But if all our games turn out digital, why paper prototype at all?  There are lots of good reasons for it:

• It’s cheap
• It’s fast
• It’s easy to iterate
• Anyone can do it (no programming required!)
• It can be a fun collaborative excercise
• It opens your creative synapses in a way that staring at a screen doesn’t

When I was at Telltale, I used paper prototyping for just about any “mini-game” type of puzzle I created.  Originally, I actually prototyped most things in Photoshop with clever uses of layers. (I would turn them on and off to represent different states of the puzzle). But I found that paper prototyping had some huge advantages.

First of all, when making things with paper, I was less attached to making things “pretty”.  We are used to seeing pretty things on a computer, and this can actually be a big hang-up to people like me who enjoy pretty things.  I would spend too much time trying to visually represent the puzzle in a clever way, fiddling with this filter or sorting out how to do something specific in Photoshop.  It could be a mental hang up for other people as well, for my “playtesters”.  Artists especially can take things on the computer screen way too literally and get stuck on how the prototype looked rather than whether they understood the puzzle.

Another advantage I found to making a prototype on paper is that I could pick it up and carry it all over the office.  I could place it in front of someone, tell them the rules, and then watch them try to solve it.  This was incredibly less disruptive to my playtesters than either having them come to my desk to try it or to sending them the files and asking them to open it on their own computer.  Even if they don’t have to leave their desks, asking someone to stop what is happening on their computer to put my prototype in front of  all their other windows feels like a hard switch of gears.  It’s a disruption, an intrusion, on what they were doing.  If however, they can just pause by turning from their screens for a moment to look at the paper version, it feels more like a break.  As a result, folks are much more amenable to helping you by playing the prototype.  I also could keep the prototype at my own desk and invite the office (via email) to come try it when they wanted a break.  When players showed up at my desk I didn’t have to disrupt what I was doing on my own computer and when the players left I could easily go back to what I was doing.

The most surprising discovery (at least to me) when I started making all my prototypes with paper was that it helped me think better.  There’s something about turning your back on a computer screen and making something with your hands that really opens up the creative synapses.  With crafts (funny enough) anything is possible.  Sometimes figuring out how to properly represent something in paper is a creative exercise all unto  itself, which in turn works and refreshes the creative parts of your brain.  Within the freedom of paper and the action of physical activity, new possibilities to the problems you are trying to solve can come tumbling like a waterfall.

Just about any system or puzzle can be represented on paper, with some pretty basic supplies.  But to elevate it to a rough and tumble art form of experimentation, I recommend the following tool kit:

Blank white Index Cards — I find lined ones to be hampering to my creative process

A pad of newsprint — Cheaper than printer paper, plus you won’t annoy your co-workers with a perpetually empty paper tray

Colored Markers — Colors are VITAL!  You will need different colors to differentiate between different players or characters, to draw UIs, and to make things clearer for your play-testers.

Scotch tape — Super useful

Some kind of counters — You can make these out of paper as needed, but it is nice to have something like poker chips or those little glass gaming beads around.  I have also used paper clips.

Some kind of little dudes — Helpful to represent locations of player characters, enemies, etc.  I always used my old “Muscle Men” but you can get little plastic army guys or farm animals from a drug store or five and dime.*  In a pinch, coins of various types can work.

Regular Post-Its — I could write a book called “101 uses for post-its in game design”.  Keep a big stack nearby.

Tiny Post-Its — Keep some of these around too.  They are very nice to have for certain things.

Mailer envelopes — Have a bunch of these to keep the individual prototype bits in so you don’t lose them all over your desk.  This is experience speaking.

Scissors — Buy a decent pair and then hide them at your desk.  Scissors are prone to accidental theivery.

This is sort of a minimal list.  Depending on what you are making, other things like glue-sticks, a good (scrap-booking) paper cutter, colored sharpies and many other things might become helpful.  I tend to haunt craft stores and office supply stores, grabbing anything that I wished I had had when I was making a previous prototype.  But you can also be extremely resourceful and frugal if you prefer.

You can make just about anything with some paper, a good pair of scissors, and colored markers.

Following are some very simple guidelines to making a paper prototype.  Remember the goal: to make something that adequately represents the puzzle or game  system to play-testers in a way that makes sense to them.

Guideline #1: Keep it quick!

Make something realtively quickly that is easy to adjust.  This way, you can iterate easily if you see some problems when play-testing.

Guideline #2: Make it Clear!

You will have to explain some things to the player, but the less you have to explain and the more they can infer from the prototype themselves, the happier and more engaged they will be.  Therefore, make sure the aspects of your prototype you want them to figure out are pretty clear.  If you can’t draw at all, and the player is going to interpret a set of pictures, go ahead and find some images through Google, adjust the size properly in Photoshop and then print and cut them out.  Write legibly. Utilize colors.  Find creative ways to represent the prototype as clearly as possible, making it as much like the digital experience as you can.

