Gearing up for GDC 2008

Written by Colleen

Lately we've been preparing for GDC, the week-long Game Developers Conference which is taking place in San Francisco this week. This will be my third year at GDC-- the first year as a lurker, last year as a Conference Associate (a volunteer staffer), and this year mainly to promote Shira Oka and look for a publisher.

I'm both excited and nervous about GDC. Unlike the anime conventions we normally go to, the people attending GDC are less likely to anime fans or familiar with Japanese culture, so it's harder to know what to expect. So far, though, I have been pleasantly surprised at the amount of interest and positive feedback I've received through my myGDC page (is that redundant?).

(If you met me through myGDC, thanks for stopping by!)

myGDC is the social networking system set up for registered GDC attendees to socialize outside of the con. It looks and feels kind of like a work-in-progress Facebook, but it's already proven to be a great way to (virtually) meet other industry professionals as well as potential Shira Oka community members, so I'm hardly complaining.

We don't have a booth at GDC this year, but we are doing an informal demo/meetup on one of the days, since I had quite a few people tell me they were interested in the game. We decided it would be more efficient and fun to demo it in a group. ^_^

As you probably noticed, I've been working on gameplay videos lately, and partly to prepare for the videos, we've started playtesting the game more rigorously.

The other day, Sufan (one of our programmers) came over to ask me to test something for him on my computer.

I said, "Hang on, I have to save first."

He laughed. "Spoken like a true gamer."

After working on individual components of the game for so long, it's nice to see everything finally coming together. It's no longer just an engine or a collection of artwork, animations, and dialogue scripts. It's a game! And one that I actually enjoy playing testing.

Anyway, if you will be at GDC (or know someone who is), I hope we'll get to meet up sometime during the week. Feel free to stop and introduce yourself if you see me there! (Visit my myGDC page for the latest details about the Shira Oka demo.)

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