Waffle Games 6.0

Founded in 2019, the EGD Collective is a nonprofit organization that works to increase the accessibility of the games industry through affordable education and public programming. The EGD advances a diverse, rapidly growing industry and supports all who care for, study, and work in games. Learn more atwww.egdcollective.org

EGD Collective

Waffle Games is EGD's annual  hybrid convention and conference held each spring semester run by students, for students. VIRTUAL + IRL!

North Academic Center (NAC) Building

<h2>THE CARE OF THE FUTURE OF GAMES IS OURS </h2><h3>...and when we democratize games education, we all win.</h3><p>Waffle Games is the EGD's annual convention and conference held each spring semester run by students, for students. After three years of a virtual-only experience, Waffle Games is finally back in NYC as a hybrid event across two days! Our virtual event was broadcasted to over 500 attendees from 21 different countries, and our 2019 event brought in over 500 students to Hunter College to play, design, compete, and learn. <strong>We're excited to welcome you back in-person this year at City College!</strong></p><p>More than just an affordable con, Waffle Games is a celebration of what it means to be involved with gaming. Panels, workshops, tournaments, and an expo hall come to life every spring with one mission: to allow everyone the chance to get involved with the community, chase their dreams, and change our industry for the better.</p><p>The full schedule is still a work in progress as there are sessions that are yet to be announced, but we've already got some great sessions confirmed from speakers such as:</p><ul><li>Josh Mancell, Freelance Composer (Crash Bandicoot, Jak &amp; Daxter)</li><li>Tori Schafer, Senior Narrative Designer - World of Warcraft @ Activision Blizzard</li><li>Thomas Winkley, Senior Technical Marketing Advocate @ Unity</li><li>Jason Keyser, Founder @ VFX Apprentice / Former Senior VFX Artist, Riot Games</li><li>Rob Howland, Arcade Game Developer @ Three Flip Studios</li><li>Agatha Yu, Human Interface Designer @ Apple </li><li>Mason Capitano, Senior Research Manager @ Nuverse Games</li><li>Nate Meeker, Director of Esports @ The University of Akron</li></ul><p>and lots more! </p><p>Our speakers have worked on games such as League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics, Elder Scrolls Online, Marvel SNAP, Watch Dogs: Legion, Beyond Good and Evil 2, Half Life Alyx VR, Call of Duty - and many more.</p>

<h2>Special thank you to our sponsors:</h2><p>Gaming Pathways Program</p><p>Harlem Gallery of Science</p><p>U﻿rban Arts</p><p>Foundation for City College</p><p>H﻿ershey Heartwarming Project</p><p>Y﻿outh Service America</p><p>V﻿ideoGamesNewYork (VGNY)</p><p>D﻿arwish Furniture</p>

NYC Day 1

Opening Remarks

After creating an after school Minecraft Club, chemistry teacher Mashfiq Ahmed saw a huge potential with game-based learning and Minecraft Education. From charity fundraising to esports to meeting the NYC mayor to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, Minecraft Education has provided his students with the means of expressing themselves in an inclusive and accessible environment. In this talk, Mr. Ahmed and his Minecraft Club students will discuss the personal impact of Minecraft Education and why others should try game-based learning.

(Mine)Crafting A Better Future

As indie game developers, we don’t have the budget nor time to think about optimization and sometimes we will keep adding in more tools which may slow down our game. This can be detrimental when trying to get critical information about a bug/situation. This talk will go over the need to create in-game tools to efficiently debug information and the development of our in house tool, NimGui, which is an efficient 1 draw call UI system. Attendees will walk away with tips/techniques on building their own UI system and potential resources to existing tools that may fit their needs.

Developing Tools as an Indie Game Developer… All in One Draw Call!

We as readers or players often find ourselves enthralled in stories about futuristic dystopian societies. Despite all the grizzly crimes committed, the lack of autonomy due to corporations controlling everything and the abuse of power by whatever semblance of government is left. Yet, even with all the horrors of this society, why do so many of us want to dive head first into it? Why is there such a strong allure for many of us? This talk will discuss the psychological and sociological reasons we enjoy dystopia.

The Horrors of Cyberpunk

In the early 2000s, much game design theory tried to argue that there exists a impassable barrier between narrative and game mechanics. In 2023, we've generally stopped trying to force a false dichotomy between narrative and game as an absolute. On the contrary, the last ten years have seen a resurgence of narrative-forware games in both the tabletop and video game arenas. This talk will focus on just how important it is for game designers to always think of their mechanics as story generators. Generally speaking, players don't generate games about their play experience. Instead, they generate stories. What stories will players tell about your game? Being mindful of how we narrate our game experiences can help designers create games that let players tell the stories of their dreams.

Narrative is EVERYWHERE: What Game Designers Should Always Keep in Mind

All around the world, especially in the international community, game creators find value in building intentional spaces to gather and share ideas and resources. In NYC there are many such groups, following different models. This panel discusses how Gumbo NYC formed as a sustainable, self-funded nonprofit that provides affordable physical space for game devs to gather. Our business and organizational model is one that similar groups in other cities and countries have asked us about and we'd love to share our learnings with the community.

