GDC Europe 2013 - My rough diary (Tuesday)

Like I promised before, here's "Part 2" of my GDC Europe 2013 experience! :)

Tuesday, 20th of August

Well, as I said in my previous entry, I got up at 5:00 a.m. again, since I had to attend to our team meeting at 8 o'clock. Victoria (who was our 'boss' this year) told us that lots of people went up to talk to her about us the day before. When she stated that, everyone got a little nervous, since everyone was expecting some bad news and black marks, or even reproaches... but luckily, those people obviously really just wanted to give some kudos to us?! Well, at least Victoria said that they just wanted to talk to her about that the team was so helpful and friendly, and that she should carry those compliments.
Even though this was rather a weird thing, of course everyone was totally happy about those news! I mean, how awesome's that? ヽ(；▽；)ノ 

Anyway, when I had some freetime right after the meeting, I met up with Caro to have a walk to Cologne city center, where we had some breakfast together (or at least I had breakfast, Caro decided she wasn't hungry, so she just ordered a drink ^^; )☆　

Unfortunately, time passed quite fast and so we headed back to Deutz to be in time for my shift. On Tuesday, it was "Google Day" :') The "Rheinsaal" was totally dedicated to Google's presentations,  which means that any attendee was able to visit those presentations during the whole day. Actually, I think most of their presentations sounded quite interesting (for example "Acquiring the Most Valuable Users for Your Game" by Joel Berger, or "Measuring and Optimizing Games using Google Mobile App Analytics" by Kristoffer Oloffson)). Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend to any of them, because of my shifts :'( 

By the way, I met someone quite interesting! His name is Johannes Vuorinen (Frogmind) and he's one of those who're responsible for "BADLANDS". I want to be honest, I usually don't play any games on mobile device, but I totally fell in love with this game because of its design and that's the reason why I actually thought I'd should give it a try (It totally reminded me of "Limbo", by the way !) So it was so amazing to meet one of those who're involved!!  Whatever - he just stopped, while he was actually passing, to talk to us for a while. He's just such a nice guy :) I know he won't ever read this for sure, but I just want to say "thanks!" for the nice chat anyway ヽ(●´∀｀●)ﾉ  

(Screenshot "BADLANDS" by Frogmind)

By the way, after that, some more people also started talking to us while they were passing - but most of them were some of the Media-guys. Anyway we had so much fun on Tuesday, because everyone already knew us since the day before, and were obviously surprised and kinda happy to see us again :) So even if they were in a hurry, they left some nice and/or funny comments.

Well, that's it for Tuesday, actually. Nevertheless I want to express some gratitude to my co-workers, like Mckenzie (again :') ), Vicenzo, Caro, Jackson, Mareike, Christian and "Jane" :') Especially because some of you cared about us so much, and supplied us with RedBull, coffee and pastries, when we weren't able to leave (๑´ڡ`๑)

Even if there was another party at the evening, I decided not to go - just because my feet were killin' me already, and I had some sleep to get... |D

GDC Europe 2013 - My rough diary :') (Sunday/Monday)

Yush!  I'm back home from GDC Europe, finished all my shifts and I'm happy to be able to announce that GDC Europe was a huge success! :)

As I promised, I want to write about my experiences at GDC Europe 2013 and GamesCom 2013 in the following entries, about the people I met (and which I want to point out, because they also made my time even more special than it was anyway), and about the Crytek party and about a special session that dealt with Crytek's way of designing and crafting the environment in "Crysis (1-3)".

Sunday, 18th of August:My first shift already started on Sunday, where we actually just did some preparation works for GDC. We received some general information about the conference and got a briefing about our tasks. As for me, I got my shifts at the Press Conference Center, which was only opened for V.I.P., Media and their interview partners (for example exhibitors, speakers etc.). 

Anyway we also stuffed the "GDC Bags", which should contain several goodies, pamphlets and information regarding the convention and the exhibitors. Even though it was said we'd be probably working until 4 p.m., we already finished at 2 p.m. (because my team was just awesome and we had some great ideas how to optimize the working process ;) ). So, well, yeah - that's it for sunday, actually. I had to get up quite early, but I was allowed to leave quite early as well, so it was fine for me ^^
By the way - this year's GDC T-shirts were YELLOW (ﾉд-｡)

Monday, 19th of August:

 My shift started quite early (since we had team meetings right before GDC's doors openend), what was the reason for me to get up at already 5 a.m. When we finished our meeting and the first attendees entered the congress, I had some freetime which I spent visiting some sessions. I want to write about one of them in a seperate entry.  (o´罒`o) Additionally, I was able to have a sneak into the booths at the expo-floor (and I had some lunch in between ^^; ). I decided to upload some photos, so please have a look if you're interested :') ☆　

(One of the session rooms: Rheinsaal West)

You can see the booth of "Oculus VR*" on the picture right above - their latest invention are some kind of goggles creating some kind of "*Virtual Reality". If you wear it, you can bend your head in every direction, even up and down, and you'll see some artificial environments in 3D (for example a wide landscape and even the roof of a skyscraper - it was kinda creepy, because you could actually 'watch down'. Amazing! ).

So, well - I was totally lucky I had my shift with a girl from the US. Her name's Mckenzie, and I totally enjoyed to work with her, because even if we had to work like until 7 p.m. and I was tired and my feet hurt a lot, it wasn't boring at all! :) But nevertheless we both felt so released when we finished our duty, haha |D


Monday, 19th of August - Crytek Party

Even though everyone was totally exhaused, and especially I decided to go home actually, we decided to jump at the chance of visiting the quite popular Crytek Party at Rheintreppen. This party is GDC-exclusive and you aren't allowed to enter if you don't have a "VIP"- or "All Access"-badge. We were allowed, because we surely had "All Access", since we NEEDED to have them to do our work poperly :'D
It was quite cool to see all those developers, speakers, CEOs and so on, and to drink some beer (or water, or coke, or wine, or whatever you wanted, actually ^^) with them as well (which was free, by the way. Everything was sponsored by Crytek, even the snacks!).  We even were treated receiving some sparkling wine reception (›´ω`‹ )

Well, actually I thought like I should only stay for about one hour, just to say "hi" to everyone, enjoy some talks and  try to arrive at home as fast as possible to get some sleep, because I needed to get up at 5:00 a.m. AGAIN on Tuesday. Anyway, I ended up staying for 3 1/2 hours in total, so that I arrived at home only at 2:00 (!!!) a.m. and achieved to sleep at maybe 3. That was not what I planned, but I totally enjoyed my stay though, and in the end, I managed to work properly on Tuesday as well, so I don't think that it was too bad ;)

I want to stop - let's call it - "Part 1" here, because there's muuuch more to go :')