Being on Game Developers Session 2013

Once Upon A Time…

Or rather more precisely – weekend 8. – 10. 11. 2013. We spent these autumn days in Prague on Game Developers Session 2013 (GDS). This game design and industry happening offered, as usual, high quality of speakers, organisation and last but not least the relaxation in form of awesome after party. But I think nobody cares what happened after conference, so let move back to National Library of Technology.

…There Was A Light

O.K., wrong word, I mean “highlight”. To be concrete: it was very interesting to follow talk of Marek Rosa from Keen SW House about their current project Space Engineers released just in 7 months. And from him as well as from Tomas Blaho (Warhorses Studio) we have learnt about importance of cooperation between all departments in game developers studio, about the value of effective project (define priorities!) and time management (deadline is a key!) and working with other members of team (have fun but behave as professional!).

Another interesting topic of presentations was dedicated to game design. Thanks to quite an academic approach of Jan Jirkovsky (Dreadlocks) we have learnt more about diversity in game mechanics a.k.a. rules of game (and finally I know the essential mechanics of Mensch ärgere Dich nicht) as well as the simple fact which was common sense in ancient Greece or wherever – history teaches us all (the greatest inspiration for developing game mechanics are games from eighties/nineties!).

If Jan was more focused on “mechanical” part of game design, “really cute guy” (all credits to Tomas Blaho) Dan Vavra (Warhorse Studios) has shown us more “poetical” side of game design. In other words, Dan described the process of creating one huge quest from its storytelling point of view. And my suspicion is confirmed – game designer is graphom… well, writer!

Games and design were not only topic of conference. We cannot forget to mention European Commission project MEDIA Programme which was basically aimed to support film industry but from now also game developers studios can try to get some financial injection from EU. Google personalised by Filip Hracek has introduced to its Google Play Game Services and Mats-Olov Eriksson from King.com (you do not know Candy Crush Saga?) pointed out how to do magic with 100M+ daily users data.

Just Long Story Short

It is impossible to mention everyone and everything. I have just tried to underline what I found the most interesting and what remains graved in my mind. As well as many friendly and inspiring people which me and rest of Alda Games have met on GDS 2013. Thank you all for great weekend and farewell until next year!

Martin Vonsak, 12.11.2013 ǀ Brno, Czech Republic