GDC 2011

• Chip Music, Featured

  GDC 2011: 8-Bit DOPE Chiptune Concert Impressions and Photo Gallery

  March 8, 2011 | Jayson Napolitano | 3 Comments Share this GDC 2011: 8-Bit DOPE Chiptune Concert Impressions and Photo Gallery

  

  It’s hard to believe that GDC 2011 has already come and gone, but the conference definitely went out with a bang. The monthly concert series, DOPE, decided to get all 8-bit to celebrate the Game Developers Conference being in town, and it was quite an evening to remember… or not, depending on how much you had to drink!

  Performing were WDUWSTS, starpause, crashfaster, our friend Zen Albatross, and minusbaby. I hadn’t heard many of these guys before, so it was a real treat to be exposed to their music as a part of the GDC festivities.

  Missed the concert? Well, don’t worry, we have impressions and a nice photo gallery courtesy of Emi Spicer for you after the jump! (more…)

• Game Music

  GDC 2011: Mitsuto Suzuki Talks Freedom of Expression (Photo Gallery)

  March 5, 2011 | Jayson Napolitano | Comments Off on GDC 2011: Mitsuto Suzuki Talks Freedom of Expression (Photo Gallery) Share this GDC 2011: Mitsuto Suzuki Talks Freedom of Expression (Photo Gallery)

  

  Square Enix composer and synthesizer operator Mitsuto Suzuki was on hand at GDC this week to talk about the differences in approach to two Final Fantasy titles, Four Warriors of Light and Final Fantasy XIII, both of which featured Suzuki as an arranger. While the technical content of the talk was light, Suzuki expressed his philosophy on music, asking the audience, “Is music bound by fixed concepts? Theory?,” and telling us that his goal is to be free of these kinds of limitations. It was interesting to see from the opening slide above, too, that Suzuki is really his own brand.

  One of the best parts of the lecture was a live demonstration of Cyan, a Japanese live performance software that Suzuki tinkered around with for a good 15 minutes on stage, giving us a cool live performance of sorts. It contained bits of “Recall” from Neurovision among other original works.

  We have a small gallery of some of the introductory slides after the jump. (more…)

• Game Music

  GDC 2011: 3DS Development, Koji Kondo in Lipstick?

  March 3, 2011 | Jayson Napolitano | Comments Off on GDC 2011: 3DS Development, Koji Kondo in Lipstick? Share this GDC 2011: 3DS Development, Koji Kondo in Lipstick?

  

  Here at GDC, there’s a lot of talk about the upcoming US release of Nintendo’s 3DS. A panel was held yesterday about the development of the handheld by Hideki Konno, who traditionally has worked in software, and tried his hand at hardware this time around. He spent time talking about the team involved along with showing some of the prototypes of the system, and how they were used to win over the team that 3D would be a good idea for this system.

  I enjoyed seeing the prototypes, but got the biggest kick out of the organizational chart that Konno showed near the beginning of his speech. It shows Koji Kondo as a sort of second-tier creator at Nintendo EAD, right beneath Shigeru Miyamoto himeslf, which was cool. I found the bright red lips on him to be a little odd, however.

  Hit the jump for our photo gallery from the talk. (more…)

• Game Music

  GDC 2011: Intergalactic Redux is Invading GDC?

  March 3, 2011 | Jayson Napolitano | 3 Comments Share this GDC 2011: Intergalactic Redux is Invading GDC?

  

  So, Josh and I are here in San Francisco for GDC 2011, and I was surprised by the first thing I saw at the door. Don’t those angular, rainbow-colored designs look vaguely familiar? They should, as we just reviewed and held our Intergalactic Redux contest in the past month and week, respectively!

  Do you think it’s just a coincidence, or do The OneUps have fans in high places?

  Hit the jump for another shot. (more…)

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