The best design talks of GDC

gamedeveloper.com:

Of all of our subject matter round-ups from GDC 2023, this is the beefiest edition. We simply saw the most design talks (and facilitated the most design-centered interviews) at the show this year, by a wide margin, ranging from chats with smaller developers making fascinating creations like IGF best student game winner Slider all the way to an in-depth look at how one of Horizon Forbidden West's most iconic cauldrons was designed from the ground up. While there's no way we could cover all of the great design talks at the show this year (yes, we'll be looking on vault), here are a few of our favorites.

Obsidian senior area designer Evan Hill took to the stage at GDC 2023 to plot a heist.

Pulled from Mouseguard and Burning Wheel, beliefs and instincts are traits that influence how characters interact with, and frame, the world around them. For instance, if players take on the role of a peasant farmer in Mouseguard, they might have to cope with the belief that they're the "true king of this land." In Burning Wheel, meanwhile, an Orc might have beliefs such as "I must interrogate an elf, a dwarf, and a human to discover if they have minds like my own."

The Case of the Golden Idol trusts the player to solve a complex forty-year old mystery, asking them to piece together the culprits, tools, and locations involved.

We felt that there were still unanswered problems in the point-and-click detective genre that had yet to be solved in a satisfying way. We wondered why there were so few successors to the Return of Obra Dinn, a boundary-pushing title that laid the foundations of a great framework on how to feel like a detective.

We identified three main issues; gameplay flow, disjointed narrative, and the communication of insights