I Didn’t Spell-Check This

If any of you remember I was supposed to go to the Game Developers Conference this week, and go I have (grammer alert!). Got in an hour ago or so after the third-longest day of traveling I’ve had thus far in my life, the first two being the original trip into Japan and the incredibly ludicrous I ran out of money in Hokkaido fiasco a few months later. Been awake since 6am eastern and it is now a little after midnight pacific. Oh, and I went to bed at 2am the night before because I am awesome like that.

Anyway, I’m here and I’m pretty exhausted. The hotel is a decent place (nothing four-star, I’m po’) but it’s quite far from the convention center. I knew this going in, of course, but I went with it because it was cheap and it seems to be within a mile or so of the end of the Mountainview transit line. I plan to test said line out when I get a chance to see just how long it takes to get to the convention center from here but I don’t expect it to be a particularly arduous ordeal.

Actually, one small concern did just occur to me…I think the last train leaves the convention center station just before midnight. That’s not a problem for the convention itself but I have been invited to a Garage Games party on one of the nights. Looks like more cab fair…blah.

GDC Update #1

Currently reporting from the conference itself. My first panel, “Game Design Curriculum” (I figured it might provide ideas for re-structuring Husky Game Development) has finally let out. The most interesting speakers were both from the industry itself rather than the academic representatives. What is it about becoming a professor that forces you to talk in the most monotonous and un-ungaging manner possible? In any case I got some decent information and managed to not make a total ass of myself in the roundtable discussion group over lunch. I consider that a win.

Tonight is the Independant Game Developers Association dinner…in fact, it starts in less than an hour. It’s my intention to meet up with the other HGD members there, although I haven’t been able to contact Steve and I’m not sure he’s even a member. In any case it means free (good) food. With the Garage Games party tomorrow and my hotel providing a complimentary breakfast buffet my new goal is to spend no money on food from here on out. Actually, I suppose the only nutrition provided at the GG gathering may be in the form of alcohol – I’ll have to figure out what time it actually starts at.

Sorry for the fairly disorganized nature of this post, I’m mostly providing a brief update for interested parties. I’ll spend some time writing up a post that covers my adventures with the Cali crew later tonight when I’m back at the hotel. Trust me when I say that it will be most informative. Heck, it might even need two posts. We’ll just have to see.

GDC Update #2

I fully intended to write a post about my first day with the Cali crew but my hotel’s internet access continues to be down (going on three days). I’ll reserve those two posts until I either have more time or the hotel’s internet comes back, whichever comes first.

For now I’ll simply highlight the remainder of yesterday. The IGDA party went well and the food was both free and tasty, a combination that I cannot find fault with. I finally linked up with Mike (a fellow HGD member) and we proceeded to work the room for great justice, occasionally in tandem but mostly solo. I managed to perk the interest of several persons and companies regarding HGD and what we do; unfortuantely I can’t really talk about them specifically but sufficient to say if even a few of them pan out in the long run next year should be quite interesting indeed.

I also managed to bump into a few Garage Games guys and snagged my invite to tonight’s party. Turns out that it is, in fact, after the Game Developer Choice awards which means I’ll be cabbing it back to the hotel tonight…more money spent. But, it’s an opportunity and I can’t really let $30 stand in the way given the amount I’ve already invested. I use the word “invested” because it sounds much more professional than “threw around like it weren’t no thing.”

Speaking of wasting money, I bought a cheap pair of black shoes at Wal Mart before I left. Now, I am very much a Wal Mart hater and I haven’t even been in one in more than a year but I was left with little choice…it was two in the morning and I realized I had no dress shoes whatsoever. I picked up a $15 pair and wow did I pay for it – those things were worth what I paid and not a penny more. Within a few hours I was developing nasty bisters the back of my heel that got so bad that I simply folded the backs down and walked on them like sandles for the remainder of the night. I was so fed up with them that I actually binned them at the first can I came across walking back from the train station.

