Design by constraints: Hitman Go postmortem comes to GDC 2015

Developers, how would you go about bringing a big-budget game franchise like Hitman to the mobile market as a standalone product in a way that best takes advantages of the platform's strengths?

It's a tricky question, but you'll likely find at least one good answer in the GDC 2015 talk "Design by Constraints: Hitman GO Design Postmortem." Check it out to see Square Enix Montreal's Daniel Lutz, the game director behind Hitman GO, deliver a postmortem analysis of the game and its unorthodox design concept: an extremely minimalistic turn-based strategy game with diorama-style set pieces.

This presentation will show how Square Enix Montreal managed to come up with such a unique design among internal controversy, and how distilling the franchise to its core and working within well-established constraints proved to be the most appropriate way to bring Hitman to a whole new level.

If a talk on unusual design and creative processes within major constraints doesn't interest you, don't worry -- conference officials look forward to announcing more GDC 2015 sessions spanning a diverse array of game industry issues in the months ahead.

A list of all announced talks is available in the online GDC 2015 Session Scheduler, where you can begin to build your conference week and later export it to the up-to-the-minute GDC Mobile App, coming soon.

For now, don't miss the opportunity to save money by registering early -- the deadline to register for passes at a discounted rate is January 21, 2015. GDC 2015 itself will take place March 2-6 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

For more information on GDC 2015, visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.

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