Who was there: With the introduction of the Kinect in November, Microsoft opened itself up to new ways to offend cultures around the globe. In a GDC 2011 session titled "New Technology and New Interfaces: Localizing Video Games for Kinect," Microsoft's Lief Thompson and Yumiko Murphy were joined by Englobe's Kate Edwards to discuss the many challenges of releasing gesture-based games across the globe.

What they talked about: Thompson began the presentation by first offering a look at what Microsoft has accomplished with the launch of the Kinect. The hardware sold 8 million units through the end of 2010, and of the 14 launch...

Who was there: Programmer Tommy Refenes was there in the flesh, while artist Edmund McMillen joined in via Skype to recap and dissect the development of Super Meat Boy.

What they talked about: After some technical tinkering, Refenes welcomed the audience to the postmortem, which he described as "the story of Meat Boy, peppered with various good and bad things." He preemptively apologized for a lack of preparation for the talk by explaining that it's so personal for him and McMillen that it seemed silly to write anything down about it.

McMillen talked about the original Meat Boy Flash game, saying he made it in about three weeks and hadn't thought it would be anything terribly...

Who was there: Wolfire Games' John Graham and Jeffrey Rosen were on hand to talk about the first two Humble Indie Bundles: multiplatform, DRM-free collections of five indie games sold at a consumer-determined price point, with a portion of the proceeds going to benefit the Child's Play charity and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

What they talked about: Rosen opened the session by underlining what made the Humble Indie Bundle unique. People could pay whatever they wanted to for the collection of five games, from nothing to thousands of dollars. Additionally, the customers could determine...