Seonhwa Park GDC 2018

Post date: Apr 06, 2018 5:18:58 PM

It was my first time attending GDC or any conference and I thought it was just like, “Oh, companies come to show their works but also look at portfolios to hire people,” because people would say they are going to GDC to get a job or internship. However, it was more than that. There were a lot of seminars that contains great lectures and people from not only big companies but also indie game companies were there to talk and having conversation with them was great opportunity to improve my insight and knowledge.

With the Expo Plus Pass, there were more than enough seminars that I was interested and it was reasonable for student. Above Expo Plus, it looked like most of the talks were for professionals which required some basic knowledge to understand. However, things didn’t worked out as I expected. The flight got delayed and my friends and I had to stay the night at the airport which led as to arrive a day after the date we planned to be at GDC, and I missed my chance to attend a lot of seminars that I wanted to go. When I looked up whole week schedule, I would recommend to be there early, because there are lot more technical and interesting seminars are held on from the beginning of GDC.

I had an opportunity to attend the seminar that talks about company making game call ‘How would people survive on Mars’ for the students to learn and experiment. They planned to make the game after realizing how not every kids have same opportunity to learn properly or have fun while they are learning. I could understand it a lot because most of Korean schools teach the students to just memorize stuff than explaining one by one. Before I come to us, I never had interest in science because I couldn’t understand but once I had a science class with full of experiments from us high school, I once thought of working in those area. Anyway, the company wanted to help those kids and they had more valuable information than what I expected.

First, you have to plan what game it is going to be and agree on game mechanic. For example, since their target was student, they used Tablet for the hardware because it is easy to access. Then, company had set up the game mechanics as they planned but it didn’t work out since mechanics can mis-instruct the player and the game wasn’t designed for those who need most.

After failing their first attempt, they made storyboard and narrative to involve the player to the game. The player remembers emotional journey than just memorizing something. Also they had to approach to the students with their level to get connected. For example, students unlike adult get lost a lot, or no one learns the same way or at the same pace, so there had to be a way to bring them back and start again, which core game has to be looped. Also, visual had to be obvious so that students can know what’s what since they try stuff without waiting for the instruction.

To give realistic experience for the student, they designed whole bus look like spaceship. Windows were switched to tv screens to play the video to call the actions for students something like NASA giving them a mission and to provide the feeling like they are really in the space. The mission was simple, the students were to find the evidence in Mars and company made evidence can be analyzable to involve students’ action and make them curious. Also, there was no saving point so that if one’s game crashes, one can join to another and they end up working together which helps them improving their communication skills and how to work together.

The result was amazing. Students had more interests in the matters and some of them would send letter to NASA about Mars. It is amazing how this little experiences from the game can change entire future of the students and as I’m studying in game art, it made me want to do something like that. The game that’s more than what people can enjoy.