As many of you know, since early 2007, Klei has been working with Nexon to create a Free to Play, original IP game. We will be launching the game later this year, and I have to say, I haven’t had this much fun creating a game since Dawn of War. The amount of freedom we’ve enjoyed in the last year is almost unbecoming of a publisher, although giving freedom to independants appears to be the way of the future.

On Monday, I’ll be making my yearly pilgrimage to GDC; a trip I always feel invigorates me. Without exception, I come back fired up, excited about the change and developments happening all around us in this industry. As in the previous year, I’m participating in the Independant Games Summit, speaking about The State of Indie Games. If you’re going and would like to meet up, feel free to contact me.

I’m a tad late in my GDC report, but here’s my run down of my week of fun:

1. Speaking at conferences is always a positive experience. Interestingly, the one conference I spoke at in which I thought nobody would remember is PAX, and yet 3 separate people came up to me and said “I saw you speak at PAX last year, right? You were really informative”
2. Last year, I brought my 11lb laptop to GDC, and vowed never to do it again. In fact, as soon as I got back I bought a laptop half the size, with proportionally less power, and smirked that I would never have to lug the old beast again. Instead, Nick and I put together a new demo that we wanted to show off… on a nice big 17″ laptop screen…
3. I love Miyamoto. I love his games. But his keynote was rather boring.
4. Raigan from Metanet contracted appendicitus just before the conference while in San Francisco, so my first face-to-face meeting with him was in the hospital.
5. My business partner Nick contracted some sort of food poisoning the night before we flew to SF, but luckily recovered by the morning. He had Thai food that night. When we arrived to SF, my brother brought us to a Thai restaurant, and somehow Nick had no trouble with that. Must be his Dutch blood.
6. GoPets had the best swag of the expo.
7. Nick looks scary.
8. Halfway through Wednesday, I rushed back to the hotel, RDP back to my computer in Vancouver, fix a bug, and submit it. I missed the Sony keynote. Not that we didn’t already know what it was about.
9. My favourite talk was probably by Harmonix, makers of Guitar Hero. Which reminds me — there’s finally a ship date for the 360 version!

That’s only what I remembered off the top of my head. GDC was, as always, incredibly useful but very tiring.

I’ll be speaking at the 2007 Independent Games Summit at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. This year, I’ll be taking part in a logistics panel, speaking about my experiences shipping an original XBLA title. See you there!