Kimari is covering GDC for the Circle. This is Part Two of her coverage there.

By Kimari Rennis

Day 1 – Mar 18

6:00 PM PST

After a long day of touring San Francisco with the school, the NYU Game Center hosted an outdoor Alumni and Student Event, where I enjoyed the company of my 2024 cohort, the current students in the MFA program, and graduates from the Game Center. Some I hadn’t seen for a long time, and others were a pleasure to meet for the first time.

There were two prevailing thoughts people had at the event. The first was how we were going to tackle GDC and make the most out of our time there, especially for first-time attendees like myself. The second was what we were going to do after graduation. Checking out the job scene at GDC was key.

While the games industry may not be in the best shape currently as far as layoffs go, we celebrated our growth as talented, young game designers and developers. Over drinks and complimentary food from a truck, we talked of frantically designing and printing our business cards for GDC, ambitious publisher plans for the projects we’ve been working on, the prospects of starting our own studios after graduation, and our next steps in an industry that’s changing before our very eyes.

The event was as fun as a gaggle of game design students could make it, and it was the perfect refresher for the myriad of informative talks we would attend throughout the week. We even had the pleasure of bumping into one of the developers of Temple Run, and we exchanged business cards with two game producers who were just as passionate about games as we were.

8:00 to 9:00 PM PST

After the people attending the NYU Alumni and Student event started to disperse, a handful of Game Center students and I finished our night by attending The Mix’s Spring Game Showcase.

The venue was packed with indie developers and small studios showcasing their game demos and passion projects. Whether people were looking for playtesters or securing publishers there was a variety of entertaining experiences that we indulged in. One highlight was Soulbound, a charming 2.5D roguelite adventure, which was made over five years according to the three sole developers manning the booth.

Before we left the venue, we saw some familiar faces from Heart Machine showcasing their game, Hyper Light Breaker, and they were accompanied by their PR manager from their publisher, Gearbox.

It was refreshing to see more people from the New York area, and inspiring to see the lengths they will go to show their games to the world, getting people excited for the project they’re going to share with the rest of the world.

New York is slowly but surely becoming a hub for the video games industry – and San Francisco brings us all together.

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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