Tag: Conventions

GottaCon? Why Yes. Yes We Do.

by Chris Tihor, posted in Appearances
So many colours!
So many colours! Double rainbow across the sky!

Just a quick note out that this weekend, from Feb 28th – March 2nd, I will be living large at GottaCon, Victoria’s premiere game convention. Not only will I be running an information booth for the LevelUp – IGDA Victoria group, but I’ll be participating in not one, but two video game themed panels. The first panel “Creating DIY Video Games – Indie Style!” is on Saturday at 10 am, and the second “Storytelling in Video Games: Telling Tales Around the Digital Campfire” will be on Sunday at 12:30 pm. Information on both can be found here.

GottaCon has been steadily growing over the past six years and this year it should be bigger and better than ever, with a new downtown venue and a lot more participation from the exploding local video game scene. Why not come and check it out? If you do, be sure to drop by the IGDA Victoria booth and say hi. And maybe even ask about the upcoming Video Game Start-Up Boot Camp while you’re at it. See you there!

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A Skedaddle to Seattle

by Chris Tihor, posted in blah blah blah, Presentations

Last week, I participated in the second annual IGDA Summit in Seattle, Washington hosted by the International Game Developers Association. I’d made it out to the inaugural Summit last year, but this year was my first as a speaker. My talk, “Rummaging in the Geek Culture Toolbox“, was a look at all of the great things that came out of  the workshop with the same title that I ran during the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS) last November in Vancouver, BC. The main goal of both was to explore the potential of using different forms of geek culture (in this case Role-Playing Games and Comics) to help in creating games, with a focus on writing and narrative design.

The talk went really well, I thought. Following the talk was a really interesting panel discussion of the subject with Wendy Despain, Richard Dansky, and myself. It was great to get the perspective of game writing veterans, and it gave me a few new ideas to pursue. The questions from the audience were also thought-provoking. Overall, very inspiring for me and hopefully entertaining and useful for the audience. I’m already considering doing another talk/workshop that would expand on the themes from the last one, maybe even looking at a couple new forms of geek culture to explore.

If you missed the talk, it was recorded and will be posted on to YouTube in the near future by Casual Connect. I’ll pop a link up here when that happens, unless I watch it first and find it too embarrassing. In that case, I may never mention it again. 😉

The rest of the Summit was terrific. I got to meet up with a ton of other game creators, old friends and new, exchange ideas and stories, and generally have a great time. I’ll be giving a brief talk summarizing my Summit experience and giving reasons why you should come out to Seattle for the next one. It’ll be happening during the August Level Up/IGDA Victoria monthly meeting next Monday evening. So if you have any questions come by and ask away.