Cheryl Platz, author of the new book The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games That Thrive, is thrilled to be speaking at her first Game Developers Conference as a part of the popular Spreadsheets microtalk series, returning for a second year. In this series, a collection of talented game designers from across the industry bring you practical, tactical tips for applying a game designer’s favorite tool – spreadsheets – to improve your daily work. Last year’s inaugural Spreadsheets microtalks were a breakout hit, and Cheryl is honored to join the lineup this year.

Cheryl’s spreadsheet microtalk, “Localization Magic,” will cover a technique for using online spreadsheets to dynamically power Figma designs with multiple languages from a single file.

“As a creative director, I rarely get the chance to talk about specific craft tips for day-to-day work, and this is a technique I’d started experimenting with in my free time after seeing how difficult it was for us to work at speed and scale on the Riot Games + Xbox Game Pass project. It’s perfect for indie studios who favor speed and who don’t need to worry about interfacing with big complex localization tools and just want to see how different languages impact their designs – or for UX designers looking for a better way to go from localization IDs to fully edited text without a lot of manual effort.”

Join Cheryl and the rest of the Spreadsheets talk lineup for a jam-packed session at GDC Festival of Gaming 2026 – Tuesday, March 10 2026 from 3:10 – 4:10PM in Room 3004, West Hall.

A wireframe of a mock web store for a nonexistent video game called "FightArena", looking at a page for a character called Harlan. There are alternate outfits, other characters, character stats, and prices listed for specific elements like the character and each outfit. The style is grey and black and white line art with marker-like fonts.
A wireframe of a sample web store interface that you’ll learn to localize in just a few clicks during Cheryl Platz’s Spreadsheets! microtalk at the 2026 GDC Festival of Gaming.