Collaborate with friends and meet new ones at these GDC 2020 Community Spaces!

A key benefit of coming to the Game Developers Conference next month in San Francisco is the opportunity it provides to meet up in person with friends and colleagues from around the world, and organizers are excited to help facilitate those opportunities with discipline-specific community spaces!

This year GDC will host four community spaces, each appointed comfortably and decked out with creative aids to help you communicate and collaborate with fellow GDC attendees. 

Industry experts will be involved to moderate each community space and help coordinate community- and career-building activities throughout GDC week, including everything from portfolio reviews to live Q&A and creative exercises.

Without further ado, here's more details (as well as photos from GDC 2019) on the community spaces you can expect to find at GDC 2020, all of which will be accessible on the GDC Expo Floor Wednesday through Friday, March 18-20!

Narrative Space

Activities:

Moderator/Activity Leader: Shanon Ingles (Game Writer & Narrative Designer, Martian Brothel)

Shanon M. Ingles is an award-winning game writer and narrative designer currently co-writing a top-secret, unannounced project with Ken Levine's new studio Ghost Story Games (formerly Irrational) and serving as the Narrative Director for Midboss's next indie title Read Only Memories: Neurodiver.

A Telltale and EA alum, her past credits include Batman: A Telltale Series, Batman: The Enemy Within, Tales from the Borderlands, Minecraft: Story Mode, The Walking Dead: The Final Season, as well as numerous mobile games for Electronic Arts. Before Shanon switched to video game writing and narrative design, she worked as a creative director and copywriter in advertising, freelance journalist and screenwriter. 

Design Space

Activity Types

Moderator/Activity Leader: Lauren Scott (Systems Designer, Double Fine)

Bio: Lauren is a technically-trained designer with experience across many sectors of the industry. She participated in games research projects during her time at UC Santa Cruz, including IGF finalist Prom Week, while earning her degrees in Economics and Computer Science. From there, she went on to design in mobile at Zynga, in AAA on Hangar 13's Mafia III, and is now working in the indie space at Double Fine on Psychonauts 2. Lauren is also an active part of the local Bay Area game dev community, organizing and attending events that bring developers together for support and critical discourse.

Audio Space

Activity Types:

Moderator/Activity Leader: Elliot Callighan (CEO, Unlock Audio)

Elliot began playing the violin at the age of four, piano at eight, guitar at 12 and the computer at 20. He enlisted in the Army National Guard in order to study music. Five years later he had received a Bachelor's in Music Composition and a Master's in Cinema Audio Production. His credits include:

Visual Arts Space

Activity type

Live Demo Artist: Jama Jurabaev (Concept Artist & Art Director, Independent)

Jama is a professional concept artist, illustrator and an art director working for the movie and game industry in London, UK. Recently, he has worked on such movies as  Starwars, Aladdin, Ready Player One, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and many others.

Activity types:

Moderator/Activity Leader: Tj Hughes (Technical Artist, Terrifying Jellyfish)

Register now for GDC 2020

GDC 2020 runs from Monday, March 16th through Friday, March 20th. This will be the 34th edition of GDC, and now that registration is officially open, you'll want to take a look at the (ever-expanding) session schedule and your GDC pass options -- register early to lock in the best price!

For more details on GDC 2020 visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.

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