GDC Europe 2014's 'classic postmortem' is Broken Sword

Game Developers Conference Europe 2014 is fast approaching, and today the organizers of the August conference are announcing one of their most exciting talks yet. Charles Cecil, the influential British game designer best known for his work creating seminal adventure games like the Broken Sword franchise and Beneath A Steel Sky, will be delivering a Classic Game Postmortem on seminal '90s adventure game Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars at GDC Europe 2014. Cecil currently serves as the managing director of Revolution Software, the venerable U.K. game development studio he co-founded in 1990. Over the past three decades Cecil has repeatedly raised the bar for games as a storytelling medium, releasing a string of award-winning adventure titles and earning a number of top honors, including an appointment to Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2011. Now he's coming to GDC Europe to speak at length about his work writing and directing Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars, the award-winning 1996 adventure game that developers at studios like Telltale Games (The Walking Dead) cite as a meaningful influence on their work - and which has spawned multiple notable sequels. GDC Europe has made a point to showcase classic European video games yearly in its 'classic postmortem' slot, with previous lectures from Martin Hollis on GoldenEye for Nintendo 64, and Dino Dini on the making of Kick Off, both available to watch at GDC Vault. Cecil's talk is just the latest in a line of high-profile sessions that have been announced for the show, including talks from studios like Double Fine and Paradox as well as games picked for the first-ever European Innovative Games Showcase, with more to come in the weeks ahead. You can check out the current session lineup via the conference's Session Scheduler, and early birds can still register by July 16 to save 200 euros on an All Access Pass. Organized by UBM Tech Game Network, GDC Europe, now in its sixth year in Germany, will run Monday through Wednesday, August 11-13 at the Congress-Centrum Ost in Cologne, Germany, co-located with Europe's biggest video game trade and public show gamescom. Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech