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Independent Games Summit
View All Sessions | View All Speakers | Advisors
March 9-10, 2010
The Independent Games Summit represents the voice of the independent game developer at GDC. It features lectures, postmortems and roundtables from some of the most notable independent game creators, including many former and current Independent Games Festival finalists and winners. The 2010 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.
Keynote Announced
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Increasing Our Reach: Designing To Grab and Retain Players Creator of Apple's top rated "Best of 2009" game The indie games movement should be the wellspring of daring and innovative ideas, but we need a sizable and devoted audience to help us realize that potential. How do we reach more players? Is there something we're doing wrong? Read more... |
Highlighted Sessions
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How to Manage an Exploratory Development Process
Speakers: Kellee Santiago (thatgamecompany), Robin Hunicke (thatgamecompany) -
Indies and Publishers: Fixing a System That Never Worked
Speaker: Ron Carmel (2D Boy) -
Postmortem: The Design & Business Behind Fantastic Contraption
Speakers: Colin Northway (Fantastic Contraption), Andy Moore (Fantastic Contraption) -
SCRAP METAL: Pushing the Envelope with a Team of Two
Speakers: Nick Waanders (Slick Entertainment), Kees Rijnen (Slick Entertainment) -
Minimalist Game Design: Growing OSMOS
Speakers: Andy Nealen (Hemisphere Games, Rutgers University), Eddy Boxerman (Hemisphere Games)
View all Independent Games Summit sessions here.
Advisors
Matthew Wegner
CEO & Founder, Flashbang Studios
Matthew Wegner is CEO and founder of Flashbang Studios. Matthew's latest work can be seen on Blurst, Flashbang's destination for quirky, short form games. He acts as lead programmer and physics designer on Blurst projects like Off-Road-Velociraptor Safari and Minotaur China Shop. Matthew also edits Fun-Motion, a site about physics games, co-chairs the Independent Games Festival, and recently unicycled from Kenya to Tanzania.
Steve Swink
Game Designer, Flashbang Studios
Steve Swink is an independent game developer, author, and lecturer based in Tempe, Arizona. As a game designer and partner at Flashbang Studios, he's worked on games such as Off-Road-Velociraptor Safari, Jetpack Brontosaurus, and Minotaur China Shop, all of which are available on Flashbang's web portal, Blurst. Before joining Flashbang, he toiled in the retail game mines at Neversoft and the now-defunct Tremor Entertainment. He recently completed a book entitled Game Feel for Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann. He also co-chairs the Independent Games Festival, is an IGDA Phoenix chapter coordinator, and teaches the game and level design classes at the Art Institute of Phoenix.
Simon Carless
Chairman, Independent Games Festival
Publisher, Game Developer Magazine & Gamasutra.com
Simon Carless is the Chairman of the Independent Games Festival and Publisher at the Think Services Game Group, overseeing both Game Developer magazine and Gamasutra.com. He has previously worked as a writer/editor for tech site Slashdot, and as a game designer for companies such as Eidos Interactive and Atari.
