NZGDA preps for Blizzard

The New Zealand Game Developers Conference will offer a workshop day and conference day in mid-September in Auckland.

The conference keynote will come from Diablo 2 lead designer David Brevik, one of the founders of Blizzard North. Since moving on from Blizzard, he’s worked with Flagship Studios, Turbine and Gazillion Entertainment.

The conference day will run three strands, Tech & Infrastructure, Creative & Production, and Business. Early speaker announcements include several of the usual suspects such as PikPok’s Mario Wynands, Grinding Gear’s Carl Visser and NHNZ game company Runaway Play’s Tim Nixon.

The conference runs at a fair pace, with sessions running 30 minutes include Q&A.

The workshop day offers a full day session on the Maya pipeline for game art, led by AutoDesk’s David Zwierzchaczewski, plus two half-day options.

Former Shortland Street storyliner and lead narrative designer for Path of Exile Edwin McRae leads a session on Jigsaw Storytelling mixing theory and practice. NZTE delivers a pair of international games business consultants as part of its Digital High Impact Project Accelerator Programme.

The NZGDC will present its workshop day on 18 September and the conference day on 19 September in Auckland. Conference tickets are now on sale.