作者：Dan Wakefield

前往2015年游戏开发者大会

今年在旧金山举办的GDC真的非常棒，但现在我们已经回到了挪威并慢慢调整时差。我们认为如果能够将我们在这次展会上的经历写下来将会很有趣。这也许能够带给其他开发者帮助，或者能够让那些首次前往GDC的人从中获取一些必要的信息。

Torstein-Fans(from gamasutra)

以下便是我们在2015年GDC上所学到的一些内容。

一些可以做得更好的事：

1.首先我想起的便是我们能够在GDC上呈现我们的游戏并与粉丝们进行互动。我们的团队派了5个人出席展会并且我们会一直待在在我们的展台上。大多数情况下3个人其实就够了。我个人便因为将几乎所有时间都花费在与那些排队想要尝试我们游戏的人交谈而未能去参观其它展台。

2.我们本来可以为展台的一些零碎事物进行更完善的准备，如携带螺丝刀，胶带等等。当我们到达现场并开始组建展台时我们便因为准备不足而不得不向其他团队借用螺丝刀。之后我们还发现缺少尼龙扎带和胶带等工具。下次再参加的时候我们一定会做好万全的准备。

3.我们本来可以在展会上与更多开发者进行交流。大多数时候我们都待在自己的展台上或在挪威独立游戏角与其他来自挪威的开发者进行交流。我认为如果能够走出去与更多优秀的独立开发者聊天的话将会很有趣，我们将能够从那些比我们拥有更多GDC经验的人身上学到更多新事物，并且也能够交到一些新朋友。

Journalists(from gamasutra)

4.我们本可以吸引更多媒体到我们的展台来。这不是件容易的事，但是GDC上最让人兴奋的一点便是到处都充满着媒体们。你可以通过他们所佩戴的徽章进行区分。你会看到他们走过你的展台，有时候他们会驻足观看，也许也会尝试你的游戏。今年我们便因为一位记者停在我们的展台前而出现在“Game Informer’s Best Indie Games of GDC 2015”。有时候他们只是会瞥一眼你的游戏便离开，在他们离开后你肯定会后悔没有让对方尝试你的游戏。下一年我将为此制定一个有效的策略。

5.花费前5天时间在酒店里尝试着完成我们的演示版本，然后在观众到达的最后几分钟在展台上搭建游戏并不能说是让我们引以为傲的时刻。我们还有一些需要做的事，主要是修改字幕出现的时间以及触发器设置等问题。但是如果我们能够更有效地创演示版本，我们便会更愿意进行修改，也就是我们还需要几天时间去完善它。我们同时也决定在最后时刻删减一些对话内容等等。这同时也会导致：

6.因为前几天都专注于游戏中使我们错过了一些聚会和社交活动。如果我们能够以一个团队的身份参加这些活动的话会更好。对于今年我们参加的其它展会，因为已经拥有一个有效完成的演示版本，我们便不用再面临最后几分钟的压力。

Badges(from gamasutra)

一些已经做得不错的事：

1.我们的演示版本看起来玩起来都不错，那些之前从未听过游戏的陌生人也给予了我们很多积极的反馈。我们甚至开玩笑说未收到足够有关游戏的建设性批评，尽管我们真的还需要对游戏进行许多完善。

2.我们都非常擅于与粉丝聊天并宣传游戏。我们拥有一个非常复杂的故事可以与观众分享，并且我们会谨慎地交谈以避免任何麻烦的出现，我们中的所有人都能够有效地解释游戏是关于什么以及为何能够吸引人们的注意。之前我们并未对此进行排练，所以我们也不清楚事情会如何发展，所幸所有人在三天里都表现很好。

3.展台事先便搭好了，我们的商品和宣传材料也都准备妥当。我们的美术师Stian为展示创造了非常棒且吸引眼球的海报。我们还拥有巨大的横幅，印有品牌的T恤，关于和团队成员的名片，以及那些发放给没有足够时间玩演示版本的路人的宣传单。我们同样也准备了许多水，零食，口香糖等等食物去补充能量。

4.我们收集到并发放出去许多名片，与一些非常有趣的人进行了交谈并创造了许多有帮助的联系。这可能是参加GDC最棒的地方了，你将在展会上或任何一个角落遇到各种人。整个旧金山有无数人参加了GDC，没有其它地方比这里充斥着更多与游戏相关的人。所以我们的名片流向了曾驻足于我们展台的粉丝，其他开发者，潜在的投资者以及学生们，或者那些想要进一步了解Through the Woods的人们。

5.在GDC前和结束后留出10天的空闲时间也会是很棒的选择。我们知道有些开发者是在GDC前夕到达并在结束后就离开。这没什么不对，但我真的很开心我们能够提到5天到达展会并在结束后又留下来待了几天。这能够让我们在展会开始前有足够的时间调整时差。尽管在展会开始前我们一直待在酒店里，但我们也抽空参加了几个聚会和一些会议。每天能够与团队成员一起出去吃饭并在夜晚进行交谈真的是很棒的体验。因为平时的我们并不会这么做，甚至有时候还会觉得自己是来度假一样。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Things We Learned at GDC 2015

by Dan Wakefield

Going to Game Developers Conference 2015

GDC San Francisco was fantastic this year, but now we have returned home to Norway in the giant metal Flappy Bird and are slowly recovering from the jet lag. We thought it would be interesting to write a quick post-mortem about our time at the show, the things we did well and the things we could have done better. If any other developers find this useful or if first-time GDC goers can glean anything from our experience, all the better.

