One of the most exciting aspects of the game industry's thriving indie scene is seeing innovators apply new tricks to solve old problems, and at the Game Developers Conference in March one of the Untitled Goose Game devs will show you how a filmmaking background helped define the look of one of 2019's standout indie darlings.
Notably, in a GDC 2020 Design track talk on "Google Maps, Not Greyboxes: Digital Location Scouting for 'Untitled Goose Game'" (part of the Level Design Summit!) House House's Jake Strasser will show you how he went location scouting (with the help of Street View) for real-world places that fulfilled the game's design needs.
What's so interesting about his method is the way in which this process ensured the level design of the goose game is a collage of real-world spaces - an interplay of intriguing requirements set by chosen source locations, level affordances, and aesthetic restrictions.
So come out to GDC and hear about this process and its benefits, find out which village in England the goose game is based on, get abehind the scenes look at bits of development, and hear some arguments about why it's good to ground digital spaces in real places!
Next year GDC 2020 runs from Monday, March 16th through Friday, March 20th. This will be the 34th edition of GDC, and now that registration is officially open, you'll want to take a look at the (ever-expanding) session schedule and your GDC pass options -- register early to lock in the best price!
For more details on GDC 2020 visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.
