GDC Online has revealed a new batch of talks for the show's Game Narrative Summit, featuring a roundtable with Valve's top writers, a look at how BioWare balances storytelling and design, and a Telltale lecture on crafting an authorial voice.
Taking place Monday, October 10 through Thursday, October 13, 2011 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas, GDC Online continues as the leading worldwide event dedicated solely to discussing the development and business trends surrounding connected games -- including casual titles, MMOs, virtual worlds, and social networking games.
Now in its sixth year, the co-located Game Narrative Summit -- formerly the Game Writers Conference -- once again returns to GDC Online to showcase leading speakers on the many facets of interactive storytelling, with sessions ranging from roundtable discussions to postmortems and more.
- In "Just Go: A Roundtable Q&A with Valve's Writers," attendees will get a rare chance to sit down with writers Erik Wolpaw, Marc Laidlaw, Chet Faliszek, and Jay Pinkerton in a no-rules discussion of Portal 2, Left 4 Dead 2, the past and future of the Half-Life series, and much more.
Here, all attendees will sit in a collective roundtable with the session hosts, so seating will be limited to only 50 people -- make sure to arrive early!
- BioWare Austin's senior world designer Wynne McLaughlin, world designer Blake Rebouche, and senior writer Hall Hood will host a panel dubbed, "Building a Bridge Between Design and Writing," outlining how the Star Wars: The Old Republic developers find synergy between two very specialized realms of game creation. The hosts will explain the core conflict that often pits game writers against designers, and will provide insight on how to reconcile these differences.
- Finally, Telltale Games' director of design Dave Grossman will outline the balance between complete authorial control and player autonomy in "The Hand of Fate: Authorial Voice in Game Design." Here, Grossman, who also worked on classic LucasArts titles such as The Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle, will explain how "thoughtful use of the tools and avenues available and consideration of their dramatic effects serve to define the voice of the writer/designer while they wrestle with the eternal dichotomy between fate and free will."
Previously revealed sessions for the Game Narrative Summit include a look at the branching narrative of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a selection of lectures on creating powerful transmedia IPs, an MIT talk on teaching students using narrative-based games, and more.
In addition, GDC Online organizers would like to remind potential attendees that the GDC 2010 alumni discount will expire tonight at 11:59PM ET. With this offer, all speakers and paid All Access Pass, Main Conference Pass, and Summits & Tutorial Pass holders from GDC 2010 are eligible to receive a discounted pass to this year's show. Please visit the official GDC Online website for details and restrictions, and use the contact us page if you're missing an alumni email with your discount code.