So, here are some things we learned at GDC 2015…

Things that could have been better:

1. The very first thing I think of is that we were so excited to show off our game and interact with fans we forgot to go to GDC ourselves. There were five people from our team at the show and we were usually all at the stand. Three would have been enough for most of the time. I personally didn’t see one talk and hardly wandered around the show at all as I spent most of the days with people who were queuing up to check out our game.

2. We could have been a little more prepared with bits and pieces for the stand, such as screwdrivers, gaffer tape, etc. When we turned up to put the stand together and make it look pretty we had to go and borrow a screwdriver from a team building a stand for a well known sportswear corporation. Later on we needed cable ties for our banner, then tape to stick down a sheet with the control scheme. We really should have had all this stuff with us. Next time we’ll Just Do It.

3. We could have interacted more with other developers at the show. We were mostly in our own little bubble on our stand, or were talking with the other Norwegian developers in the Norwegian Indie Games corner. I think it would have been fun to have gone around and chatted more with the other great indie developers around the GDC Play hall, learned a couple of new things from people with more experience of GDC than ourselves and maybe made some new friends.

4. We could have enticed more press to our stand. This is a tough one, but one of the most exciting aspects of GDC is all the press walking around. You can tell them apart by the red Media tags on their show badge. Now and again you will see them pass by your stand and sometimes they will stop and watch, or maybe play. This year we were lucky enough to be included in Game Informer’s Best Indie Games of GDC 2015 after one of their journalists stopped by the stand. But sometimes they will glance at your game and move on and, after they go, you will wish you had grabbed them and forced them to check out your work. I’m not really sure this is the right way to go, but I feel there must be a good way to attract passing press. Next year we will hopefully have a better strategy for this.

5. Spending the first five days in the hotel crunching and trying to finish our demo, then building the game on the stand at the last minute before the public arrived were possibly not our proudest moments. There were just a few little bits that needed work, mostly to fix small things such as the timing of subtitles and trigger placements, for example. But the better we made the demo, the more we wanted to fix, which turned into several days making slight changes and improvements. We also decided to cut out some dialogue at the last moment, etc. Which also leads to:

6. We missed a few parties and social events because of working on the game the first days. We did send an envoy to most of these; Anders, our producer, but it would have been nice if we could have gone as a team. For other expos we attend this year, at least we have a really strong demo already finished so we will hopefully not have to deal with the stress of last minute changes at a show again. At least not for Through the Woods, anyway.

Things we did well:

1. Our demo looks and plays great, and the public, all complete strangers to us who had never heard of the game before, gave us lots of positive feedback. Pretty much universally so, in fact. We even joked there was not enough constructive criticism about the build, although there are still a lot of improvements we are aware of that we will be making to the game as production goes on. So all the crunching was worthwhile in those terms.

2. We were all really good at talking to fans and pitching our game. We have quite a complex story to tell and we have to be a little careful about what we say because potential spoilers could easily tumble out, but all of us did a great job explaining what our game is about and why people should be excited. We didn’t really rehearse this beforehand so I was very curious how things would go, but everyone did a great job, consistently and throughout three long days.

3. The stand was really well organised beforehand and our merchandise and promo material was consistent. We had some great and very eye-catching art made for the show by our artist, Stian. We were equipped with a huge Through the Woods banner, branded t-shirts, hundreds of business cards for the game itself and each member of the team, leaflets about the game for those in a rush who didn’t have time to play the demo, badges, etc. We also had plenty of water, snacks, chewing gum and such to keep us going between meals.

4. We collected and gave out tonnes of business cards, spoke to some super interesting people and made a bunch of useful connections. This is probably the greatest part of GDC; all the people you meet at the show, at parties and in random places while the show is on. The whole of San Francisco fills with tens of thousands of people attending GDC and you really can’t go anywhere without the potential to meet other game related humans. So our cards are now with fans, other developers, talented potential contributors and students who all either stopped by to see the game at the show, or people we met in other places who wanted to find out more about Through the Woods.

5. Ten days was a great amount of time to be there as there is lots of action before and after GDC to experience. We know a few developers who arrived the day before GDC and left soon after. This is fine but I was really glad we were able to get there five days before the show and stay for a couple of days after. This also gave us time to adjust to U.S. time before the show opened. While we were mostly holed up at the hotel working before the show, we did manage to get to a party or two and a couple of meetings we had arranged during that time. It was also really lovely to just go out to eat meals and sit down with the team every night. It’s not so often we have been this social with each other and it was a great bonding experience for us all and sometimes felt almost like a holiday.

There you have it. We really hope you managed to find something of use here. We’re already looking forwards to returning to San Francisco next year. Hopefully we’ll see you there, too.(source:gamasutra)