GDC highlight…
To quote many’s the casual blogger, “I haven’t posted in a while” – this has been due to a distinct lack of free time these past months. I’ve started teaching evening classes at the Irish School of Animation, “An Introduction to Mudbox” to be specific, which requires more preparation time than I had expected, there were no entry requirements this year so it takes careful thought to design a course that is suitably paced for beginners and those with some experience. I also attended the Games Developers Conference in San Francisco this year, mainly for the summits and tutorials, including the tech art bootcamp and roundtables from which I took away a lot and met some very interesting peers and people.
For me personally, I was especially glad to meet Dan Pinchbeck and Jessica Curry of thechineseroom, and Robert Briscoe their art collaborator on the full release of earlier Source mod “Dear Esther“, a haunting, moving game experience that I highly recommend. Dear Esther deservedly picked up the IGF award for Excellence in Visual Arts. It’s probably not for hardcore Call of Duty fans (it dismisses many of the FPS conventions we are used to e.g. shooting and jumping, in favour of a slower paced, intellectual experience) but if you’ve ever wondered what else games can be then you can pick up this worthwhile experiment for €8 on Steam.
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