Design in Fragments of Him," Haggis will showcase the many small design choices made to amplify the game's narrative through interactions in order to better keep the player 100 percent immersed in the narrative.

Haggis aims to cover the successes and failures we came up against in the development of the game, including many practical examples of topics such as reticule design and iteration, forced player movement, removing interactions to create additional immersion, and more.

Heads up, European devs: GDC Europe is just months away, and today conference organizers are pleased to debut an intriguing session on the growing popularity (and power!) of game hubs that will take place during the conference in Germany this August.

Modern Dream (Typing of the Dead: Overkill [pictured]) director and cofounder Oliver Clarke also helped cofound U.K. coworking space Arch Creatives, and at GDC Europe he'll be delivering a great talk on "Game Hubs: A Quest to Revolutionize Game Production."  

His talk will provide a clear understanding of what Game Hubs are, why they're popping up around the world, what the advantages are for developers -- and what major pitfalls to avoid. His talk will also provide ideas on how to set one up, and afford you a better understanding of their potential to improve your game production process.

The big GDC Europe conference in Germany is just months away, and today GDC organizers are happy to debut another excellent, expert talk that will be taking place at the Cologne conference in August.

David Lightbown serves as User Experience Director at Ubisoft, and at GDC Europe he'll be presenting a fascinating take on applying game design principles to improve your game production tools and process. 

Check out his talk, "Hiding in Plain Sight: The Untapped Resource that is Helping Ubisoft to Make Better Tools" to learn how, exactly, Ubisoft has helped its teams work more efficiently by applying game design tenets to its production pipelines.

GDC officials are lining up some great talks for the big GDC Europe conference this August in Cologne, Germany, and today they're happy to announce another exciting session taking place at the show.

In developing the crowdfunded PC RPG Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian Entertainment sought to create a spiritual successor to beloved '90s PC RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment. That involved a host of technical and creative challenges, as well as the tricky work of designing a game with contemporary sensibilities that could also appeal to fans of those classic games.

At GDC Europe, Obsidian's Josh Sawyer willl speak frankly about those challenges in his talk "Looking Back and Moving Forward with Pillars of Eternity." Make time to check it out, and you'll walk away with insight into the into the benefits and pitfalls of making a "retro classic", especially for a crowdfunding audience that is emotionally (and financially) invested from the start of the project.

GDC organizers are working with top game industry talent to line up great talks for this year's GDC Europe conference in Germany, and today they'd like to tip you off to one such talk from the folks at Wargaming about rebooting the classic game Master of Orion.

Come August, GDC Europe 2016 attendees will have the chance to check out "Alien Cultures: Rebooting 'Master of Orion' with a Global Team" and get an in-depth look at the process of rebooting a beloved strategy game in a way that both satisfies diehard Master of Orion fans while simultaneously showcasing the appeal of space strategy games to a new audience.

Wargaming's Chris Keeling and Jacob Beucler both worked closely on the project, and in their talk they'll discuss how the Master of Orion team overcame obstacles and managed remote third-party teams across multiple languages, time zones, and cultures. 

Heads up, game makers: GDC Europe is taking place this summer in Cologne, Germany and today is the day to register early at a discounted rate.

Organizers of the Game Developers Conference are pleased to announce that early registration for GDC Europe 2016 has officially opened,  there's no better place to find the essential pan-European perspective of game development and business trends currently happening throughout the continent.

Organized by UBM Tech Game Network, the event, now in its eighth year running, will run Monday through Tuesday, August 15th and 16th at the Cologne Congress-Centrum Ost venue in Cologne, Germany.

Register now and you can save 200 euros on an All Access Pass. Plus, this year there will also be a GDC Europe Student Pass made available as a more affordable alternative to the All Access Pass -- one created specifically for qualified students interested in learning and networking at the conference.

Just a quick reminder that the call for submissions to present lectures and panel sessions at the Game Developers Conference Europe in August ends tomorrow: Friday, April 1st, at 11:59 PM Pacific, to be precise.

If you have a great idea for a talk, now's the time to pitch it! Talk submissions are being accepted for Main Conference tracks in Business, Marketing & Management, Design, Production, Programming, and Visual Arts. Organizers are seeking leading industry practitioners to propose lectures and panels with significant, applicable takeaways for today's video game community.

Content submissions are also being accepted for the Independent Games Summit, so if you have a great idea for either a Main Conference or Indie Summit talk, submit it now! You can learn more about the submissions process and guidelines via the GDC Europe Submissions page.