Nintendoeats' Prep for GDC --- Preamble
by nintendoeats
So some of you may know that I am going to GDC. Great fun it shall be, but I also have to make sure that it is productive and that I leave a good impression. This means that my task for the next week (a week which I conveniently have off from school) is to take all the portfolio work that I've done, and the ideas that I have yet to put down in writing, and polish them to a mirror shine. But I n...
So some of you may know that I am going to GDC. Great fun it shall be,
but I also have to make sure that it is productive and that I leave a
good impression. This means that my task for the next week (a week which I conveniently have
off from school) is to take all the portfolio work that I've done, and
the ideas that I have yet to put down in writing, and polish them to a
mirror shine. But I need GB to help me do this.
My sweet ass (fingers crossed) business card. Evidence that I am super-cereal.
See, I am often a horrible procrastinator. When I create a schedule and nothing really holds me to it, I tend to get distracted by passing Counter-Strikes. So I'm going to obligate myself to the GB community for the next week. I work tomorrow, but I pledge to put up a blog post on my website and repost it to Giant Bomb every day from Monday to Saturday next week. The posts will cover exactly what I've been doing that day, exploring some of the challenges I faced and decisions that I made. The work will all be plot and narrative-based, because I am primarily trying to break into the writing and narrative design section of game design.
This is my MINIMUM schedule. I swear on the grave of Gunpei Yokoi that I will do at least the work listed each day. In reality I hope to get more done.
| Day | Tasks |
|---|---|
| Monday | Onward - Edit currently existing work - Complete unfinished sections |
| Tuesday | Onward - Edit sections from previous day Complete short story that I have been working on Select and play 2 games for next days work |
| Wednesday | Write 2 NewGameWiths Onward - Heavily update "Game Mechanics" document |
| Thursday | Onward - Write down 2 new sections - Write a Thinkpol Report on opening section Write Thinkpol report on games that I have played (MGS IV perhaps) |
| Friday | Edit Short Story Write a design doc for Onward (yes, I realize it seems kind of backwards that I'm doing this after everything else) Finalize website, including a short description for each section |
| Saturday | Left open for last minute ideas and editing. Also possibly to relax, this being the last day that I will have without obligations for the next 2 weeks. |
Terminology (all of which is made up by me. There doesn't seem to be an industry standard way of doing this stuff so I'm just trying to show that I understand how games work and interact with story):
Onward - The name of a pseudo-horror adventure game with mild action elements that I have been working on for months.
Valve Playthrough - A written storyboard which sets a goal for the intended player experience.
NewGameWith - An exploration of how a currently existing game with limited or no narrative design could benefit from its inclusion, making as much use as possible of the
pre-existing game mechanics.
Thinkpol Report - A writeup of what a player is supposed to be thinking at every moment during a section of a game (or what they ARE thinking in the case of a game that is playable)
In the meantime, the only thing I plan to do today is emailing a few game companies that I'm especially interested in interning at, to let them know that I'll be around and hopefully arrange to meet some relevant people:
- Valve (can't hurt right?)
- Bioware
- Obsidian
- Respawn
- Ubi-Soft
- Remedy
- Double Fine
- Rockstar North
See you all on Monday, those blog posts should be much more interesting than this :)