Ahead of deadline, GDC Europe adds Wii U, Hitman: Absolution, DeNA talks

As Thursday's early reg. deadline looms, new GDC Europe talks include Hitman: Absolution's AI/animation; Scattered Entertainment's Senta Jakobsen (The Drowning) on distributed work environments; and Nintendo on using Unity, HTML, and JavaScript on the Wii U. The event itself will take place Monday through Wednesday, August 19th-21st at the Cologne Congress-Centrum Ost in Cologne, Germany -- just ahead of (and co-located with) the massive 275,000 person Gamescom event, with all GDC Europe passes also guaranteeing entrance to Gamescom. In the first of Nintendo of Europe's (NOE) two vendor-presented sessions, 'Nintendo Wii U Application Development with HTML and JavaScript,' NOE's own Svyetoslav Pidgornyy and Martin Buchholz "will introduce a new way of rapidly developing Wii U applications that takes full advantage of unique Wii U features while reducing development times significantly." The second vendor session, 'Unity, Wii U and You,' will feature NOE senior software engineer James Steele and Unity core team developer Wayne Johnson, presenting "everything from technical advantages of using Unity to develop your Wii U titles, to the process of getting your title published on the Wii U." Elsewhere, in 'Creating the AI for the Living, Breathing World of Hitman: Absolution,' IO Interactive senior AI programmer Mika Vehkala will discuss how the Danish firm created believable AI that adapts to the player's different actions in a game that is equal parts action and stealth. Accompanying IO's rationale behind design choices, Vehkala will provide "detailed information about the implementation of the multiple software layers driving NPC animation and AI." Lastly, in 'Reflections on a Distributed and Manager-Less Work Environment' Senta Jakobsen, senior development director from Swedish studio Scattered Entertainment (a DeNA company), will follow up her GDC 2012 talk 'Changing How Games are Made - Building and Working in a Distributed Team,' covered by Gamasutra. She will review how the first year of distributed and manager-less work has progressed, sharing what has worked and what has not. The vast majority of the talks for GDC Europe have now been revealed on the event's live schedule builder, with over 75 lectures already available to view, and the official event schedule arriving in the near future. Early bird registration for GDC Europe 2013 lasts only until this Thursday, July 18th, with discounts up to 20% off admission. Group admission discounts are also available. For all the latest news on GDC Europe, subscribe for updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS. Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech.