Every year in march the GDC is San Francisco or San Joe and we all are reading the announcements, papers and articles coming from there. It was always interesting to read about the stuff going on there (
gamedev.net has a good coverage each year), but I could never attend. The cost of flying over there and staying there for a week plus the incredible high attendee fees kept me out of this conference in the past. As you can read on
www.exDream.com we usually attend the CeBIT here in Hannover instead and go to all the other conferences and fairs here in Germany ^^
Anyway, a few weeks ago Microsoft asked me to come to the GDC and be part of one of their XNA "Dream Team"s. The idea for these teams is to build a game while we are on the conference in 3-4 days (from Monday to Thursday) and that sounds crazy enough for me (who the hell wants to make a game in 3-4 days? and how?).
There will be a big party Thursday night and all the XNA games will be presented there. Some information about that can be found on the
XNA Team Blog.
My idea was to create one of the most complex game types there is: A multiplayer roleplaying game. And yes in just 3 days and starting from scratch ^^
It will probably be a little like Zelda, but we are focusing our efforts on creating one cool looking level and with some enemies and maybe a few quests. Everyone I told this idea said the same thing you are thinking right now: Impossible. Yeah, I know, but it is fun anyway to try. Hopefully we will come up with something good looking till Thursday then.
I will blog every day with screenshots and the daily development process directly from the GDC and you can see how far we get. My friend Christoph Rienaecker (WAII) is also coming with me and helping me out modeling the player and enemies as well as the level so I can focus on programming
If you are also attending the GDC and want to meet with me, drop me an email or write in the comments. See ya there, or not ^^ but as usual I will make pictures and document my experiences for all of you who won't attend.