CLASSIC GAME POSTMORTEMS

Take a trip behind the scenes with the creators of some of the most innovative games of their time. Discover the lessons learned by the makers of these landmark game titles and find inspiration in understanding what it took to bring these games to life.

Classic Game Postmortem:
Alone in the Dark

Frederick Raynal

Before there was Resident Evil, Silent Hill, or any other popular survival horror games, there was Alone in the Dark. The atmospheric action-adventure title is widely considered the forefather of the genre, establishing conventions like claustrophobic areas, stories revealed through expository items, and giving players limited ammunition to deal with hordes of monsters. Its cinematic presentation and fixed third-person camera angles went on to influence many non-survival horror releases, too. Alone in the Dark's designer Frederick Raynal will share how he and his team crafted the seminal game and helped spawn a genre that still scares millions today.

Classic Game Postmortem:
Fallout

Tim Cain

It's changed developers' hands several times, switched perspectives, and jumped from turn-based to real-time gameplay, but the Fallout series' survival and consistently high quality games are a testament to the original's strengths. The first Fallout offered players a post-apocalyptic open world filled with distinctive characters, moral dilemmas, and quests that could be solved in multiple, oftentimes unconventional ways. Timothy Cain, who was the producer, lead programmer, and one of the primary designers for the beloved game, will deliver a talk on how he helped create a franchise that set a new standard for open-world RPGs and still resonates with players.

Classic Game Postmortem:
Gauntlet

Ed Logg

People take Dungeons & Dragons-style class-based heroes for granted in their favorite games now, but Atari's Gauntlet brought that staple multiplayer feature to arcades and consoles for the first time with its Warrior, Wizard, Valkyrie, and Elf. And more than a decade before players were hacking and slashing in Diablo, Gauntlet helped pioneer the co-op dungeon crawling/looting game. Ed Logg, who also designed ground-breaking games like Centipede and Asteroids, will share his thoughts on creating the game that popularized the phrase "Wizard needs food badly" and paved the way for class-dependent experiences like World of Warcraft, Phantasy Star Online, and others.

Classic Game Postmortem:
Harvest Moon

Yasuhiro Wada

Since the creation of the first installment over fifteen years ago, Harvest Moon has enchanted people all over the world with its rewarding gameplay and charming art style. The Harvest Moon series has made waves for portraying peaceful rural life in a video game world and in recent years, has inspired numerous social networking games centered around farming. Yasuhiro Wada, who produced and helped design and direct Harvest Moon, will touch on the ideas that gave birth to the series, the many successes and failures that can occur in developing and producing a video game franchise, and offer insight into the business aspects behind the series' growth.

CLASSIC GAME POSTMORTEMS

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