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GDC 2020 Registration is Open!

GDC offers a range of pass types for all game industry professionals. Register for an All Access Pass to attend your choice of all programs throughout the week and access to view session videos through March 1, 2021 on GDC Vault. Explore a variety of other pass options, including dedicated passes for the Independent Games Summit and Audiorelated conference sessions.

Featured Session Highlights

Rules of the Game 2020: Five Unique Techniques from Distinguished Designers

Design Track

Richard Rouse III - Director, Designer & Writer - Paranoid Productions

Justin Ma - Co-Founder - Subset Games

Celia Hodent - UX Designer & Consultant - Independent

Frank Lantz - Director - NYU Game Center

Brian Moriarty - Professor of Practice - Worcester Polytechnic Institute

What's most important in your game's design? What might you be overlooking? Need a jolt of unique design thinking to get you unstuck? The popular Rules of the Game session returns at GDC 2020, with five experienced and respected designers sharing what they think is most important in designing their games. Each speaker gets 10 minutes to provide their favorite practical design technique that are sure to make you see design differently. We aim to keep each session as advanced and technical as possible, delving into specific examples from past projects that demonstrate how these rules can work to make games more engaging. Not every rule applies to every project or every designer, but hearing these rules is sure to stimulate your thoughts and help you decide what you want in your own design rulebook. Read More >>

Breaking Design Bottlenecks with Dialogue Stubbing

Design Track

Carrie Patel - Senior Narrative Designer & Writer - Obsidian Entertainment

Authoring polished dialogue is a time-consuming process that may require weeks of work from writers. An efficient dialogue stubbing workflow can help the design team get content to a progressible state early, facilitate the eventual writing pass, and signal the size and complexity of a conversation. However, while a good dialogue stub can streamline design and writing, a weak stub can hamstring these processes. This talk will explain what a dialogue stub is, including the information that does (and does not) belong in it. It will cover best practices for stubbing as well as the pitfalls that arise from uninformative or overly detailed stubs.

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From Padawan to Jedi: Building the Character Controller of 'Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order'

Programming Track

Joe Lubertazzi - Software Engineer - Respawn Entertainment

In this talk, Respawn Entertainment dissects the creation of the character controller for Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. Design goals, technical challenges, and lessons learned are discussed in detail. The physics, animation, and gameplay systems behind the character controller are analyzed, and how these systems are used to construct various navigation and combat mechanics is broken down. Benefits and disadvantages of the implementation are illustrated with concrete examples as they appear in the shipped game. Read More >>