This weekend was the Game Dev Expo in Columbus, Ohio. Personally, it is my fifth year attending and it's amazing to see how much has changed over those past five years.
This year I went to Dev Day and had a Saturday pass. For those who have never been, Dev Day is a day full of lectures primarily focused on game development. There are several talks to choose from that take place throughout the day. The talk-of-the-day for me was the first one I attended. "Machine Learning for Games" by Dr. George Landon introduced me to some technology that I had been wanting to learn more about. As I know very little on the subject at this point in time, it was a relief that Dr. Landon and so many other attendees were willing to share their knowledge with a beginner such as myself. I ended up with many recommendations of books and videos on where I could get my feet wet and start learning this amazing technology.
Saturday was (for me) all about networking with others, going to lectures, and playing around with new games and tech on the exhibition floor. I enjoyed the talk by Ryan Davis about human-centric design and how it applies to video games. It was very much focused around the thinking that playing your game should be natural for a human being to do, and if it isn't, and if the players have a difficult time playing it due to that fact, then it is the designer's fault that the game has issues; not the player's.
Also of note was the panel from Ohio University's GRID Lab who did a short talk followed by a question and answer forum on the topic of Walkable VR. It was interesting to hear how they are using creative methods to expand what we can do in virtual reality. Methods include non-euclidean geometry in level design to coax the player to wander inside the same 10' x 10' square as well as tweaking the video so that a player feels like they are walking in a straight line but physically walking in a circle.
When Time Travel Inc is completed, I'll be diving head first into ML and VR. You can count on it. As far as the GDEX is concerned, if you are in this part of the world when it is going on, I would highly suggest checking it out.
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