GDC is just a few weeks away...

Am I the worst blogger in the world? I spend more time doing the things than writing about them, my apologies. The Global Game Jam has taken up most of my spare time. Ramping up to GGJ was exhausting, but I was so proud of how much we accomplished. The SIG really wants to focus on outreach around the globe. It is our hope to continue expanding our community and hopefully get many more involved. I was so happy to see that through GGJ the IGDA was able to start working on developing new chapters in Costa Rica and Turkey. I have also heard that a few of the teams at various locations have hooked up with publishers. What an incredible opportunity for all those that participated in GGJ. If you didn’t make it this year, I hope you manage to be a part of GGJ next year.

I am gearing up for GDC. This year we have created a series of workshops and post-mortems in our 2 day Education Summit: Essential Tools for Game Education Success. We have four workshops, Game Design Improv, Mini Games Using C++, The Blender Game Engine, Putting the Pieces Together: The MDA Framework. Everyone involved has put in hours of work to present these to our community. I am super excited to hear both Jane & Jesse’s keynotes. We are also presenting the GGJ Blasts & IGF Student Post Mortem. Not only are we presenting sessions at GDC this year, but we are doing panels and workshops at a bunch of other venues as well, yes, international conferences. If you are at GDC please come to the SIG Roundtable – of course it is opposite the Game Studies Download, so I’ll understand if you miss it.

Please note, we are going to have a drawing at GDC – we will have some of the most interesting games from GGJ at 3 booths in the expo – play at least one game at each booth, collect 3 different color stickers and you can be put in the drawing for a GGJ Survival Pack. You must be present to win. We have a few extra t-shirts and pins from GGJ that we will be giving away at the IGDA Booth (West Hall Lobby). I’m looking forward to another great GDC, see you there. For those of you not attending, I’ll try to be a better blogger.

Susan Gold
Chair, IGDA Education SIG