GDC 2006, San Jose Convention Center
Me and My Katamari! Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi and Me (I). This is the first time I busted out my japanese to someone without feeling self conscious about it. "Takahashi-san. Isshoni shashin totte ii?" And then he saw my shirt and thanked me (for the support of his products).
What a serious and professional looking group! Developers of Shadow of the Colossus. I found their talk to be very interesting as they went into the numerous challenges and risks they took and overtook in the development in this highly awarded and rewarding game.
TFB programmer with his designer idol - Rez and Lumines creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Unfortunately, I found his session on 99 Nights quite boring. It was pretty much Dynasty Warriors with a thousand opponents and different cut scenes depending on which character you play! Excuse me while I woop-dee-doo.
Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata gave a highly entertaining and inspirational speech on shaking up the industry and disrupting the competition with innovation.
Will Wright of... Will Wright, Bill Trinen of Nintendo,
Spike TV's Geoff Keighley, and GDC boss Jamil Moledina battled off in the Kumon inspired Brain Age battle with Trinen winning both rounds.
Nintendo's Katsuya Eguchi discusses Animal Crossing's move from console to DS (and subsequently back to console on the Revolution).
Some early design docs for Animal Crossing for the DS.
And on a side note, Shaba hosted a special GDC poker night for the Activision folks who had come from all over the country to attend GDC. Only a contingent of Beenox developers showed up. There was originally going to be a tournament but prizes could not be secured so the regular styled cash game commenced. The winners ended up being people not of Shaba or Beenox. True to form I lost my first twenty before roaring back to end the night up $35. Jimmy, Romy, Casey, and Casey's cousin Matt all checked out with decent sized pots of money. Thank you Shaba! =)
