[exodust]

Speaking of coming out as transgender, lead programmer on No Mans Sky, Innes Mckendrick has been there done that. He's done some great talks about programming in the game including a GDC talk that's on youtube, and earlier a talk on procedural world tech.

This is what most impresses me about No Mans Sky, the engine. I've only played it a bit on friend's playstation. They're onto something really cool with the new way of generating noise and using voxels to create detailed realistic landscapes.

Sean Murray did a talk on the noise generation, but it was a strange talk I must say. He spends too long on how many people played No Mans Sky, and how it 'really was actually' successful. He shouldn't worry so much and just get on with making games with this awesome engine. The story-telling and game elements will sort itself out in this game or the next.

Game devs can be amusingly self-conscious and troubled... just today I watched a talk by Davey Wreden the writer of The Stanley Parable. Wow, talk about 'in therapy'. Honest guy, nice guy, insists his life is okay now and he's no longer deeply depressed and addicted to self-validation. Brave talk... but dude it's a gaming conference, not a mental health conference!