Welcome Pioneers to another, somewhat different installment of Weekly Apart, the series that brings you a week's worth of Dawn Apart related news straight into your Steam feed! Actually a more aptly titled name for today's post would be Oceans Apart, as our two co-founders/head developers hopped into a spacecraft, traversed the Atlantic and landed on a distant planet called San Francisco, the home of the annual Game Developers Conference.
Before we share some of their impressions in this, well, travel blog (next week we're going back to hardcore game dev stuff - promise!) we would like you to (again, we know) ask you to urge your fellow humans to wishlist Dawn Apart and follow, comment, and like our stuff on our various social media channels. Aurora is a giant planet with lots of resources and we're going to need more mercenaries and fortune hunters to build factories and deal with the It'ak when our Space Colony officially opens shop next year.
So while development for Dawn Apart took a quick break for this week, our explosive duo TNT (Thilo and Tony) roamed the holy halls of the Moscone Center to listen to inspiring talks, meet with executives in dimly lit hotel lobbies to discuss shady business deals (nothing to share yet) and try to pocket as much free stuff as possible. Here are some their personal highlights from the show floors and seminar rooms:
Thilo, Founder of IT&W Games
Favorite talk:
"I attended a Game Design Workshop where I got in touch with some game core loop frameworks I haven’t known yet. We created a table-top game called Quiet Quitting - your goal as a player was to get rid of Pizza delivery orders by shoving them to your co-workers and end up with zero.
Other than that I’m running from one overcrowded hotel lobby to another having meetings.”
Favorite hands-on demo:
“Loved the alt.ctrl.GDC exhibition - alternative controller hardware - where Tony and I played a game as a space crew, shooting with funny controllers and fixing a spaceship with real hammers.”
Favorite wow/aha moment:
“It would have made more sense for Tony and I if we would not have spent so much money on my ticket, as I’m barely able to attend sessions due to these meetings. I learned that big studios, investors and publishers don’t have tickets for GDC and just hang out in these lobbies to meet people.
Also the real technical and interesting sessions are recorded and can be watched after the show.”
Favorite freebie:
“I got a T-shirt from the Unreal booth. Yay!”
Favorite encounter:
“While collecting my badge on the day before the GDC opened, I got to meet super nice people from Brazil and we showed our games to each other. The cool thing about this industry is that everyone is not only a producer but also a consumer at the same time. Everyone is rooting for each other.”
Tony, Lead Developer and Co-Founder of IT&W Games
Favorite talk:
"I’ve been to so many different talks this week spanning almost every game dev topic and I would say my favorite was hearing one of the founders of Blizzard, Allen Adham, give his “first public talk on the subject” about the game design principles they have used to steer development since The Lost Vikings. I’ve been playing Blizzard games almost my entire life and still play WOW (Dragonflight was actually great) and SC2 every once in a while so I felt a lot of nostalgia sitting in on that one.
The other speakers have been doing a great job as well. Xalavier Nelson Jr., who somehow maxed charisma and still had about a hundred points left over, gave a really engaging talk on custom tools. My notebook is full of notes, and although it got soaked in the craziest rainstorm Frisco has seen in at least 4 days, I can make out some names on the wavy pages. Matt Blair had a great one on using their unique cloning mechanic in The Last Clockwinder to create testing tools. Mikhail Akopyan talked about Deep Rock Galactic (ROCK AND STONE!) and how their production pipeline evolved from Early Access well into post launch seasonal content. And Grace Curtis taught me how to use TikTok. Can’t name everyone, but those were some of the ones that stood out.
Favorite hands-on demo:
"There were some really amazing games at GDC. I got to try out a few different headsets like the PSVR2 and some of Pico’s newer hardware. I’m a VR freak so it was awesome getting to see how much new stuff is out there. I mean new headsets sure, but also so many developers are working on amazing VR games. It was almost shocking how many booths had VR demos. I’ve gotta agree with Thilo though that the creativity on display at the alternative controllers areas was just awe inspiring."
I’ll plug a game that actually ended up winning something at the Indie Games Festival (btw literally how robbed was Neon White?). The Case of the Golden Idol is a pixel art detective game in the same vein as The Return of the Obra Dinn. I was so excited to see it there and even more excited that other people are digging it as well. I can also tell you with certainty that Thilo’s favorite was not The Callisto Protocol, nor this swiveling VR chair thing. He did however steal my record on this hang gliding game mere moments after I had just claimed the daily fastest time…"
Favorite wow/aha moment:
"Meeting with developers of games that I actually know and love to play. It really brings this cool new perspective on the games that you play where you hear about the different struggles they had during development and the solutions they came up with. It’s all really open and collaborative. Plus it’s just great being able to say thanks to the people that spend so much time making something for others to enjoy."
Favorite freebie:
"Unreal went all out and was giving out beer and fresh cookies, and after I picked up a copper cup, along with its Moscow Mule contents, I was feeling pretty good. I would say my favorite freebie came from the Red Nexus Games Inc. booth where I talked to the developers of the awesome Peglin, which is a cross between Peggle and Slay the Spire. I think it’s such a great game and they were giving out pins to fans that had played the game before and it’s honestly super cute. So shout out to them!"
Favorite encounter:
"There really isn’t any one encounter, but just being among peers that also are spending their life making the same sort of art is amazing. For me it’s a real dream come true to be someone who is working in the space. I ran into Johnny of Turbo Makes Games fame, or more accurately cornered him as he was trying to leave a talk, just to say hi and thanks for making content for anyone wanting to learn Unity DOTS. I spoke with one of the people making The Wandering Village and got a chance to talk to him about working on the game and tell him that it’s absolutely beautiful. I saw Gavin from Two Star Games who made Choo Choo Charles playing some of the wacky controller games and did the ol’ glance at him over and over until he gets up and fades into the crowd like an Ezio Auditore type. Just super fun overall."
So there you have it. Let's hope that Thilo and Tony will make it back from their exploration mission in one piece and bring back fresh ideas, helpful business contacts and (maybe) alien artifacts that grant mysterious powers. All of course in the service of moving closer to reaching our next milestone: Getting a demo into the hands of players to check out Dawn Apart. Oh and if you are at GDC as well or have been in the past, let us know about your personal highlights in the comments. See you next week!