The New Vortex Coaching Sessions - Take 1

The first thing I noticed when I walked into the Vortex 2007 Game Competition coaching sessions on Saturday, June 2nd, was that the room was almost completely full. There were hardly any seats left in the audience. I later found out that approximately 90 people had shown up. It was an impressive showing, and spoke a lot about the rising popularity of the Vortex event. Clearly there were a lot of people out there who wanted to learn more about game creation and the game industry as a whole.

As I came in, Tom Quigley (Senior Account Manager, The Createch Group) was giving a bit of a motivational introduction. It's no surprise that a lot goes into the making of a game. These 'coaching sessions' as they were called were essentially various three-day courses condensed down to several 45-minute presentations. There were seven sessions to Saturday's segment, and then five more on Monday. The first presenter was a classy man named Jason MacIsaac (Design Director, Cerebral Vortex Games). I learned two very important things from listening to him speak, namely that Jason MacIsaac is a very witty man, and secondly, Jason MacIsaac hates Roger Ebert.

For almost an hour he told us about his experiences as a gamer and how those experiences relate to game design. The main message he tried to get across was that video games have as strong of an effect on people, if not stronger, then other forms of entertainment (such as movies, books, art and television) and that those meaningful experiences are largely derived from the interactivity that is only found in video games. He even told us about some of his more emotional experiences playing video games, emotional responses that he hadn't gotten from other activities such as watching movies.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

• Jason ordered one of his party members to kill his best friend

• He did it

• Jason felt really, really bad

The rest of the day contained a multitude of information. If I had wanted to produce, finance and publish a game of my own someday, the things I learned at Vortex would definitely be invaluable. Even just going as an observer proved to be very enlightening as to the steps people go through to take a game from a concept or idea into a finished product. And let me tell you, it is NOT an easy process!

Another highlight of the day was when Sean Guadron, a professor of video games at George Brown College, demonstrated how to build a level using the Half-Life 2 level editor. While it was truly fun and interesting watching him work, the best part was when he showed us a finished product of a custom-built level, complete with bad guys to shoot. Even better, he showed a bit of a sneak preview of a project he's been working on and hoping to release soon: a replica of some areas of the city of Toronto made into a very exciting Half-Life 2 mod. Check it out at http://www.torontoconflict.com/, and if it's not up yet then keep checking back every once in a while.

Did You Know That?

• The average age of a gamer is 33

• 25% of all gamers are over the age of 50

• Brain Age was originally designed for senior citizens

In the end, Vortex was a smashing success and everyone very much enjoyed the learning experience it offered. The staff tried to make everything run smoothly even when things started going behind schedule. They very graciously offered some snacks to the crowd after the event was over. There's no way to really sum up the things said and learned in those six or seven hours. It was a great experience to hear some of the veterans and professionals of the game design industry speak their minds and share their knowledge. Be forewarned that making a game is as much business and marketing as it is coding and designing. You need to have a capable team working with you, and have a business plan. Vortex taught things like intellectual copyright and patent laws, venture capitalist financing, idea ownership, and much more. I would encourage anyone who has an idea for a really great game to attend next year and see for themselves how to turn it from a concept written on a napkin into an actual product.

Who knows... if you're dedicated enough you just might make it big. And then if you do, you can come back to Vortex one day and tell everyone how you did it!