Meeting Report November 2004

In November the Vancouver Chapter gathered at Voda for one of our largest meetings to date. Around 160 developers, students, and media came out to see UbiSoft’s Prince of Persia the Warrior Within and Nintendo’s new DS hardware.

Presentations were made, with chapter coordinator James Everett highlighting some upcoming local events like the New Media BC holiday mixer and the Digital Games Research Association DiGRA conference next June. James also touched on the recent quality of life issues that have been the topic of much discussion among developers, and referred attendees to the IGDA Board of Director’s Open Letter. The call for volunteers was made to an audience, IGDA Vancouver would like your help if you wish to contribute! Please contact James.

Gadi Pollack (Associate Producer) and Pier-Luc Papineau (Lead Level Designer) from the Prince of Persia team discussed how UbiSoft tried to broaden the appeal of the character by aging him from his experiences in the first title. Other notable feats were an unusually short 9 month development cycle. Gadi and Pier-Luc attributed this to only small technology changes and a team that was experienced with the workflow.

A good time was had by all and everyone had a chance to relax and meet some new faces. A big thank you to our sponsors for the evening, UbiSoft Montreal, Nintendo of Canada, and the Art Institute of Vancouver.