{"id":238,"date":"2015-03-13T10:41:34","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T14:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/?p=238"},"modified":"2015-04-29T09:16:07","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T13:16:07","slug":"return-from-gdc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/return-from-gdc\/","title":{"rendered":"Return from GDC"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s been a while since I’ve done an update and I just returned from GDC, so this is a good time.<\/p>\n

First, in my silence I’m programming a lot, sometimes 12hrs a day, and the game is really coming together.\u00a0 As an artist I spend so much time trying to make the work of my hands be as good as the vision in my head.\u00a0 Aspects of Archmage Rises are beyond what I imagined a year ago when I started this project.\u00a0 It is very exciting!<\/p>\n

It was my first GDC and I didn’t know what to expect from it.\u00a0 Besides the thrill of being in the same room as John Carmack listening to him talk about mobile VR, I would say the biggest thing I got out of GDC is the networking.\u00a0 I met some amazing people there and here is how it impacts Archmage:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Archmage Rises is quite dependent on AI for the “living breathing world” to actually feel living and breathing.\u00a0 To that end I have hired a top AI developer who used to work at Blizzard and StoryBrick to join the team.\u00a0 I’m very excited about this and was a necessary step.<\/li>\n
  2. I attended a full day workshop with a lead writer on many console and PC games.\u00a0 He used to work at LucasArts and I think the most famous game he wrote is Marvel Alliance 2.\u00a0 I hired him as a story consultant for Archmage.<\/li>\n
  3. I connected with several senior game designers from big companies like SuperCell, Gearbox, and Firaxis.\u00a0 When the game is more ready, they are willing to evaluate it and provide feedback.<\/li>\n
  4. I met a journalist who thinks there may be a story here. \u00a0We’ll see!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And to end I will share the biggest lesson I learned from GDC.<\/p>\n

    I attended an all-day game design workshop (put on by many who worked at Looking Glass makers of Ultima Underworld and the original Thief).\u00a0 In it we went through several exercises based around the M<\/strong>echanic D<\/strong>ynamic A<\/strong>esthetic (MDA) model.\u00a0 Through that we took an existing card game, reskinned it, and attempted to make rule changes.\u00a0 After 2 hours of trying new rules and playtesting when time was up we didn’t have a single new rule that enchanced the game.\u00a0 Every rule change we tried only broke it.\u00a0 This was discouraging as we felt we wasted our time.<\/p>\n

    Then the teachers told us that this is how game design goes.\u00a0 It’s not a waste of time.\u00a0 Game design is like exploring a dungeon, we did achieve something: what paths not<\/em> to take.\u00a0 And this is invaluable in finding the good rules that do enhance the game.<\/p>\n

    I found this very helpful because I see this playout on Archmage.\u00a0 I’ll add or change something only to see that it didn’t work as I thought and felt like I wasted a day.\u00a0 But I’m not, I’m one step closer to finding the change that will make it better!<\/p>\n

    SDG<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It’s been a while since I’ve done an update and I just returned from GDC, so this is a good time. First, in my silence I’m programming a lot, sometimes 12hrs a day, and the game is really coming together.\u00a0 As an artist I spend so much time trying to make the work of my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[14,19,4,49,22,96,37,16,6],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-archmage","tag-archmage-rises","tag-fantasy","tag-game-design","tag-game-dev","tag-gdc","tag-indie","tag-pc","tag-rpg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}