Streaming from GDC

This is my first post on my Gamasutra blog, so, hey, hi there. My name is Federico and I'm the co-founder and studio director of Urustar, a small indie team located in Genova, Italy. This is a confused flow of thoughts about GDC 2013. It was the second year I've attended it and it was awesome. The post was originally written for Messages from Outer Space, our team's weblog. Hope you like it!

A Sunday evening looking at my badge and asking myself what the hell I’m doing here there are the REALLY coool guys and me, who the fuck am I? Then Blue Bottle Coffee and poached eggs and getting ready to start indie indie indie summit, loving postmortems and Anna Kipnis’ MolyJam talk and running from a room to another thinking I’ll never be able to stay on track. And in the evening trying a bunch of games and loving Kachina and meeting Steve Swink, Bean and Fernando Ramallo and talking with them smiling and being proud to be a little part of it.

Then more running and running and playing Hokra, what the fuck this game is great, and being quite impressed by some more talks and running up and down the Moscone Center halls stopping by Whole Foods for a quick sushi (I love Californian sushi) still unable to talk to anyone but it will get better I know.

Blue Bottle Coffee again and again, seeing blood on the street and being yelled at by some random homeless, and now here's the fucking NOS booth at the corner tween Howard and Fourth, can we get rid of it? I HATE IT. But the main conference has started and finally I can play Brenda Romero’s Train, except what the fuck the game has just started and I want it to stop, it's too much, how can a game be so strong? We should understand the power of this stuff understand people better and listening to #1reasontobe it was mindblowing and I realized so many things I haven’t before and cried at Brenda Romero’s speech and learned what being passionate is REALLY about then Wild Rumpus party hit the jackpot because there were games cool cool games and I love games, y’know? And there was Chipzel playing her Game Boy how it’s even possible making such a cool music with just a Game Boy? I guess you should be EXTREMELY cool and Chipzel just is she walks up to the peak of the coolness scale while kicking everyone in the butt and keeping playing the Game Boy. At the Voodoo truck eating a chicken sando and chatting with one of the guys from Ostrich Banditos (play Westerado NOW) and having an effing good time while somewhere else pole dancers denied pretty much every effort IGDA made for diversity and inclusion in this industry. Wild Rumpus' was the best party of GDC just because they cared for the same stuff I care for. They loved games and they showed it plain and simple like Keita Takahashi’s Tenya Wanya Teens I want one of those incredible glowing controllers. Oh, and in the morning I also played Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime and it's SO AWESOME.

Two poached eggs in my stomach keep me to faint or something as I run from Sara Gross' talk to a fancy hotel for the Women in Games Luncheon, and I’m about to be mindblown again. Met a lot of supercool people, met Robin Hunicke told her she’s like a mentor to me thanked her and she’s just the best, then Anita Sarkeesian who is cool and super smart and I just admire her so much for what she’s doing. At the microtalks Margaret Robertson is sitting next to me what the fuck two mentors in one day? And we talk a bit and now I have a complete set of Tiny Games for GDC and waiting for more (back their Kickstarter! Back it NOW!). OUYA party was cool, played a bit on the console I like it, want to make a game for it, we probably will.

Whoaaaaaa LAST DAY we are going to leave at 5 in the afternoon we just have time to follow some more sessions after leaving our luggage at the bag check. And OH MY GOD the rant session was THE BEST I loved every single moment of it from Anna Marsh asking for better work conditions to anna anthropy ROARING we are all John Romero’s Wives and having Brenda Romero and a lot of other people just standing up and clapping and Mitu Khandaker telling us that we need to take a stance for diversity in games and despite what you think IT’S ALREADY FUCKING POLITICAL go for it Mitu, your talk was great. Last last session experimental games! Coolness everywhere, mindfucking with the fourth dimension making cellular regenerating masses move through super clever levels hitting headmounted buttons controlling a hole mixing game design with architecture and the talk running late and we are late. FUCK FUCK FUCK we cannot stay anymore so we leave as Keita Takahashi starts talking and I’m sad because I cannot properly say goodbye to anyone and just have to leave and wait the minivan for the airport. The minivan for the airport. The airport. And back in Europe.

See you next year, GDC.