Game Developers Conference 2009

## Description

Sometimes large real-life conferences lend themselves to curious games in
niche genres; roguelikes were found to be well-suited to the Assembly
demoparty; some 12 years later, the GDC found itself cast as something
belonging to a genre of a similar vintage, the text adventure. But like
Mirrorsoft’s Austerlitz, despite its text parser what purrs beneath the hood
isn’t an adventure game but a simulation. In this case, what is simulated is
social networking and professional development among indie game developer
hopefuls, toward the end of assembling a team with diverse skills sufficient
to (someday) get a game together and out the door!

This isn’t as easy as it may sound; in fact, in some games the randomized
starting conditions may make it actually impossible to assemble a full
complement of skilled game-makers. With every new game the prospects are
assigned the names of Jim’s beta-testers and randomly allotted interests (eg.
2D physics, micropayments, pixel art), skillsets (eg. artist, coder, promoter)
and social compatibility with the player and each other. Then, in between
attending workshops, the player eavesdrops on the NPC’s conversations with
each other, sussing out their respective interests and skills. The player can
jump in to the conversation but risks social alienation if attempting to TALK
ABOUT a subject before having first ASKed ABOUT it. Eventually (if conducted
methodically — the clock ticks on with every workshop, of which the
conference has a finite amount) the player either becomes conversant with
people’s nerdy passions or figures out who they can’t work with, and
eventually makes the proposal, telling each would-be developer that what they
are most interested in is precisely what their next project should be —
together! Hopefully by the end of the conference the player has gathered their
dream team and gotten someone capable on-side to man every important role on a
development team!

Certainly it’s a more optimistic model than The Truth About Game Development
but maybe it would feature as much sadistic violence if it also included an
epilogue on the subject of negotiating with game publishers.