If you work on online games, you know that sometimes there's only one way to fix a game client that's too far gone: nuke it from orbit.
At the 2017 Game Developers Conference later this month, Riot Games' art director Laura DeYoung will show you how she and her team did just that for the League of Legends client -- without breaking everything in the process -- in her talk on "'League of Legends' Client Update: Art Directing a Consistent and Scalable Interactive Brand Identity."
See, in 2008 the League of Legends team cranked out a client so they could ship the game to players. They didn't have time to think about the client's creative direction or infrastructure, and DeYoung claims that it was a sub-optimal experience for players and developers alike.
In her talk, DeYoung will discuss how the team rebuilt the client to be functional and resonant with players while providing a flexible space for developers to build content -- effectively "rebuilding the plane while flying it", if you will.
The goal is to teach attendees how to create a functional, modular, and resonant UI that can evolve and adapt to player needs and developers' future features. It promises to be a practical, useful talk, so don't skip it!
For more details on this and other talks taking place at GDC 2017, head over to the conference Session Scheduler. For more information on GDC 2017, visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.
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