A shorter update this week (but with a big conversation update next week), as I’ve spent the entire week at conferences! I was at DiGRA/FDG 2016, where I gave a talk in the PCG workshop about URR’s dialect generation…
… and then gave the deep play and dark play talk I previously gave at CGSA, and concluded with a live bullet hell demonstration, commentated on by the ever-marvellous Mike Cook, which went down really rather well. Lots of people said they felt it was the highlight of the conference and it got a pretty amazing amount of traction on Twitter. It was actually remarkably relaxing to play live compared to the same event at CGSA a few months before – it’s amazing how quickly just a single trial-run of a particular event can transform it from something quite nerve-wracking into something very comfortable.
After that, however, I flew to NYU for the 2016 US IRDC! Last year, as some readers might remember, I really wanted to visit Atlanta for the first US IRDC, but despite the incredibly generous offer of some financial support from a fellow roguelike developer, it didn’t work out in the end. This year, however, I made it across the pond and attended my first ever US IRDC! I gave my procedural dialects talk, fielded a pretty huge volume of questions, and then spent the rest of the day talking to the (rather good) turn-out of attendees. I’m keeping it brief this week as there’s so much otherwise stuff I to do today, but here are some pics:
The awesome games collection of the NYU Game Centre:
The highly amusing Dragon Hoard Income Tax simulator:
Issues with the amazing time-travel 7DRL by @humbit:
Another talk…
…and rather nice Japanese restaurant!
For me, the two highlights were Jason Grinblat’s awesome talk on using Markov Chains to generate books in Caves of Qud, and Jeremiah Reid’s fantastic piece about his time-travel roguelikes and how to handle paradoxes and deal with some highly amusing bugs. It was a fantastic event with a strong turnout and loads of great talks. To anyone in the US who considered coming but didn’t make it – you were missed! I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it next year, but I’ll certainly give it a shot again, though it will depend on funding, jobs, all that other stuff. It’s always hugely enjoyable to meet the big names in the community, and as a developer to meet people who want to meet me, and I can’t recommend it enough. Hope to see some more of you there next year! Next week: more sentence and dialect generation!
