Author Topic: 2017 Speaker Schedule - UPDATE!!  (Read 15183 times)

Offline Jeff Kinder

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2017 Speaker Schedule - UPDATE!!
« on: January 18, 2017, 09:30:31 pm »
Hi Everyone!

We have a full lineup of speakers this year. Below is a summary of the talks as well as the speaker schedule (subject to change).
 
Saturday
 
11:00 AM
Air Hockey 
Joe Cain

Air Hockey is a professional sport. Yes, you read that right! It may sound like a joke, but it's not - Air Hockey has been played competitively almost as long as the first Air Hockey table forced air up into the 4048 holes each table top is pockmarked with at birth, and the evolution of both offense and defense over that time has been distilled and crystalized into today's "modern" game. Come learn about this transition and follow its development over the last 40+ years! From the original "Wild Man Attack" to puck control and the invention of the Diamond Drift, you'll learn every major shot and how to set up your opponent to break down their defense with a focused, purposed attack: unders, overs, forehands, backhands, cuts, cross-straights, off-speeds, blade shots, double-banks, "razzle dazzle" and so much more, including the mental side of the game and the psychological battles that can only take place at the highest echelon of the sport. Joe will also cover the principals needed to develop a professional-caliber defense, including the Triangle and the concepts of interfering defense that have taken hold over the last 20 years and are critical to developing into a complete Air Hockey athlete.

11:45
Introducing Throwmotion 
Aditya Dayal


Aditya will be introducing the company's web-connected cricket table game.

12:15
Midway in the 1990's 
John Tobias, Sal DiVita, Josh Tsui, moderated by Dan Amrich

Midway's development team set the pace for coin-op development in the 1990s. With a string of games including NARC, Smash TV, Terminator 2, Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, and WWF Wrestlemania, Midway was the house of hits. Midway alumni John Tobias, Sal DaVita, and Josh Tsui will be on hand for a roundtable discussion about their time in Chicago, and CAX attendees will get a special preview of Insert Coin, Josh's upcoming documentary about the studio and its innovators during this exceptional period of gaming history. 

2:15
Introducing Star Wars 
Steve Ritchie


Steve will give a talk about the making of the new Stern Star Wars pinball as well as the "Chevalier Noir" distributor show in Paris, 1989.  After the talk and a short slideshow, he'll hold a Q&A session and autograph session.  Steve will be signing translites and backglasses or whatever pinball parts you bring to him.  He'll have factory fresh translites to autograph for sale as well!

3:45
Early Times at Atari 
Al Alcorn


Al will present a history of Atari from the PDP_1 to the sale to Jack Tramiel.  He will discuss the early inspirations for the video games that inspired Nolan Bushnell, their time at Ampex, and the creation of Pong, Home Pong, the 2600, and the rise and fall under Warner.

4:45
Re-Playing the Cardboard Arcade 
Nathan Altice


As you spend the weekend celebrating the play and preservation of videogames’ arcade past, carve out an hour to learn about an overlooked part of videogames’ history—arcade board games. 

Licensed board games had been a staple of the industry since TV emerged in the 1950s, but videogames’ ascendance to the pinnacle of leisure entertainment posed new challenges for game designers. How might one adapt not only the visual or story elements of an arcade game, but also its interactive qualities? 

Join UCSC professor Nathan Altice, author of I AM ERROR, for a deep dive into the cardboard world of Pitfall!, Defender, Turbo, Berzerk, Q*bert, Frogger, and…Dragon’s Lair?  Find out how designers from Milton Bradley, Parker Brothers, and beyond tried to convert circuits to cardboard, and learn about some rare adaptations that few have seen or played in decades!

5:45
Cosmotrons 
Dave Furrer and Shane Gutbrod


Development of the NEW Indie Arcade Game: Cosmotrons:  This game originally started out as a for-fun project among two friends and has now escalated to potentially becoming the next big multiplayer arcade game!  Join this talk with the developers, Shane and Dave, to hear about their story and to ask questions.  Cosmotrons is a vector style four player space battle game with gravity where players choose a ship setup of THEIR choice! And yes, there will be a real Cosmotrons game at the show so you can give this amazing new game a try!

6:15
Skee-Ball 
Thaddeus Cooper and Kevin Kreitman


Thaddeus Cooper and Kevin Kreitman present the short history of Skee-Ball: Who really invented the game, and how it’s survived at least three near death experiences and multiple incarnations to become the oldest and best loved alley game ever created. Little known Skee-Ball secrets revealed, names named and never before seen photographs and documents tell the fascinating story of “the game that lived.” 

7:00
SKYCURSER: what we've learned by launching an arcade game 
Christopher Cruz - Art Director, Phil Golobish - Producer


How did three guys from Indiana take their dream of developing a new arcade game to a global stage? What does it take to design, test and sell a new piece of arcade hardware? Why would anyone do something so heroic? Get the answers straight from the source! Join the SKYCURSER team for a candid discussion of the ups and downs of launching an arcade game in 2017.
 
7:00 (Lobby)
How to Play Pinball
Rick Stetta
 

A Pinball Professor will be there to teach you how. How do you think they do it? I don't know - what makes them so good?  Learn from a master of pinball as he teaches his art and techniques.  Basic to advanced methods, strategy development - learn how to play your best!  Located in the hallway outside the show.
 
Sunday
 


1:00 (Lobby)
So you want to buy a pinball machine: Acquisition, Feeding, and Basic Maintenance
Tim Showalter

 
In this Q&A session, we offer advice on how to find a pinball machine, what to look for in a used game, a little bit about how much to pay, some parts and maintenance advice, and the single most important maintenance tip.
« Last Edit: July 25, 2017, 12:05:30 pm by Jeff Kinder »

Offline Ken Chaney

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Re: 2017 Speaker Schedule - UPDATE!!
« Reply #1 on: July 27, 2017, 12:57:00 pm »
A little more on this session:

11:45
Introducing Throwmotion
Aditya Dayal


Cricket is one of the world's most popular sports with approximately 2 Billion fans world-wide. Like baseball, the most enjoyable aspects of cricket involve balls being bowled (pitched) at speeds in excess of 90 mph towards a batsman (batter) and hit by the batsman into the air or along the ground. Until now, all table-top games of Cricket (and baseball) have been largely 2-dimensional having little or no correlation to the physics of the real sport. ThrowMotion is a Sunnyvale, California-based company producing ‘next-generation’ table games. The company’s flagship product is the world’s first web-connected, live-action cricket table game with ball dynamics that closely resemble the physics of the real sport. In the game, a multi-axis batsman faces off against a bowler who can bowl at scaled speeds of up to 100 mph. ThrowMotion's cricket games are placed at companies like Google, Cisco, Facebook, Microsoft and others and have collectively clocked over 2 million runs. Aditya Dayal, the founder of ThrowMotion, will describe the game and present a brief history of ThrowMotion.