Over the past two days the first Game Connect Asia Pacific Conference has been held in Brisbane, Australia. It replaced Australian Game Developers Conference (AGDC) which was closed down earlier this year. I went along to the conference and found it quite informative. I took my iRiver with me and recorded the speeches I went to. I have uploaded them so anyone that didn’t make it to the conference can also learn from what the speakers had to say. The quality isn’t the greatest however I’ve used my decidedly lacking audio skills to touch them up as best I can. Do please be careful if listening to them on earphones as even though I’ve taken out all the clapping there may be a few points where it’s a little loud. If anyone is able to touch them up a little better please let me know and I’d be happy to upload them again.

C++ For New Architectures
Zsolt Mathe, Software Design Engineer, Microsoft Game Technology Group

This was a great speech about tricks and techniques to get C++ code running efficiently on new hardware such as XBox360 and 64-bit processors. There were quite a few code snippets which he used, however you should be able to pick up most of his points just by listening.

Challenging The Given: Is There A Better Language Solution For Programmers?
David Jewsbury, IR Gurus

This was my favourite speech of the conference. As David states, it’s more philosophical than specifically answering questions. I think it raises some interesting points and while some of them are quite ambitious, I think even having dialog about such things will help to stimulate growth in this area.

Medieval 2: Total War: Postmortem
Ken Turner, Creative Assembly

Ken gives an excellent talk about the sequel to one of my favourite series of all time, the Total War Series. He talks about a wide range of topics from processes in place to dealing with legacy code and general discussions about what went right and wrong with Medieval 2: Total War. I found this to be the most informative speech at the talk with excellent advice on so many topics.

How To Use Testing Feedback To Shape Your Game Design
Matthew Ford, Auran
I recommend Matthew’s speech to anyone working on games at the moment. Matt was my project manager for a game a while ago so I have first hand experience with his techniques and can attest to how well they work. This speech was the best presented with clear, concise information, and lots of it, while being fun and engaging the whole time. There’s a large Q&A part at the end which gave even more information and showed that Matt really knows what he’s talking about.

Interactive Storytelling
Chris Avellone, Obsidian Entertainment

Chris has worked on some of the best games ever made. From the fallout series, to Planescape: Torment up to the latest Neverwinter Nights 2 (which just happens to be sitting on my desk in front of me right now). Chris has some great stories about his time working on these games and gives some great advice to any designer/writer who wants to make great RPG’s.

SPU Programming for PS3
Colin Hughes, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

I won’t say too much about this speech as I’m not a fan of the PS3 nor developing for it. There are some interesting points Colin brings up however I found the speech quite dry and boring. If you’re a PS3 developer or passionate about new hardware then give this speech a listen however be warned, there is a LOT of content.