GameSalad Events: Project Horseshoe 2011

November 9 2011, 2:34pm

Last week, three GameSalad employees visited Project Horseshoe in Boerne, Texas. Project Horseshoe is a think-tank style conference focused on exploring the challenges of modern game design. This conference is an invite-only event where the elite minds of the game industry work together to solve the toughest problems facing game design. The magic of Project Horseshoe comes from the relentless passion of its attendees. Attendees leave their egos and titles at the door. Collaboration, playfulness, and trust are encouraged. Project Horseshoe creates a safe haven of communication, where all attendees operate on a level playing field and fearlessly prose ideas. During the conference, attendees are organized into small groups to facilitate effective problem solving. Project Horseshoe culminates with each group creating “white paper” style reports exploring the topics of their choice. The report’s findings are shared post-conference and they will be released to the public via Project Horseshoe’s website.
More about Project Horseshoe: Mission Statement: Positively influencing the art, science, and business of game design over the next five years in ways that are unlikely to happen otherwise, by taking advantage of practice-proven brainstorming methods and our access to the brightest minds in the field. Keynote speakers for Project Horseshoe 2011: Stéphane Bura, Lead Designer at Namaste, “Pushing the Envelope Beyond the Pale and Into the Blue Ocean” Edward Castronova, Professor, Indiana University “Speaking truth to power: Within 20 years, game designers will be the main advisors of government” Ken Rolston, Executive Design Director, Big Huge Games “The Computer Game Design Profession: A Framework for Discussion”