Building Sustainable Games Collectives

Some tabletop RPG rules are great on paper but grind your story to a halt in practice. A spell caster’s need for materials is great world building, but who wants to spend their whole session haggling for discounts at the shop? And surely there are less cumbersome ways to calculate carrying capacity? Join us for a brief look at our favorite games from D&D to Alternity as we discuss the best rules to modify, break, or throw out in our search for the perfect tabletop experience!

Casting Without Components: RPG Rules that Halt the Story

In this chat, Nicole Polidore will speak about her journey and progress as a 3D Artist and Game Designer, specifically as a recent graduate and working at a startup company. She will also talk about what inspires her as an artist, how she found her art style, what to expect in the real world, and what working with a company is like.

New Grad Spotlight: Becoming a 3D Artist & Game Designer

Josh Mancell is a Los Angeles-based composer. He has created music for multi-million unit selling video game franchises (Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter) as well as the Daytime Emmy award-winning PBS show Clifford the Big Red Dog, festival-acclaimed indie/documentary films and other visual media. In this workshop, he will discuss in-game inspiration and influence on an effective music score.

The Holistic Soundtrack

Do you like Animal Crossing but also want to git gud in Elden Ring? Are you afraid of playing ranked because you're afraid of who you might become? Do you want to play with your noob friends in League without getting mad at them for feeding 24/7/365? Welcome to your guide to playing seriously and leisurely at the same time! Hardcore? Casual? Let's just have fun!

Seriously Casual Gaming: Winning & Having Fun

The Game Studio Program and Esports Management Program are our game development and esports career programs open to all college students. It is an academic program, professional development program, and project incubator wrapped into one! Students are able to build their portfolio alongside a team, attend industry events, and get a feel for what it's really like to work in games!

EGD Career Programs Info Session

In the second half of the info session, learn how you can major in games at CUNY, and hear about the new classes being offered at CCNY as part of the Gaming Pathways Program. Interested students should attend the first half of the session directly prior to this.

Majoring in Game Development or Esports @ CUNY

Raffy Regulus (they/them/theirs), President of NYC Gaymers, will be discussing the importance of representation and equity in gaming, and how NYC Gaymers is moving to uplift their mission.

You Belong: Representation in Gaming

Have you ever thought about how to build and experience your greatest worlds in games? It can be tricky to design an impressive environment or even just immerse yourself into somebody else's social and cultural systems. In this fun talk, here's Logan Cavaliere to help challenge your concepts of world-building and reinforce the stories you want to make and hear.

How Your Personality Can Create and See the Greatest Worlds

Are you a student leader of a gaming or games-adjacent club? Or trying to start one? Come and learn from current and former club leaders on how to handle everything related to running student organizations, and resources that are free to you.

Club Leader Convening

Back by popular demand, the League of Legends Tribunal is an theatric interactive session where people can bring their teammates (or opponents) to trial and get totally official legal decisions on who was right.

League of Legends Tribunal

Gavin Leeper is a game composer, Youtuber, a Japanese culture aficionado, and a diehard Zelda fan. In this talk, he will connect the music for Breath of The Wild to Studio Ghibli and other facets of the Japanese media music industry that the composers tapped into to bring the Legend of Zelda series to a new generation.

The Musical Heritage of Zelda: Breath of The Wild

The community that you are from, your culture, interests, are not things to be lost as you assimilate into your industry, they are your super powers. This talk will discuss how your unique experience will help you in the creative industry and beyond - and how to combat imposter syndrome and make change.

Use What You Got: How Your Experiences Are Valuable

This talk will showcase ways to build reusable systems, and discussing how important Single-Responsibility Principle is in these situations. Viewers will come away from this talk with more knowledge on how to build a prototype toolkit while building game prototypes.

Aggregate & Holistic Prototype Development: Making Reusable Games

Game design interviews can be tricky to navigate when you're just not sure what to expect. How do you best prepare for them? What types of questions will be asked? How can you make sure to impress? Tori Schafer, senior narrative designer on World of Warcraft, is here to explain common interview practices for game designers and give some tips and tricks to truly ace that design interview.

How to Ace Your Design Interview

Join the game designer behind the browser-based fighting game Tough Love Arena as he covers the many lessons learned while making a fighting game.

Designing Fighting Games and How to Balance Post Launch

Women in Indie Games

Virtual Day 2

Learning the technology behind Game Development can be challenging. Join Sr. Advocate Thomas Winkley from Unity Technologies to learn about resources, methods and tips for keep your skills sharp when pursuing a career in gaming.

