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CONFERENCE  

|    Programming
    INDEPENDENT GAMES

The Independent Games Summit represents the voice of the independent game developer at GDC. It features lectures, postmortems and rants from some of the most notable independent game creators, including many former and current Independent Games Festival finalists and winners. The Independent Games Summit seeks to highlight the brightest and the best of indie development, with discussions ranging from game design philosophy, distribution, business, marketing, and much more.

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2013 HIGHLIGHTED SESSIONS

Shellrazer - Designing In-App Purchase Without Losing Your Soul
Shane Neville (Ninja Robot Dinosaur Entertainment)
 
Designing a successful game with In-App Purchase (IAP) does not have to be an evil, soul-sacrificing affair. Shane Neville will explain how the Shellrazer team designed an IAP system that generates 30% of the game's revenue without using any of the free-to-play tricks that have given IAP a bad reputation. The talk will cover RPG mechanics, game balance, and an analysis of the three types of players developers must consider.
How We Created Mark of the Ninja Without (Totally) Losing Our Minds
Jeff Agala (Klei Entertainment)
 
Mark of the Ninja was, without question, Klei Entertainment's most ambitious game. Art, technology, design, and audio domains were challenged in ways they had never been challenged before. We managed to build the game in 16 months, without significant overtime, to a level of quality we're immensely proud of. Creative director Jeff Agala will discuss how the team grew and arose to meet these challenges, delivered a great game, and did it without destroying themselves.

INDEPENDENT GAMES SUMMIT ADVISORY COMMITTEE

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Kellee Santiago
Independent
 
Kellee Santiago was the president and co-founder of thatgamecompany. thatgamecompany's goal is to make video games that communicate different emotional experiences, and expand the communicative possibilities of games. While earning her MFA at the University of Southern California she teamed up with fellow student Jenova Chen to develop the student-created game, "Cloud." The game went on to become critically acclaimed, after which the two decided to found their own studio, thatgamecompany, and landed a three game deal with Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. to develop downloadable games for Playstation Network. Their first two commercial releases, "flOw", and "Flower," went on to become award-winning and two of the top downloaded games on PSN.
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Steve Swink
Arizona State University
 
Steve Swink is currently lead designing a literacy game for high school kids at Arizona State University. He most recently launched his own game Shadow Physics. Before that, a game designer at Flashbang studios, creating games for Blurst. Before that, Neversoft, as a designer on Tony Hawk Underground. He wrote a book one time, about the tactile sensation you get when you control something in a game and co-coordinates the Independent Game Festival and the Independent Game Summit. Steve teaches game design and level design at the Art Institute of Phoenix.
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Matthew Wegner
Flashbang Studios
 
Matthew Wegner founded Flashbang Studios, an 8 year-old independent game development company best known for its "Blurst" portfolio of experimental games. Elsewhere, Matthew is an Indie Fund member, TIGJam organizer, photographer, conference planner, web/database programmer and unicyclist.

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