HandmadeCon 2015 schedule
HandmadeCon was announced right as September came to a close, and now with October ending, HandmadeCon has revealed their 2015 schedule line-up. If you're into programming and game development, it's a show you won't want to miss. Cancel whatever you have going on December 5th and book your tickets now.
Casey Muratori, the creator of Handmade Hero and organizer of HandmadeCon, explains on the schedule announcement blog post that he got really lucky with this year's line-up. He contacted the five people he wanted there most and they all were happy to set aside some time to attend. The variety in both the speakers and what information Casey will pry out of their minds is incredible.
The day starts with Tommy Refenes, the programmer behind Super Meat Boy, exploring challenges he faced with programming SMB, from perfecting the control scheme to writing the art pipeline for the game's artist, Edmund McMillen*. Mike Acton takes stage next, the engine director at Insomniac Games, answering Casey's questions about managing teams and scaling code while maintaining a codebase that isn't chaos.
Pat Wyatt, whose code is in games such as Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft, and Guild Wars, will cover the world of network code, sharing best practices and approaches for both client-side and back-end development. Jonathan Blow* of Braid and upcoming The Witness fame jumps onto stage to talk about writing complex code for the puzzles in The Witness, as well as his programming language side project.
HandmadeCon 2015 comes to a close with Ron Gilbert, known for his work at LucasArts and on The Secret of Monkey Island. Casey plans on finding out from him how the games industry has changed since its early days, and how the code behind point-and-click adventure games has evolved throughout their lifespan.
For more information, including the topics each guest will be exploring, check out the official blog post. Tickets for HandmadeCon are still available, and if you pick them up before November 5th, the ticket will be discounted from its regular price of $45 to $35.
We at indie(Function); have been lucky enough to interview a few of the fine folks who are talking or affiliated with speakers at HandmadeCon 2015. If you need some content while you wait for the conference, feel free to check out our interviews with We've had Edmund McMillen and Jonathan Blow from back in 2012. In addition, Casey Muratori himself will be joining us on November 21st, so make sure to tune in as we talk to him about running Handmade Hero for a year!