Another Game Developers Conference has come and gone. I guess this was my 9th GDC I've attended, so I guess next year will be kind of a big deal... I should do a quick recap of the week while it's still fresh in my mind. I'll spare you the big details and just try to do a broad sweep over the week, and maybe if there's anything specific I want to unravel I can do that in another blog post.

Also all the pictures in this post are from Matthew Wegner and the GDC Photo Stream!

Things started off a little crappy because of the weather. Saturday and Sunday were pretty rainy and cloudy days respectively. Walking through San Francisco during a giant mess of a St. Patricks day parade while it's raining is not super fun, and it's even worse when you're carrying all your stuff trying to find where you're staying.

The weekend was spent hanging out with all sorts of cool people from around the world. Sunday night we busted out some Magic booster packs and did a quick draft tournament. My Red White Allies deck managed to scrape out two victories in my pod which was pretty neat. We also ate a lot of sushi right off the bat which is one of the main reasons I go to GDC I think.

Monday and Tuesday were the Independent Games Summit! I have mixed feelings on the IGS this year. There were a lot of talks that I really liked and I feel like I gained a lot of insight and inspiration from them, but some of the talks I attended fell a little flat for various reasons. I'm not sure if I exactly fit the mold of an IGS audience member anymore so I'm on the fence of getting a pass next year.

Tuesday night was the big event that I was incredibly anxious about: The Indie Olympics. A big game night featuring a bunch of indie games including the world championships for TowerFall! I had a lot of people gunning for me this year since I've won the last two TowerFall tournaments at GDC... I'll save the details for another post though.

The end of Matthew's 10th IGS!

Wednesday and onward were days where I pretty much had nothing going on except for hanging out with folks. Basically at this point GDC is just about seeing people I only get to see once a year for about 15 minutes each. I did get to hang out with some people more, but everyone is so busy that it's super difficult to get any meaningful time with friends.

The TowerFall crown.

Also Wednesday night was the awards show! Thanks to some super cool friends of mine I got to sit in the front VIP tables again. The craziest things about this year's awards was getting a shout out from Nathan Vella during the IGF awards, and then Crypt of the Necrodancer winning best audio for the Game Developers Choice awards! The Necrodancer team was sitting at the same table as me, and they're good friends of mine so it was amazing to see them win.

Nathan Vella talking about Independence Day.

Thursday I returned to the Foundry to play some more games of TowerFall with people, and I did some top secret business meetings with people. Friday was spent playtesting some games, and playing more Magic with other developers. I was able to get some playtests of Super Sky Sisters in this day as well!

This was an intense talk so everyone is listening pretty intently.

Saturday was spent saying goodbye to a lot of people, and I also spent some time playtesting and working on Super Sky Sisters at an amazingly cool space in San Francisco that a friend of mine lives in. It's like this crazy warehouse thing with a house built inside of it and it's covered in cool stuff.

Sunday was my final day in San Francisco so I spent it seeing some friends who live halfway across the world. It was a pretty low key day as it started to rain again, and I spent a lot of the day worrying about having to travel back home. Being in a different place is fun but getting there and back home again is the worst.

Overall this GDC was a pretty positive experience. I think this year more than I ever I realized how fortunate I am to be where I am in life. The fact that my next GDC will be my 10th one is pretty mind blowing as it still feels like only yesterday I was attending GDC for the very first time and meeting the whole TIGSource crowd and showing off Bonesaw: The Game.

I owe a lot of my career and work to everyone around me that has helped me get a leg up in the industry, or whatever. Actually I don't really feel like a part of the "industry" most of the time. I feel more like just some dude that likes to make games and I just so happen to find enough commercial success off of a few games that I'm able to make a living off of it at least for the time being.

Room full of cool people and me I guess.

I also ran into a lot of folks during the conference that were fans of my games, my blog (or my TowerFall abilities!) I am so grateful for these experiences at any sort of event I attend. Thank you so much to the people that say nice things to me because it really is very inspiring and motivating to hear. I usually just freak out and don't say anything to the people that I look up to and admire, so shout outs to the people that have the ability to just talk to people like that! Also I never know what to say when people say nice things to me so sorry if I come off totally awkward.

I hope that last paragraph doesn't come off as super arrogant or anything like that! I don't know, I think it still just surprises me every time someone says something to me about my work. Anyway, my point is that every cool thing I've ever done has never been alone, even though I mostly work solo. Everyone in the indie games community has been so incredibly supportive and kind, and I don't know what I would do without them.

So yeah, now it's back to work I suppose. And here's a picture of Travel Pillow on stage during the Game Developers Choice awards.