Guideline #3: Keep it fun!

Sure you could cut little circles out of paper to represent the bad guys, but your tester is going to respond much better to your protoype if you have a handful of plastic chickens instead.  This is a place where paper prototyping really can shine, and where it pays to be arts and crafty.  If it is fun to interact with the pieces you put in front of someone, they will be more interested in helping you test your system or puzzle.

I hope this introduction gets you intrigued and excited to try some paper prototyping.  You might be surprised at just how much fun and useful the medium of paper is.

*Although little cheap plastic dudes are amazingly hard to find in an actual TOY store, as I discovered when prepping for my improv game design workshop recently.

Back in the glory days of adventure games, there were basically two companies that were the genre.  LucasArts and Sierra On-Line.  And like anything bipartisan, there were two respective camps of followers:  LucasArts fans and Sierra fans.   While the games from the two companies had a lot in common, there are certain things that Adventure Game historians can easily point to that separate them.  The biggest, mechanics wise, was that in Sierra games your character could die, sometimes in very sudden and annoying ways.  In LucasArts games, you never died, but your interest could die as you wander around and around trying everything possible to get through the obscurely silly puzzle solution.  (To be fair, Sierra had its occasional weird and painful puzzles too).  Sierra games also tended to be more likely to include mini games to mix up the gameplay, while LucasArts games stayed straight on course with pure “find thing put thing in right place talk to guy for clue” adventure gameness.

But the biggest difference between the Sierra and LucasArts styles had more to do with tone and story than with gameplay.  Both companies were prone to put in silly jokes and plenty of puns.  But while LucasArts games, for the most part, seemed to have been written by people with the random senses of humor of sophomoric 9 - 11 year old boys, most Sierra games felt  more satisfying in terms of goals, story, and theme immersion.  In other words, the story wasn’t just about the jokes.

I think this is why I always gravitated towards the Sierra camp.  In fact, two of my favorite games of all time were the Sierra adventure/RPGs Quest for Glory: So you want to be a hero, and its sequel: Quest for Glory: Trial by Fire.  I also was a huge fan of Gabriel Knight, and there were several other games that I always wanted to play but just never got to: The Laura Bow mystery games, Quest for Camelot and Robin Hood: Quest of the Long Bow were all on Christmas lists of the past along with my Cobra Raven.

Coincidentally (or not) the above mentioned games were all designed or co-designed by women.  I don’t know what the difference was between Sierra and LucasArts as companies back in those days, but Sierra employed several female game designers.  LucasArts games were mostly (with apologies to former co-workers and their friends) written and designed by guys with the random senses of humor of sophomoric 9-11 year old boys.  Sierra also promoted its designers by putting their pictures on the back of the game boxes, and seeing those women there was very inspiring to me as a young person.

Roberta Williams
I have a strong memory of picking up a King’s Quest box at Electronic Boutique in Stonestown shopping center and seeing Roberta Williams on the back of the box.  I thought she was a lot younger than she really was and I said to my mom “Look!  This kid made this game!”  My mom informed me that she was actually an adult but I was still impressed.  I felt a surge of ambition and maybe something like jealousy.  But it definitely was a sense that I could do this too.

Roberta Williams designed an amazing 20 games while at Sierra.  She was the brain behind the King’s Quesst series and the Laura Bow mysteries.  She was a co-founder of the company.  Her games always had a lot of heart, and many of them featured a female protagonist (still unusual at this time).

Lori Cole
Lori Ann Cole, along with her husband Corey Cole were the designers and writers of some of the best games ever made — the Quest for Glory series.   I remember falling in love with the first Quest for Glory game long before I ever played it.  It was called Hero’s Quest: So you want to be  Hero (before the game series was forced to change its name).  I remember looking at the box and WANTING it.  When it appeared under the Christmas tree that Christmas, I was ecstatic.  This was the game that caused my sister and I to literally fight each other to get up the stairs of our house so we could claim the computer first.  Even to this day, Quest for Glory with its unique hybrid RPG/adventure game mechanics whets my appetite for design.  When people ask me what my “dream game to make” might be, my answer always starts out as “Something like Quest for Glory….”

Jane Jensen
Jane Jensen, in addition to writing work  on a handful of Sierra games,  was the design and writing brains behind the Gabriel Knight games. Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father was an awesome game.  It had a lovely dark voodoo theme and a rich mystery to solve.  The writing was stellar.  I never got to pick up the other two in the series but always looked at them fondly in the stores.  Jane Jensen is still making games, and designed the really intriguing BeTrapped! Which is a nifty cross between an adventure game mystery and mine-sweeper.  She has a new game, Gray Matter, coming out later this year.

