Different Games is a diversity-focused games conference in the beginning of April, run by organizers based in Brooklyn and Atlanta. DG, in particular, holds a special place in my heart for administering the original arts grant that began my current track of gay sex games, so you could say they were kind of on the bleeding edge of indie sustainability. This year, Different Games 2016 (April 8-9) has several different tracks / themes:
- Affective Play (i.e. feelings, emotions, bodies)
- Video Games in Latin America
- Video Games and Indigenous Culture
- Accessible Game Design (i.e. making the field more accessible to new designers)
- Participatory Game Design (i.e. game design as a workshop process, Freire?)
- Race and Culture in Games
- Player Agency, Mods, and Glitches
IndieCade East, held in the sinister shadow of the academic-ish NYC games scene, has always been the slightly less chill / more intense of the twin IndieCades. (More ideas! More e-sports! More beer!) Its relatively young age also means that it's more open to experimentation. This year, IndieCade East 2016 (April 29 - May 1) is trying out some very interesting changes with their format:
- It's now in the middle of Spring instead of the middle of Winter. (Yay!)
- The conference chairs are Jennie and Henry Faber, developers and community leaders from Toronto (!) which is in Canada (!!) and NOT in the United States (!!!)
- The three conference tracks recognize a post-indiepocalypse world: (a) design lessons from fields outside of games, (b) economic sustainability for games, (c) future tools and technology.
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Hopefully you, dear reader, will be at one (or both) of those events? See you in April!