Storytelling and game design get the spotlight in these GDC 2022 workshops

Designing the perfect video game with the perfect story takes work—luckily, GDC 2022 has the workshops you need for building your storytelling and game design skills.

The Game Developers Conference is thrilled to be hosting the "Storytelling Fundamentals Workshop" and "Game Design Workshop" at GDC 2022 in San Francisco this March. These workshops see some of the industry's greatest minds on storytelling and game design sharing their expertise while guiding attendees through a series of hands-on exercises.

"Storytelling Fundamentals Workshop" is hosted by Marvel and Telltale writing veteran Evan Skolnick. During this comprehensive tutorial and workshop, Evan covers the narrative structure, vibrant character development, storytelling best practices, and more—through a combination of lectures, skill-building exercises, and case studies.

This workshop is designed for game devs with limited story development experience, but are familiar with the concept of landmark story-centric games and their contributions to the video game space. Since nearly ever member of a development team ultimately contributes to the implementation of a game's narrative, Evan treats every team member as a potential storyteller and provides the tools to adopt a shared language of story for game devs.

Attendees gain an understanding of narrative's place in games, along with the rules and tools related to characterization, exposition delivery, believability, and impact on the audience.

"Game Design Workshop" sees a large panel of game designers—including Riot Games' Marc LeBlanc, Niantic's Kellee Santiago, and Orange Monkey Games' Eleanor Todd—exploring the day-to-day craft of game design through hands-on activities, group discussion, analysis, and critique. Attendees will immerse themselves in the iterative process game design and discover design concepts that will help them think more clearly about their designs and make better games.

Attendees will work in small groups on two design exercises each day. Each exercise will require the group to work iteratively to modify an existing game design to meet some new goal. This might involve adding a new feature, accommodating a requirement, or fixing a design flaw.

The exercises will challenge attendees to analyze and identify the design principles at work in a game, and to think flexibly and creatively while working within design constraints—while also applying the Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics (MDA) framework to their design process.

The workshop takes place over two days (Day 1 and Day 2). Attendees are welcome to attend either session... or both!

"Storytelling Fundamentals Workshop" and "Game Design Workshop" are available for All-Access or Summits pass holders. Don't miss out on these incredible hands-on sessions. Register for GDC 2022 today!

GDC 2022 will take place from March 21-25 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, with our virtual event happening March 21-April 1. Health and safety measures remain paramount and we’re committed to following city and Moscone Center guidelines to deliver an exceptional experience. Be sure to check out our Q&A that addresses some of the biggest questions regarding health, safety, and international travel for this year's in-person and virtual event, and we invite you to bookmark our Health & Safety page for the latest updates.

GDC returns in-person to San Francisco, March 21-25—registration is open! For more information on GDC 2022, including our virtual options, be sure to visit our website and follow the #GDC22 hashtag on social media.

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