A Passionate IndieCade Keynote from Uncharted‘s Lead Designer

A couple of weeks ago at IndieCade, Naughty Dog’s Richard Lemarchand, lead designer on the Uncharted series, gave the keynote address. That may seem like an odd fit for an “IndieCade” keynote—after all, video games don’t get more “Big Budget” than Uncharted

But Lemarchand is a longtime supporter of indie games and indie developers, and that passion shows throughout his keynote, which was posted to YouTube today. He covers a wide range of topics, from his beginnings and early influences, through some of his philosophies on the way humans experience things, through the production of the Uncharted games.

He points specifically to the sequence in Uncharted 2 in which protagonist Nathan Drake makes his way through a peaceful Napalese mountain village, and why calm, character-driven moments like it help make a game more effective. Those kinds of sequences turn up more frequently in Uncharted 3, which despite its occasional lapses into spammy dickishness, has even better, more-dynamic pacing than its predecessor.

https://lastchance.cc/man-uncharted-3-can-be-a-real-dick-sometimes-5856618%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

Lemarchand’s warmth and enthusiasm for games comes across time and again over the course of the talk, which clocks in at around an hour. It’s great to see that the people making big-budget, AAA games can be just as passionate and thoughtful as the most scrappy garage indies.

You can contact Kirk Hamilton, the author of this post, at [email protected]. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.