My 13th Game Developer Conference! GDC serves many purposes to me. It's a place to meet with clients face to face, get deep info on recent game techniques and hardware technology, and catch up with old friends.
But most of all, for me, it's really a place to refresh and reset on current projects and future plans. There's something incredibly and reliably cathartic for my productivity and artistic paradigms after GDC. I relish the three hour flight home as a time to plot and plan for the future, from a newly inspired mindset.
A big contributor to this is almost always the Experimental Gameplay Workshop. I haven't missed one of these since my first GDC (and second ever EGW) in 2003. Some of the most clever and ingenious games in the world are shown here. Largely relatively unknown indie projects, but even Katamari Damacy and Portal were shown here pre-release. An interesting thing about what is shown at EGW is that it is a curation of games focused very much on experimentation in game design, and experimentation is an ever-moving goal post. Every year my mind is blown and I'm left feeling way more interested in creating visionary ideas instead of simply video game status quo.
Titouan Millet's Mu Cartographer at the EGW.
Super Russian Roulette at That Party.
It's also inspiring to see crazy new indie games at parties and events and to actually engage with the developers face to face. Even today when everyone is reachable to some extent on social media, it's still wonderful to have a genuine experience with someone. Talking with these folks on a personal level can reduce that unhealthy hero worship, and reminds you that maybe your goals are more achievable than you sometime let yourself believe. This year there was the return of That Party, the Itch.io party, the oddball physical games exhibit ALT.CTRL.GDC, the Independent Games Festival pavilion, and the Indie Olympics, all chock full of new games and amazing humbling developers to chat about their games.
Birds eye view of the Indie Olympics.
So what is it exactly that triggers the great reboot? Probably a combination of things. Being removed from your normal patterns, stepping outside of your social comfort zone in a number of ways, being so separated from your projects or work, floating around this intense, surreal, absorptive state and seeing inspiration everywhere. I'm sure GDC is not the only place to gain this renewed, refreshed look on your own projects, but if you can swing it, you should give it a shot.