#gdc12

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Hardin & Tessa | Middle of the Night (500+ sub's special)

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GDC12 Recap

Many thanks to our sponsors, speakers, planning committee and volunteers who made the 2012 Global Donors Conference a success!

Conference Reflections:

"Well attended by many active and leading donors and organizations. Good workshop topics and good keynote speakers" - GDC12 participant

"[I liked] the opportunity to learn and share about global philanthropy and the way some NGOs are engaged in international development on a smaller, more grassroots scale. I especially enjoyed attending the workshops focused on evaluation of social change work." - GDC12 participant

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Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen Opens GDC12

We are excited to announce that Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, author of Giving 2.0: Transform Your Giving and Our World, will open our 2012 conference with a keynote speech.

Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen is the Founder, Chairman Emeritus and former Chairman (1998-2008) of SV2 (Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund), a venture philanthropy fund that leverages its partners’ financial, intellectual, and human capital to make a measurable impact in the Silicon Valley community. Under her leadership, SV2 built a portfolio of 25 grantees and nearly 400 investors, and it won the Silicon Valley Association of Fundraising Professionals Philanthropic Organization of the Year in 2008.

Laura is the Founder and Board Chairman of Stanford PACS (Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society), a global research center committed to exploring ideas to create social change and publisher of the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR). Laura has created and teaches Stanford Graduate School of Business’ first course on Strategic Philanthropy and Stanford University’s first course on Philanthropy and Social Innovation. Since 2000, Laura’s faculty appointments include Lecturer in Business Strategy at Stanford GSB; Lecturer in Public Policy; and Lecturer at Stanford School of Education.

Her New York Times bestselling book on individual giving, Giving 2.0: Transform Your Giving and Our World (published by Wiley’s Jossey-Bass 2011) as well as her blog and website (www.giving2.com) empower individuals of all backgrounds, ages, and passions to make their giving matter more. Laura is also a contributing writer to Worth Magazine, the Huffington Post, SSIR and the book, Local Mission, Global Vision, and she has been featured on Charlie Rose, CNN with Erin Burnett, MSNBC with Dylan Ratigan, and CNBC Power Lunch.

Laura is the President of the Marc and Laura Andreessen Foundation. She is a director of the Arrillaga Foundation and a board member of Sand Hill Foundation, Stanford University School of Education, SIEPR (Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research), Women’s Health at Stanford Medical Center, and an Advisory Council Member of the Global Philanthropy Forum. In 2008, Laura was selected as the only individual philanthropist in the Aspen Institute Philanthropy Group—an agenda-setting body of twenty national philanthropy leaders, who come together annually to identify issues that would benefit from sector-wide deliberation among grantees and grantors and among social enterprises and their investors—and the Donor Effectiveness Network—a group of 20 leaders committed to furthering the donor education field. Laura is a former Public Affairs Fellow at the Hoover Institution. She is a former trustee of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, The Hoover Institution, Community Foundation Silicon Valley, Castilleja School, Menlo School, Eastside Preparatory School, San Francisco Art Institute, and Children’s Health Council.

Laura holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, an MA in Education from Stanford School of Education, and a BA and MA in Art History from Stanford University. A native of Palo Alto, California, Laura is a graduate of Castilleja School and was honored with its Distinguished Alumna Award in 2010. She received the 2001 Jacqueline Kennedy Award for Women in Leadership, and in April 2005, she became a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. She was also awarded the President’s Volunteer Service Award from the Points of Light Foundation in June 2005 and Children and Family Services’ Outstanding Silicon Valley Philanthropist Award in 2009. In 2010, Laura was the first individual awarded SV2’s “Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen Social Impact Award,” and in 2011, the World Affairs Council and its Global Philanthropy Forum honored her and her husband with the Global Citizen Award. Laura lives with her husband, technology entrepreneur Marc Andreessen, near Stanford University, and together they enjoy reading, art, writing, movies, yoga, athletics, and laughing as much as possible.

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GDC 2012 Notes | Trail-er blazing: creating the trailers your game deserves - Kert Gartner

## capture your audience's attention - must be done in th first 5-10 seconds - no logos, or stuff, - 20% audience defects in first 10 seconds - 44% after 60 seconds - 60 to 90 seconds at most ## here we are now: entertain us! - target trailer to same audience the game is targeted at - same quality level of your game ## what your game is about? - by the end of the trailer this has to be clear - not only the gameplay ## focus trailer around one core concept - [canabalt 2player on the winnitron](http://vimeo.com/17462036) - [sword and sworcery audience calibration procedure](http://vimeo.com/20379529): sets the tone of the game - don't go into much detail - the trailer is the hook ## example trailer: super time force - [video](http://vimeo.com/30712687) - slowed down gameplay footage - zoomed in specific areas: viewers might not know where to look - has beginning, middle and end sections - does not give everything away in the trailer ## example: realistic summer sport simulator - [video](http://vimeo.com/33701014) - parody, hilarious to play - builds to a call to action: BUY! - cutting to closeups to make it less boring ## dramatic structure - keeps viewers engaged - Am I creating a story with my trailer? ### Three part structure: - beginning: set-up - middle: rising action to the climax - end: conclusion (call to action, buy) ## Technical stuff: high quality gameplay footage ### mac/pc games screen capture - apps: screenflow, camstudio, fraps, camtasia. ### hardware capture for ios/consoles - blackmagic intensity, with hdmi input ### shoting with dslr video - show people playing with device - out of focus to avoid moiree - show the social part (people working with the game) - examples: [fingle](http://vimeo.com/30639604) and [aquaria](http://vimeo.com/36991474) ## what makes a successful game trailer - high quality gameplay footage (uncompressed) - engage and entertain your audience (it's not an ad!) - tease the audience: it's only a glimpse of what's to come - create a story [author's extended blog post](http://blog.kertgartner.com/2012/03/making-entertaining-and-engaging-video-game-trailers/)

