By Kimari Rennis

Sunday Trip – Mar 17

3:00 AM EST

My mom and I have this ritual where every morning you have a flight, you should be leaving the house three or four hours beforehand. Our flight to San Francisco from New York is at 7 am, which means I don’t get a wink of sleep as I slip on my clothes and hop into our Uber to the airport.

5:30 AM EST

Checking in to the airport was, especially one as hectic as JFK, surprisingly swift. With my mom tagging along, making this her first time traveling to San Francisco, and my first time attending the Game Developer’s Conference, we treated ourselves to Delta One Flights and indulged ourselves to the hearty breakfast served at the Delta Sky Club.

6:20 AM EST

Eating was the perfect time-killer, and along the way, I saw some friendly, and exhausted, New York faces. Bumping into friends, coworkers, mentors, and classmates from the NYU Game Center is a common occurrence at one of the largest game development expos. We talked about how tired we were, what we were excited about for GDC, and the hotels we were staying at. All were pleasantries to try and distract us from the grueling flight before us.

By 7:20 AM EST we were in the air and by 10:10 AM PST we were in San Francisco driving toward our hotel, soaking up the sun, and and taking in a deep breath of West Coast air.

5:00 PM PST

After a well-deserved nap I decided to head over to the Moscone Center where registration and badge check-in was taking place for GDC. I picked up my Press Pass and accompanied some friends to our first “GDC Party.”

5:45 PM PST

The GDC Party was actually a much-loved event called Day of the Devs. Hosted by Double Fine Productions and iam8bit, Day of the Devs allows dozens of developers to showcase their games to hundreds of people in a welcoming, albeit dimly-lit venue.

 One of the games I got to play was #Blud which was a charming dungeon crawler with visuals that looked straight out of a 90s cartoon! Another game I had the pleasure of playing was Valley Peaks, a wholesome, first-person climbing game where you interact with a lovely community of frog people encouraging you to climb some more. If you do, you might get a cool glider.

I’m looking forward to more as GDC gets into full swing this week, and I’ll post everything I learn.

Senior Intern Kimari Rennis, who has been with the NYVGCC for many years, is a senior at the NYU Game Center.

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