The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tutorials, lectures, and roundtables by industry professionals on game-related topics covering programming, design, audio, production, business and management, and visual arts.
"The Silent Cartographer" is the fourth level in the first-person shooter (FPS) video game Halo: Combat Evolved. Taking place on the Halo ringworld, it follows the Master Chief and a group of UNSC Marines as they wage a daytime beachfront assault on the Covenant alien race in search of an ancient Forerunner installation known as The Silent Cartographer.
Just Cause 2 is a 2010 action-adventure game developed by Avalanche Studios and published by Square Enix. The sequel to 2006's Just Cause, it was powered by Avalanche Studios' Avalanche 2.0 Engine. It features Rico Rodriguez, a major operative of the fictional Agency who arrives at Panau to overthrow dictator Pandak "Baby" Panay and confront former mentor Tom Sheldon. The gameplay involves Rico fighting hostile militants with guns and a grappling hook, enabling players to tether objects to each other and slingshot into the air with a parachute. Just Cause 2 introduces the Chaos System, in which players must complete missions and destroy government property on Panau for Chaos points. These points are essential for story progression.
Jonatan Söderström, also known as Cactus, is a Swedish video game developer noted for his unusual and innovative games. He is best known as the co-designer and programmer of Hotline Miami (2012) and Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (2015), but had prior to those games developed over 40 small freeware games, many of which were reviewed and lauded even in the mainstream video game press. His game Clean Asia! was nominated for both Excellence In Visual Arts and Excellence in Audio at the Independent Games Festival in 2008. In 2010, he won the IGF's Nuovo Award, which honours unconventional game development, for his puzzler Tuning.
Uncharted is an action-adventure video game franchise published by Sony Interactive Entertainment and developed by Naughty Dog. Created by Amy Hennig, the Uncharted franchise follows a group of treasure hunters who travel across the world to uncover various historical mysteries. The series features historical fiction, elements of fantasy and folklore, and fictional characters alongside real-world historical figures and events. In the main series, players control Nathan Drake; in the expansion, players control Chloe Frazer.
From Dust is a god video game, designed by Éric Chahi and developed by Ubisoft Montpellier. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live Arcade in 2011. Described as a spiritual successor to Populous, the game revolves around The Breath, which was summoned by a tribe to help them seek and recover their lost knowledge. In the game, players, controlling a cursor, can manipulate matter such as lava, soil, and water. Players can help the tribespeople to overcome challenges including finding different totems and overcoming natural disasters. In addition to the story mode, the game features a Challenge mode which offers a shorter, but harder experience.
Trauma is a graphical adventure interactive fiction game developed by Polish-German programmer Krystian Majewski as part of a thesis project, and released in August 2011. The game is based on a woman that has suffered a physiological trauma, and has been languishing in several dreamscapes while unconscious and hospitalized. The player resolves these by using both point-and-click and gesture-based actions to move about the dreamscapes, composed of photographs with digitally altered features, to complete a certain task. Each dreamscape also contains several alternate conclusions and a number of hidden photographs that provide hints towards these alternate conclusions in other dreamscapes. Along the way, parts of a backstory are revealed through a narrative voice.
Botanicula is a point-and-click adventure game developed by Amanita Design. The game was released on April 19, 2012, for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The game was later ported to iOS and Android.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a 2015 action role-playing game developed and published by CD Projekt. It is the sequel to the 2011 game The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and the third game in The Witcher video game series, played in an open world with a third-person perspective. The games follow the Witcher series of fantasy novels written by Andrzej Sapkowski.
Simogo is a Swedish independent video game developer based in Malmö. The company was founded in 2010 and is best known for creating games for mobile devices, including Year Walk and Device 6. Its name comes from the name of its founders Simon (SIM), and Gordon (GO); the 'O' from the Swedish word "och" meaning "and".
Mini Metro is a puzzle strategy video game developed by New Zealand indie development team Dinosaur Polo Club. Players are tasked with constructing an efficient rail transit network for a rapidly growing city. The game's visual style makes use of bold colours and simple geometry to replicate the appearance of modern transit maps. The game uses a procedural audio system to generate sounds based on the player actions and transit network, with inspiration from works of minimal music.
Metamorphabet is a 2015 interactive video game developed by Vectorpark.
Far: Lone Sails is an exploration adventure videogame developed by the Swiss development company Okomotive. The game was released on Microsoft Windows and macOS on 17 May 2018, with Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions released in April 2019, and the Nintendo Switch version on 18 August 2019. A sequel, Far: Changing Tides, was released in March 2022.
Wipeout Omega Collection is a 2017 futuristic racing video game compilation co-developed by XDev, Clever Beans and Creative Vault Studios and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. It was first released in North America on June 6 2017 and in Europe a day later.
The Longing is a 2020 point-and-click adventure game created by independent developer Studio Seufz. Set in an underground kingdom, the player controls the Shade, a creature tasked with watching over a sleeping king for 400 days. The Shade performs recreational activities, including reading and exploring, as it waits out the 400 days in real time. The in-game timer continues regardless of the player's actions but moves faster if the Shade performs certain actions inside its home, such as decorating the walls with drawings.
Starseed Pilgrim is a 2013 puzzle-platform game from independent developer droqen. Players plant 'starseeds' which grow into plants, each with different growth patterns and interaction mechanics. Players plant these starseeds on floating platforms and on fully-grown plants in order to traverse the game world. The game was developed in Adobe Flash and was released in April 2013 for Windows and OS X. Reviewers praised Starseed Pilgrim's game mechanics and the process of learning their interactions, but criticized the learning curve as steep. The game was a finalist for the Excellence in Design award at the 2013 Independent Games Festival.
Greg Buchanan is a Scottish novelist and video game writer. He is the author of Sixteen Horses, a literary thriller published in 2021. His video game work includes the BAFTA longlisted American Election and Paper Brexit, and his writing credits include No Man's Sky and Metro Exodus.
Reece Millidge is a Brighton-based British Flash and mobile game developer, also known under the pseudonym Damp Gnat, which is also the name of his (one-man) studio. He is best known for the games Wonderputt, which was a finalist for the Independent Games Festival Excellence in Visual Art award, and Icycle. Millidge was named a "Breakthrough Brit" at the 2014 BAFTAs.
Toem is a photography game developed and published by Swedish independent game studio Something We Made. It was released in September 2021 for Windows, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 5 and in July 2023 for Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The game received generally positive reviews upon release. It won in the Best Debut category at the 18th British Academy Games Awards.
Potion Craft is a video game created by Russian independent developer niceplay games and published by tinyBuild in 2022. Described as an "atmospheric management simulator set in a medieval fantasy world", Potion Craft is a management simulation game in which players operate a store producing and selling potions using alchemical ingredients. Upon release, Potion Craft received praise from critics for its novel and intuitive crafting mechanics, and was nominated for several awards at the 2023 Independent Games Festival.