Tackling your Game Dev Journey

This talk will focus on different ways to more quickly produce content while working solo. We'll be discussing streamlined methodologies surrounding 3D art, animation, environment design, and combat design. Viewers will leave this talk with a few nifty tricks in their toolbelt which they can use to speed up future projects

Cutting Corners while Staying Sharp: Solo Development Tips and Tricks

Ever wondered what's the creative process behind the music for video game companies? Dive right into this panel, where four musicians walk you through the songwriting and recording process while developing tracks for Ubisoft's Beyond Good & Evil 2 and Watchdogs: Legion through the HITRECORD x Ubisoft Collaboration.

Creativity through Collaboration: Creating Music for AAA Video Games Remotely

The barriers to begin making your own games have never been lower. Which means their is significant opportunity to build self-discipline, curate new skills, and tell your story all through game development. It starts with just doing what you can.

Do What You Can In Game Development

This talk will go over how to gain meaningful experience that will help you transition from newbie to working professional and get you hired in your desired field - whether that is games or something else!

LEVEL UP: How to Gain Experience (in Games & More!)

Nationwide Youth Esports Leagues, Learning Management Systems, Certifiers, and Event Platforms are working together to provide a cohesive youth Esports experience. This session will inform the state of each organization type, how their respective contenders are collaborating, and introduce better practice concepts.

State of the Subcollegiate Esports Experience in North America

Games such a rich and multifaceted medium, the skills you learn along the way isn't just restricted to the video game industry. Agatha spent her career at Oculus shipping the touch controllers and new OS experiences, as well as at valve helping out with the environment art and interactive mechanics, Now she is at apple and the skills she learnt through game making and the people she connected with have helped her grow and be a strong design leader in game adjacent industries like software design. This session we will talk about the journey of her career and how she transferred her knowledge in game making into other industries.

Multi-Dimensional Careers: Games and Beyond

We will take a broad look at current trends in game audio, and focus on how to construct a good demo to get heard for the right kinds of projects. We'll have an open discussion about styles and genres that are currently trending, while exploring best practices in production and home studio setup for the beginning to intermediate game composer. This discussion encourages conversation and lots of questions!

Writing the Waves: Being Flexible in the Early Stage of Your Game Audio Career

Come learn about the incredible journey of becoming a VFX artist in games. See what it takes to become develop these skills, which are some of the most sought-after and hard-to-find in the games industry. Through vivid visual examples of magical explosions, oozing goo, and infernal flames, you'll gain a whole new appreciation for this critical craft.

Making Epic Visual FX

Nate is experienced esports curriculum developer in higher education and has competed at a high level in both Counter Strike and Hearthstone. This talk is a discussion on entering the esports world after college graduation - what should you be looking to do while in college to boost your employment, what fields are popular or needed, and what skills should you work towards.

Pursuing Esports Careers Post-College

Get a first-hand account of what it's like to build an arcade game from scratch for today's arcade bar landscape, featuring the lead developer of Armed and Gelatinous.

Close Quarters - Tales from the New Arcade

Mason has 10 years of experience in the games industry, working on titles such as Call of Duty, Elder Scrolls Online, League of Legends, and Marvel Snap. In his talk, he will give an introduction to the field of Games User Research with a focus on the following topics: 1. How User Research impacts the development of games 2. Outcomes that he have seen as a result of research he has conducted 3. How to get into User Research and position yourself for a successful career as a university student

What the Heck is Games User Research? 

Beginning Your Career: Sales & Business Development in Games 

Are YOU suffering from a case of gaming friendship deficiency? Do you have to resort to auto-queue to be able to run any dungeons? Are you afraid of being perceived but still want to be remembered and known by another existence in this large, bleak world? Come and learn how to make acquaintances, associates, friends, and connections with Skye, ex-socially awkward gamer extraordinaire!

How To Make Friends: Gamer Edition

Agents of Influence is a media literacy educational video game to combat misinformation. In this talk, you will learn about the process of developing an educational game and taking it to market.

Agents of Influence: A Media Literacy Game to Combat Misinformation

NYC Game Sessions

Register for access to the event app to schedule game sessions:

D&D 5E One-Shots

Hex-Hex

Smash Up

Cranium

King of New York

Pandemic

7 Wonders

Cards Against Humanity

Boss Monster

Unstable Unicorns

New Salem

Salem 1692

Munchkin

Dixit

Apples to Apples

Guillotine

BANG!

Space Cats Fight Fascism

Giant UNO

Hand to Hand Wombat

Sushi Go Party!

Throw Throw Burrito

Among Us LARP

Jackbox Party Pack

Hearthstone Fireside Gathering

Virtual Game Sessions

Gartic Phone

Among Us

Town of Salem

NYC Tournaments

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Singles

Super Smash Bros. Melee Singles

Super Smash Bros. Melee Crews

League of Legends 1v1s

Guilty Gear Strive

MarioKart 8 Deluxe

Tetris

Beat Saber

Virtual Tournaments

League of Legends 5v5s

Valorant

Overwatch

Teamfight Tactics

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Waffle Games 6.0

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Waffle Games 6.0

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