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GDC 2012 Notes | Level Design Case Studies: Trainyard and Cut the Rope

# trainyard - levels = teaching - sawtooth difficulty progression with dips to let payer relax - audience discovered: casual, completionists and hardcore - break into main game (for casual audience) and bonus levels (completionists, hardcore) - don't put nearly-impossible levels even as bonus levels because completionists get frustarted. - add a level editor for the hardcore audience. - each level should have a purpose - symmetry and balance - everything sound intentional - use themes for variety - use minimum number of elements possible to achieve purpose - "I don't know how I did that" after solving a puzzle = bad (problem with core mechanic or level) - build an editor: fast switch between edit/test, easy versioning to experiment - try amplify player's internal joy when puzzle is solved (add fx, sounds, etc.) - to design new levels the math and color logic is checked first to see if it's possible - no puzzles are published that he could not solve # cut the rope - levels are snacks (each take secods to beat) - level design principles: - positive reinforcement, not forced solutions (give a star instead of killing the player, if possible) - self-manageable difficulty (collect all stars, skip levels) - can plan the solution (not necessarily trial and error) - solution should look logical, elegant and reproducible - levels should hide defects in the engine or the game itself. - tutorials must force the user to use the principle it teachs - last level in the group is not the hardest but has cool ideas to let them wanting more - data driven decisions (reviews, polls via twitter/facebook, game center leaderboards) - fail rate: tied to the arcade (skill) component of the level - skip rate: tied to the puzzle (reasoning) component of the level. - 900 levels created, 400 used - emotional goal of caring for the baby monster is more imporant than highscores

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GDC 2012 Notes | Create New Genres

- loops instead of arcs: concentrate in game systems and not in consumable content - don't bring in art/narrative too early as it gets in the way of the game itself - have multiple prototypes in development at the same time to minimize failure costs and evaluate better - plan with next steps instead of the master design document - invent new genres inspired by everything in the world, including the seeds of existing games, but not the results - designer driven process: designer must listen, but nobody has veto over his decisions - the A team is 2 man too big: great designer + great programmer __speaker: daniel cook__

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GDC 2012 Notes | How I Got My Mom to Play Through Plants vs. Zombies

## blend the tutorial in the game (learning is fun) - the chamaleon tutorial - "this isn't the tutorial your're looking for" ## better have the player do something than to read about it - try things in a safe enviroment that conditions the learning ## spread out the teaching of game mechanics - player investment proportional to willingness to learn - context is important - let players play with their toys before introducing new ones - in-game shops can teach ## just get the player do an action once: it's all it takes for him to understand - first coin drop has a bouicing arrow. - blinking game parts ask for interaction - teaching the sunflower resource economy: - they are cheaper than all the other items - works well with the highlighing of available to buy (press shiny object) - walnuts start in recharge so they appear later as they cost the same ## use fewer words - max of 8 words on the screen at any moment - max of 1 sentence - sophisticated caveman: - shoot pease at enemies - you got the shovel - blows all enemies in an area - break chunks in little pieces and feed them after a click (think mario galaxy) ## use unobstrusive messages if possible, don't break flow - passive messaging (in background wall, like braid, and scrolls out when don't need it anymore) - adaptive messaging - watch players play - less than 3 sunflowers after a while: "try planting at least 3 sunflowers..." - for repeated failure show incremental hints - show only if player is doing wrong and really needs help - but don't rob the sense of discovery ## don't create noise - understand what you want your player to be focused on - early achievements are noise - don't cry wolf: irrelevant messages decrease player trust in them ## use visuals to teach - graphic of the object should comunicate the function (screen door = shield) - if not possible, it should remind what it does after you see it once. ## leverage what people already know in the theme - plants: tower defense genre, stationary towers wiht personality - zombies: move slowly, single screen, no scrolling - house/street shown at the beginning but centered in the arena - coffe: waking up - zombies helments: metal is tougher than plastic that's tougher than nothing at all - sun: plants needs it - money: buys stuff (instead of dropping brains) - money: small silver coin, medium gold coin, large diamond (size + material = known relative value) - naming of the plants reflect/contain function: sunf-elower, wall-nut, puff-shroom, magnet-shroom. Note: the help screen is a joke (sent by the zombies) __Speaker: George Fan__