The golden gate bridge is in sight, the aroma of Moons Over My Hammy fills the air, and an army of people wearing name tags are wandering about town. This can only mean one thing! Well, I suppose it could mean many things but in our case it's the kick-off of GDC in beautiful San Francisco, California. First held in 1988, GDC seems to have grown exponentially and has changed with market trends over the years. With the advent of the App Store, the conference has substantially shifted gears to be surprisingly iOS-centric, filled with developers from all over the world anxious to sit in on iOS talks and meet fellow iOS game makers.

But what does this mean to you, faithful TouchArcade reader? It just so happens that all of these developers absolutely love meeting with people like us to show off their up and coming games, share ideas, and otherwise just spill their guts on what they've been up to and what they plan on doing in the future. Looking back at our GDC 2009 and GDC 2010 coverage, we saw tons of cool games. Judging by our meeting schedule, which couldn't possibly be more insane, we're going to have even more cool stuff to write about this year. (Particularly so as Apple seems intent on crashing the event by unveiling the iPad 2 this Wednesday barely a block away from where GDC is taking place.)

If you're a developer, we look forward to meeting with you. If you don't have an appointment with us yet, it's not too late, but we'll likely need to get creative with when and where we meet. Send me an IM via AOL Instant Messenger. My screen name is ioburn [Status: ]. If you don't have an AIM account, signing up is easy and only takes a second. Alternatively, AIM even connected to Facebook and Google Talk, if you would rather use that. Of course you can also email at tips@toucharcade.com, it just won't be anywhere near as fast. (Be sure to put "GDC 2011" somewhere in the subject for email filters.)

Also, don't forget about our party on Wednesday night at Bin 55 in the lobby of the Marriott. We're going to kick things off at 8:00 PM and go until they kick us out, which should be sometime between 11:00 PM and midnight. Find someone from TouchArcade and we'll trade you your business card for a fancy schmancy TouchArcade tyvek bracelet for free drinks. (If you don't have a business card, a GDC pass will suffice.)

Likely the best way to track us down and follow what we're doing at GDC will be via Twitter. Here's our array of Twitter accounts:

• @hodapp � Eli Hodapp
• @arnoldkim � Arnold Kim
• @blakespot � Blake Patterson
• @jaredta � Jared Nelson
• @nicholsonb � Brad Nicholson

Let's get this conference kickin'!