GDC Highlights: Design Lessons, VR Tips, and an Iwata Tribute

Emerging from the hazy gloom of the Game Developers Choice Awards, denizens and visitors to San Francisco descended upon Moscone Center for another day of talks, expo displays, and conversation as the Game Developers Conference rolled into its fourth day.

Emerging from the hazy gloom of the Game Developers Choice Awards, denizens and visitors to San Francisco descended upon Moscone Center for another day of talks, expo displays, and conversation as the Game Developers Conference rolled into its fourth day. To keep you up to date on the most important subjects, we’ve got a social roundup from attendees at the show and our own coverage on Gamasutra.

Be sure to follow us @Gamasutra on Twitterfor live updates during GDC, and check out our Vine channelfor developer tips from attendees at the show!

Mark Rosewater's 20 Design Lessons from 20 Years of Magic the Gathering. #GDC16 #UbiGDC pic.twitter.com/ReNVX14BjA

— Casey Kuczik (@KCZK) March 18, 2016

Magic the Gathering’s Mark Rosewater took the time to break down 20 important lessons about game design—all of which you can see up above!

Fantastic Contraption's @sarah_northwayshares 1 #VRDesigntipat #GDC16 https://t.co/AocqYhbWkR

— Gamasutra (@gamasutra) March 17, 2016

. @Playstation's Richard Marks shares 1 #VRDesigntipat #GDC16 https://t.co/2FS5kOSWKl

— Gamasutra (@gamasutra) March 17, 2016

Our Developer flash interviews roll on during the show, this time bringing you a bit of advice from Fantastic Contraption’s Sarah Northway and Sony’s Richard Marks.

A few slides explaining how @platinumgames' Atsushi Inaba thinks about the design of action games from #GDC16: pic.twitter.com/vICblUoevM

— Gamasutra (@gamasutra) March 18, 2016

Replay value in action games comes from fun and the player's ability to improve their skills. Game must work on all levels #gdc16Platinum

— Chris Algoo @️ GDC (@ChrisAlgoo) March 18, 2016

Platinum Games’s Atushi Inaba took the stage to describe Platinum’s process for developing successful action games—we’ll be giving a full rundown in a later writeup, but for now, here’s a couple slides that contain the basics of Inaba’s personal tenants of good action design.

For those watching at home, here is the full tribute to Satoru Iwata from the #GDCA #GDC16 https://t.co/fnbqlWrrhS

— Official_GDC (@Official_GDC) March 17, 2016

And lastly, we have to note the outpouring of love and support from game developers and players across the world for the official GDCA tribute to Satoru Iwata at last night’s Game Developer Awards—an outpouring that, we can confirm, left not a single dry eye in the house during the award ceremony itself.

That's it for day 4, stay tuned to Gamasutra.com for further coverage and announcements straight from GDC 2016!