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CONFERENCE

INDEPENDENT GAMES

Monday, March 2 & Tuesday, March 3

The Independent Games Summit is the place for 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 Independent Games Summit seeks to achieve diversity of voice, experience and perspective, while highlighting the best and brightest in indie development.

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Galak-Z, Forever: Building Space-Dungeons Organically

Zach Aikman (17-BIT)

While there exists a myriad of well-documented algorithms for generating procedural content, the combination and usage of these techniques is far more of an art than a science, and one that's inherently unique to each game project. Many approaches were considered when building procedural levels in 17-BIT's upcoming '80s anime space-shooter, Galak-Z, and almost as many were rejected. In this talk, lead engineer Zach Aikman will discuss a few different failed approaches before presenting a detailed breakdown of Galak-Z's dungeon generator, including its usage of some unorthodox math, and his thoughts on the proper balance between hand-crafted and procedural content.

Making Kitty Powers' Matchmaker - Adventures of a Video Game Drag Queen

Richard Franke (Magic Notion)

In this inspirational and practical talk, Magic Notion's founder Richard Franke charts the development of hilarious drag queen-hosted mobile dating sim Kitty Powers' Matchmaker. This was Richard's first indie title after almost 20 years making "big" console games, and in a very personal story, Richard (a "close personal friend" of Kitty Powers herself!) covers how he dealt with inclusiveness, making comedy work in a game, designing a compelling dating game, and how to keep your wig on when all around are losing theirs.

Everything You Need To Know About YouTubers But Were Afraid To Ask

Alex "Baer" Larrabee (Independent, YouTube Personality, Twitch Broadcaster)

The enigma of the YouTuber unraveled! YouTube personality Alex "Baer" Larrabee breaks down the barriers between developer and broadcaster, detailing the process YouTubers go through in choosing which games to play and promote. This talk will teach you how to better interact with YouTube personalities, and share both resources and insight regarding YouTubers as a marketing aide.

Kellee Santiago

OUYA

Kellee Santiago, as former president and co-founder of thatgamecompany, has developed one of the most prominent brands in independent and innovative game development, pushing the communicative possibilities of video games as a medium. She is currently a partner in Indie Fund, which aims to support the growth of games as a medium by helping indie developers get, and stay, financially independent. In addition, she works with OUYA to represent the interests of game developers, and with OUYA developers to help them successfully publish and distribute their games on the platform.

Kellee speaks around the world at video game business and entertainment conferences on innovation in games, entrepreneurship, games as art and better methods for video game development. In 2010, she became a TED Fellow and was recognized as one of The Ten Most Influential Women in Games of the Past Decade. Kellee has also received the 2011 Microsoft Top Women in Gaming award for Business.

Steve Swink

CubeHeart Games

Steve Swink is an independent game designer and author based in Tempe, Arizona. His current project is SCALE, a first-person reality manipulation game (www.scale-game.com). Previously, he was lead designer of Atlantis Remixed (a literacy game for high school kids at Arizona State University), game/sound designer at Flashbang Studios and game designer at Neversoft. Steve also wrote "Game Feel: A Game Designer's Guide to Virtual Sensation."

Akira Thompson

RainBros

Akira Thompson is owner and game designer of RainBros, which is currently developing its debut title "Stop! Thief!!". Currently he is a member of Glitch City a Los Angeles-based game development community, pursuing a Master of Science at the University of California Santa Cruz, and also has had some level of volunteer involvement with IndieCade in some form for the past 4 years.

Previously Akira has worked at Creative Artist Agency, Walt Disney Imagineering within Research and Development, and the University of Southern California.

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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