I visited GDC 2010 in Cologne, Germany and I must say I was impressed. Via my university I managed to get a Student pass and access to the Press-only day at Gamescom. At GDC there were some interesting companies present such as Crytek showing off their new Cryengine, Intel, Bigpoint, and more. I followed a few sessions about game design and marketing: sadly enough I found them not very helpful. Most of the things I heard were things one could easily know simply by browsing the internet.

After hours we went to visit GDC's afterparty. While being fun and all (with free booze!) I found people to be generally unfriendly towards students. Stepping into their shoes, I can imagine that they must always get the same questions(How do I break into the industry?) and grow tired of them. Nevertheless, I met a lot of cool people who shared their insights with me .

The third day we went to visit gamescom, which was adjacent to GDC. It was the first time for me visiting the huge event. To be honest I was overwhelmed by the size of the complex. Four huge rooms filled with companies showcasing their new games were intimidating me.

I went to visit everything, and I played a lot of games including some upcoming ones such as Cataclysm (boring...), Mafia II (awesome!), NFSHP (superb!) and some fresh indie games. As a racer enthousiast I managed to break the day's record at some stand from 1:14 to 1:12 . (For those interested, the game was Gran Turismo 5 on the High Speed Ring) EA's new hot pursuit game was incredibly awesome. I played it on a PS3 using a loud headset, and the experience was unbelievable. After 5 times I got PIT'ed by a 300 KMH Zonda police car, which I thought to be a little bit too extreme.

I took a few photos and videos, for those of you interested.

And the random word is:

That was a bit of a dissapointment. Gravity is unfortunately a theme that has been done billions of times before. I'm going to have to do my best to come up with something original and at the same time playable. I'm going to think about possible scenarios and I'll keep you updated.

I'm going to start with something new here. To really dive into the game designing process, I will make a new game and share with you all my steps to make that game as successful as possible. None of these steps are perfect, and are open for criticism. With that said, I am also still a student which means that I must learn as much as possible, so keep your comments and suggestions coming!

Now, what's going to be special about this brainstorm, is the fact that I will generate a random word and start from there. Using this approach is a great way to train your designing skills, as you are forced to look for ideas for a subject you didn't get to choose.

This will be a true problem-solving activity, and it's a good thing that humans are wired to love this. Do not expect a highly polished graphical effort: I will do my best do create both a visual and pleasant experience, but keep in my mind that I will invest about two days of game production time in total. This way, I do not get emotionally attached to my work and I will be able to create more better and varied games, at the expense of dedicated production time.

In my next post, I will reveal the magic word which I will create a game from. Stay tuned!