Posted by Brian Karcher on March 07, 2017

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A first for everything

So yeah, this was my first-ever Game Developers Conference. A bit nervous. A bit scared. Not quite sure what to expect. Stepping in through those doors only confirmed my fears. The place was absolutely packed. Audio and visual input coming from every direction.

The first day I took it slow. Wandered around and took in the sights and sounds. Talked to some great people. But mostly prepared for what I was in for. Took stock of the floor plans. There were two expos in actuality. One for indie games, and one for professional games.

Indie Expo

I started at the Indie game expo. Why? To meet people like me! Everybody I met was great to talk to and was thrilled to be there. I did not have a booth myself so I was free to explore the floor. There was a puzzle game that was pretty clever called Bring Me Cakes. It had a nice difficulty ramp. Plenty of action games. Lots of games with the "indie" look I so adore with completely unique graphical experiences.

Professional Expo

This is where things got good with AAA titles. The standout was obviously VR. From Oculus to Sony, VR was everywhere. You wanted to shoot something? There's a VR game for that. You want to exercise? There's a VR game for that. This was my first experience with VR and one thing I had to test was if there was any noticeable lag between turning your head and seeing the results. Thankfully there was none! My favorite title there was Snake Pass on the Nintendo Switch. Yup, finally got my hands on the Switch. The system works really well and I can't wait to buy one, along with Snake Pass! Oh, and Zelda of course.

Zelda

There was a TV set up near the escalator with a bunch of people crowded near it so I checked it out. It showed something totally awesome. It was a clear description of their prototyping process for Breath of the Wild. The fact that they took, in my opinion, the best game of all time, and used its style to create scenarios in Breath of the Wild was in a word... wild.

Other things

Now who can go to San Francisco and pass up Chinatown? You'd be mad. I traversed the shops there looking for a clay teapot as a gift for my wife. As it turns out they wanted $75 for one. To Amazon I go.

Kickstarter/Game Jolt

I visited the Kickstarter and GameJot party on Thursday night. It was a blast. They had about seven games on display for us to play. I played a Tower Defense game and an adventure game called "A Normal Lost Phone". I have a special place in my heart for adventure games. It was about the most crowded bar I have been to though. Next time I hope they pick a larger establishment. Kickstarter should host another party next year.

Livestream

I will be performing the worlds first Livestream of Rolan's Quest on Twitch in the near future. Hope you can be there! Follow me on Twitter and Twitch so you can get the invite.

https://twitter.com/ColonySoftware

https://www.twitch.tv/colonygame

Wrapping it up

I had a great time at my first GDC. I met a lot of great people. Great games were on display. Fun city to visit. See you next year!





Brian Karcher

Founder

Colony Games Interactive

http://www.colony-games.com/RolansQuest