In case you’re not familiar with it, Gamefest is a conference for game developers and designers targeting Microsoft platforms including Xbox, Windows Phone 7, and Windows desktops.  It will be held in three cities in the summer of 2011:

  • July 14-15 in London.
  • July 29 in Tokyo.
  • August 22-23 in Seattle.

There’s an amazing amount of Kinect content this year.  Go to the Gamefest site to get all the details, but here’s a summary of the 22 Seattle sessions just related to Kinect.  Note: most of these sessions are for the Xbox console.

  • Augmented Animation, Camera, and Controls.  Lewey Geselowitz.
  • Avatar Navigation with Kinect.  Todd Heckel.
  • Designing Compelling Player Experiences with Kinect Identity.  Eric Langlois.
  • Gesture Detection Using Machine Learning.  Claude Marais.
  • Heuristic Based Gesture Detection Techniques.  Eric Langois.
  • Kinect and Kids: Pitfalls and Pleasantries.  Deborah Hendersen.
  • Kinect Hands: Finger Tracking and Voxel UI.  Abdulwajid Mohamed and Tony Ambrus.
  • The Magic Behind Kinect.  Zsolt Mathe.
  • Making a Five Star Kinect Game.  Jason Hewitt.
  • Natural User Input Joint Filtering Best Practices.  Mehran Azimi.
  • Real-Time Classification of Gestures Using Kinect, with Emphasis on Dance.  Darko Kirovski and Joel Pritchett.
  • Tips for Raw Image Manipulation with Kinect.  Allan Murphy and David Cook.
  • An Array of Options: Driving Gameplay with Kinect Audio Input.  Scott Selfon.
  • Emerging Markets for Motion Games: How to Maximize Your Market Share for Kinect Titles.  Sheryl Flynn and Tiffany Shubert.
  • The Evolution of User Generated Content.  Doug Park.
  • Feedback, Feedback, Feedback: Good Kinect UI Design.  Ben Board.
  • Kinect Certification: Lessons Learned and Best Practices.  Jean-Marc Goulet.
  • The Modern Dr. Dolittle: Talking to the Kinectimals with NuiSpeech.  Mike Froggatt.
  • New and Improved: Functional Certification for Kinect.  Daniel Jacobs.
  • Planning for Success: Kinect Compliance Certification.  Brad Mues.
  • Voice and “Other Sounds” Interaction: Beyond Simple Speech Recognition.  Pedro Cardoso.
  • “Xbox, Listen”: Using Speech Recognition with Kinect.  Scott Selfon.

Not only is the content great, but mingling with the people behind the Kinect will be an invaluable experience.  Hope to see you there.