Hello everyone! Peter from Black Drop here, and I am going to try to summarize the experiences amassed during the week, meaning GDC. It has been non stop action from the beginning, with meetings, lectures, parties and other things taking up all available time. That’s what’s caused the lack of updates on the site, ergo massive summary post.

I arrived in San Francisco on sunday and basically just went to the hotel to get settled in and then we went for a bite at Lori’s Diner next door. Monday, during which nothing else was planned, was spent doing all of the touristy things I didn’t get around to the last time I was here. I don’t have the time to go into any details, and you probably don’t want to read about me being a tourist, but I have to mention the arcade museum in Fisherman’s Wharf.

There you have a whole building packed with arcade games ranging from early 1900s to late 1990s, and they all work like a charm! Just pop in a quarter and you can be playing a boxing game from the twenties, watch a peep show from the same era or play old arcade games from your childhood. My personal favorite was the original Star Wars game from Atari, where you pilot an X-wing trying to destroy the death star, all in beautiful vector graphics.

On tuesday, things started to pick up a bit with Game Connection and meetings, and in the evening I attended the 10 Bit party (indie party extraordinaire) at The Cellar. The party was sponsored by 2D Boy, Flashbang Studios, Grubby Games and thatgamecompany, and was honored by a mass of the most creative developers out there. I would even go as far as to say that the future of the industry was condensed in that club, and that’s saying a lot.

In the picture above you can see Petri Purho (Kloonigames), Jonathan Söderström (Cactus), Kyle Gabler (2D Boy), Phil Fish (Polytron Corporation) and many other indie developers. It was a good night with lots of good people that made you feel good inside. Good stuff!

On wednesday I got up thinking that I was going to the Saturo Iwata Keynote, but after seeing the line stretching around the block I changed my mind. As luck would have it I instead ran into a business contact that I wanted to meet and so I got the chance to show him Boingo, which was nice. The image above shows some of the new in-game art that we’re trying out for Boingo. If you like it, please let us know! If you don’t… please let us know! Feedback is always appreciated, no matter which kind.

After a number of meetings and a couple of lectures it was time to go to the Nordic Happy Happy Soul Party at Slim’s. A band was playing covers all night long and everyone seemed to have a good time, which might have had something to do with the open bar. I ran into the guys from Double Fine that I mentioned briefly in a previous post, but this time we didn’t end up up at their offices drinking whiskey. I think that was a good thing since the last encounter with them resulted in us finding ourselves at the wrong place at the wrong time (under the Bay Bridge at 4.30 in the morning.). The evening ended a bit earlier this time, and it wasn’t quite as rough as before, so we were back at the hotel at a decent hour.

Check back in a few days for the rest of my summary.

Tags: Boingo, gdc, linkedin, nordic game, san francisco