Today I’ve got a two panels to attend to and one to try to sneak into. The latter is a panel on creating characters with emotional impact and it’s being run by the guys who did Ico. *Insert girlish squealing here.* Technically I don’t think I can go because it requires a more expensive pass than I have but I’ve got some creative ideas to work around it. This afternoon is also the first day of the expo and career pavilion so I will be relentlessly spamming my cards and resume at any company representative unlucky enough to make eye contact. I think Blizzard is my first stop.

GDC Update #3

The internet access in my hotel room finally came back up last night. Unfortunately I was far too tired to actually make use of it…it’s looking increasingly likely that a recap of my antics with Joey will have to wait until after I get back to Michigan. We’ll have to see how tonight goes.

In any case, yesterday was by far the busiest day I’ve had so far. In addition to the panels they opened the expo floor and career pavilion for the first time, which meant I was fighting with a few thousand other nerds to place my pathetic little resume in the hands of people that will probably use it to soak up coffee spills. Of course, the only ones who could even do that were the ones that actually accepted paper resumes; most companies would talk to you and sometimes gives you specific e-mail addresses or contact names but evenetually end up directing you to apply at their website. Luckily I brought the word version of my resume with me and thus I’ll most likely end up posting to a few of them tonight. I don’t mean to imply that it was all negative – I got to talk with a few guys at Blizzard for a good twenty minutes and received similar treatment from Pandemic and Bioware, which is nice.

As a side note, what is it about free t-shirts that makes people (and nerds in particular) go nuts? Most of them suck, and suck quite hard. I guess there’s a major shortage of painting clothes among aspiring game developers?

In the evening I attended the Game Developer Choice awards. It was fairly fun, although the hosts left something to be desired (if I heard the word “cool” one more time I might have screamed). There were also interludes featuring the white-on-black text messages that Adult Swim is famous for in addition to a series of brand-new shorts from the Mega 64 guys. The Ico one was absolutely hilarious.

Speaking of Ico, Shadow of the Colossus (the new game from the same team) practically swept the field. Now, I find it hard to argue with any of the awards it won and it is an absolutely spectacular game. However…I can’t help but feel like God of War got shafted by the IGDA’s tendency to be “indier than thou.” Shadow is similar to Ico in that it takes a very artistic approach to gaming, and as a result it’s a beautiful work of art to behold. God of War had the unfortunately distinction of being too mainstream for this ceremony and I think they suffered for it. Too bad – they deserved to take home at least one award.

Afterwards was the Minna Mingle hosted by Garage Games and the IGDA. Free drinks, though no food, and pleanty of people to attempt to “network” with, whatever the hell that means. Met a few interesting people there, including a girl who was researching VR training programs and another who wants to bring academia and the game industry closer together by publishing peer-reviewed papers focusing games. I also had the chance to chat with the lead designer of Dark Forces and Jedi Knight, which was pretty damn cool to me.

This is has been yet another long entry that will bore absolutely everyone who reads it. I live to serve.

Hahaha, I hijacked Norm’s computer.

Hello avid readers. This is Tim. You may not know me, but I am an individual originating from the wonderful (slightly wet at the moment, but still wonderful) state of California. I have hijaked Norm’s computer, and am holding it hostage until one of the following conditions are met:
1. He tells me to give it back.
2. I get bored.

While I am sure that this is a bit of a twist from your Normal reading here (pun intended), I’m sure you’re all so desperate for him to write something, anything, that you will accept it with only minimal complaint. While I most certainly don’t claim to write posts up to his par, the fact that I’m writing anything at all makes the question somewhat academic. Alas, I fear that we will all come to regret the fact that he doesn’t seem to have spell checking built in to this posting… uhh… thingy.

Anyway, I guess I got around to that being bored thing. I’m not much of a writer. So on that note, I must bid you all farewell. Have a wonderful day.