Who: Shawn Robertson | Animation Director, Irrational Games
When: 2:30PM-3:30PM PST
What: Behind the critical success of BioShock Infinite is the game's heart and soul, Elizabeth. Not only did Elizabeth carry the narrative weight of BioShock Infinite on her shoulders, she was also a robust AI that allowed for many systemic interactions. The creation of Elizabeth was an organic process that evolved over time and included members from every department at Irrational. This presentation will go over some of the decisions we made and the lessons we learned as we gave shape to Elizabeth and attempted to bring her to life. With a focus on animation, Shawn will talk about the various systemic and narrative techniques that we used on Elizabeth, and give practical examples of how they worked within the game. He will touch upon how a character like Elizabeth needs art, narrative and systems working together to create the illusion of humanity.
Lucasfilm Studio Postmortem
Who:
Steve Arnold | Co-Founder- Emeritus, Polaris Partners
Noah Falstein | Chief Game Designer, Google
David Fox | Director/Game Designer, Electric Eggplant
Ron Gilbert | Game Designer, Independent
Peter Langston | Cooperative Resercher/Co-Director/Arts and Technology Hacker, Apple Advanced Computation Group
Chip Morningstar | Principal Architect, PayPal
When: 10:00AM-11:00AM PST
What: Before LucasArts, there was Lucasfilm Games. From a small startup within a medium-sized (and very famous) film company, this group grew from 1982 to 1990 to become one of the most popular game companies of its day. It then morphed (a Lucasfilm term!) into LucasArts, which was acquired by Disney, and then shut down shortly after GDC 2012. In the early days, the company was known for experimentation, with early multiplayer (Ballblazer), first-person games (Rescue on Fractalus, Koronis Rift), the first MMO (Habitat/Club Caribe), and of course, some well-loved graphic adventures (Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken, The Secret of Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and more). This postmortem asks the questions, "What mix of creative and business forces shaped this early success story?" and "Could this kind of company be duplicated today?"
