As you finalize your plans for the 2019 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week, organizers want to quickly remind you that this year the show will play host to four hour-long deep dives into the design and development of classic games!
These special Classic Game Postmortems are just a few of the many sessions available to you in the GDC 2019 Session Scheduler, but they’re a bit more historic than your typical GDC talk.
Each is usually hosted by a game dev veteran with lots of stories to share (often for the first time!) about their work and their time in the industry, making these sessions a great way to learn more about the history and hidden stories behind some of your favorite games.
This year, for example, John Salwitz (a veteran game programmer who’s worked on everything from Rampart to Klax to Medal of Honor) will be at GDC 2019 in San Francisco the deliver a Classic Game Postmortem of Atari’s arcade hit Paperboy!
Salwitz helped co-create Paperboy, and at GDC next week he’ll walk you through the design and development process that culminated in the creation of a modern classic. Expect to get an inside perspective on working at Atari, the nuts and bolts of arcade game design in the ’80s, and the untold story of developing a now-classic game.
Plus, Panzer Dragoon designer Yukio Futatsugi and artist Kentaro Yoshida, two Japanese game industry veterans who now work together at Grounding, will be at GDC in March to discuss designing and developing the Panzer Dragoon series on Saturn!
As we’ve mentioned before, this is a very special Classic Game Postmortem because you get two speakers and not one but three games discussed in-depth: the original Panzer Dragoon (which was Futatsugi’s debut as a game designer) as well as its follow-up Panzer Dragoon Zwei and the RPG Panzer Dragoon Saga, neither of which have ever been publicly deconstructed like this!
Also, Lemmings co-creator Mike Dailly will be presenting a Classic Game Postmortem of Lemmings, in which he’ll discuss the creation of this seminal DMA Design puzzle-platform game starring those allegedly suicidal rodents, which debuted on Amiga in 1991 and subsequently appeared on a multitude of other platforms!
Covering both the original title and also its immediate expansions and sequels (including Lemmings 2 and 3), Dailly will look at the genesis of the idea, the refining of the gameplay, and just how the clever game developed into a smash hit for the company and its publisher Psygnosis.
Last but certainly not least, game industry veteran Louis Castle (known best for co-founding the trailblazing Westwood Studios with Brett Sperry) will be there next week to deliver a Classic Game Postmortem on the landmark real-time strategy game Command & Conquer!
It promises to be a fascinating hour-long deep dive into the conception, development, and design of Command & Conquer, a game that inspired a generation of game designers and helped popularize the real-time strategy game genre. As Westwood’s co-founder, Castle was involved from the start, and at GDC 2019 next week he’ll take the stage to share his experience and the lessons he took from it, as well as insights and anecdotes from key C&C team members. Don’t miss it!.
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