Organizers have debuted the latest round of GDC Europe talks, with Remedy on Alan Wake's art direction, design wisdom from Age Of Empires co-creator Bruce Shelley, and a motion control-centric postmortem of Red Steel 2.
The lectures are newly announced for the 2010 Game Developers Conference Europe event, which takes place from August 16th-18th, and is -- for the second year -- located in Cologne, Germany. It takes place alongside the leading European consumer/trade GamesCom event, making the duo a must-attend for European and international game creators.
Some of the notable new speakers for the conference include the following:
- A lecture called 'Alan Wake: Light and Dark' has Remedy art director Saku Lehtinen discussing the multiple graphical techniques and work behind the Xbox 360 game's acclaimed atmosphere. As he notes: "How did the game's basic dualities of light vs. dark, sanity vs. insanity and real vs. supernatural echo in the design and visuals in order to support the story and create a memorable experience?"
- In 'Chilling Tales from Red Steel 2: How Motion Control Will/Won't Change The Future', Ubisoft creative director Jason VandenBerghe explains: "Red Steel 2 broke the mold, and proved that motion controls aren't just for the casual crowd... But sales were sluggish, and the team was confronted with extensive challenges in making real gameplay work with an entirely new input method." This honest lecture will explain what went right -- and wrong -- during the game's creation.
- Ensemble Studios (Age Of Empires) co-founder and design veteran Bruce Shelley is making a special appearance at GDC Europe to present 'Five Rules for Draft One of Your Game Design', and he'll share "five guidelines for the challenge of producing a complete first draft game design proposal, a road map to help designers focus their thoughts and get momentum on the process of 'getting it down.'"
These latest announcements are part of a major GDC Europe line-up that includes lectures and panels from 2K Czech talking Mafia 2, PopCap on Bejeweled Blitz, and an all-star Brink/Alan Wake/Mirror's Edge level design talk, plus a keynote from Chinese online game powerhouse Tencent.
Previous announcements have included significant talks from Heavy Rain's David Cage, InstantAction's Lou Castle, and the creators of Crysis 2, APB and Split/Second, plus other lectures and keynotes from Sony, Playdom, and German gaming powerhouse Bigpoint (Battlestar Galactica MMO).
Overall, the conference, taking place Monday through Wednesday August 16-18, 2010 at the Cologne Congress Center East in Cologne, Germany, is running alongside the major GamesCom event -- which non-student GDC Europe passholders will also gain free access to -- to present the leading game industry event for developers, consumers, publishers and trade professionals.
For more information on specifics for GDC Europe -- for which reduced price registration is in place until July 21st -- interested parties can visit the official Game Developers Conference Europe website.