Christy Marx
Christy Marx was the writer and designer of Quest for Camelot and Robin Hood: Quest of the Long Bow.  These were two games I salivated over but sadly never got to play. I was a subscriber to the Sierra magazine/newsletter and read with excitement about both of these games.  I especially loved the inclusion of narrative-appropriate mini-games and Nine Men’s Morris in the Robin Hood game.  Christy is an active freelance writer.  She worked on the first Telltale CSI game, as a matter of fact, and continues to inspire women in game development through her contributions to the IGDA’s women in games mailing list.

There is no doubt to me that all these women served as inspiration to me on my path to become a game designer, and have deeply informed my design sensibilities.  And so, on this post-Ada Lovelace day, I just want to say thank you to all of them.

Personally, I had a really awesome and productive GDC.  I went to  a couple talks about money.  I talked to all my favorite awesome advice people.  I met many very cool new folks, and reconnected  with some people I haven’t seen for awhile.   Some very cool potential businessy things came out of it.  None of which I’m ready to talk about until I get a better sense of what is actually going to happen.  So let’s move on.

One thing I found really intriguing about this year’s conference was the diverse international presence.  At least on the Expo floor.  There were booths from all kinds of countries, telling you why you should start a studio in the Netherlands, attend a conference in Dubai, or relocate to Canada.  Especially Canada.  Our Northern neighbors took up the whole left-most row of the floor.  They demoed games and talked about how awesome Canada was for developers.  They even brought along their Olympic Mascots.  Some neat projects were on display.  There was a great Facebook arcadey Pirate game, and a hillariously Candadian (and very fun) curling  game for the Wii (I’ll try to dig up the links for these later).  One of the neatest and most ambitious looking however was a game called BotColony from a company called Northside.  Check out this demo video to get an idea of what this natural language, AI driven adventure game is capable of.

I cannot write a post-GDC post without mention of my good buddy Chaim Gingold’s talk, The Human Play Machine.  It was amazing and very inspiring.  I only took this very short video clip because I wanted to pay attention to the talk and not taping.  Chaim discussed the ways in which we, as human play machines, are wired and built for play and what this means to people who make things for humans to play with.  It was philosophical but very salient and directly  applicable to my life as a game developer.  My favorite part of the talk however was the last five to ten minutes which was Chaim’s addendum of sorts.  In it he turned his attention to the question: Why do we do this?  Why do we make make games at all?  Is there good in what we do?  Chaim had a couple answers to this question but here’s my favorite: Science has shown us that when we are at play, its one of the few times when our brains truly feel joyful.  Therefore, if all we are doing by giving people fun and engaging things to play with is to “improve the global happiness quotient”, then we are providing the world with an incalculably positive service.  I left this talk feeling awesome.  Thanks Chaim!

You can see his slides and notes here.

Well that’s it for this year’s GDC wrap up.  See you again next year!  (Hopefully before that though…)

My thought was to first do an intro to LARPing that would run about a half hour and basically go over the LARPing FAQ: What is a LARP? Why do people do this? Are there any safety rules or guidelines? Is there any LARPing ettiquette? What do all those LARPing “gang-signs” mean?

After that, the fun part.  A one hour “micro-Larp” where the newbs can try LARPing with other newbs in a safe and guided environment.  I will try to have one or two extra people there to help out guiding the newbies if they feel lost or disoriented.  Encourage them to ask questions like “uhm…what should I do now?”

Finally a half-hour cool down and Q&A period.

The micro-LARP is the part that I am most excited about.  I’ve got a few thoughts on how that would go.  I think the name of the scenario will be “Who’s got the thingie?”.  The goal  of all the players will revolve around the “thingie”.  The thingie will need to change hands; some people will want it, some won’t, etc.  Maybe some people will want parts of it.

For characters, I am thinking of providing something very simple: A simple name: “Susan”, a contact list of no more than a couple people: “You like John, you hate George”, a couple personality traits: “melancholy, melodramatic, eager to please”, and a simple goal: “get the thingie”.

Another thought that just occured to me is to do something a bit “Whose Line is it Anyway” and give the new players personality traits and then the main goal is for everyone to guess who has  which traits.  Or goals whatever.  Each player will get “points” if other people can guess their traits.

Ooh: Yet another idea!  A “parlor” room scene like from a mystery story.  The GM plays the detective and interviews all the characters about the role they had in the murder.  This has the advantage that it can be run in a short amount of time, and it gives a very communal type role-playing environment, but on the other hand people get to interact less one on one with each other.  But maybe that’s ok for this kind of thing.

Some exciting ideas.  Not sure which way I’ll go yet.  Suggestions and opinions are much appreciated!

Read On Below!

This conference, which was put together by my Alma Mater Geogia Tech, took place in multiple spaces at once, both physical and virtual.  It was physically embodied in Atlanta of course, but it was also streamed live on the web and inside of Second Life.  There were also multiple options to connect to an IRC channel for chatting during the conference, and the channel was cleverly linked up to Second Life as well so that Second Lifers and IRCers could hear each other and communicate.

Since I was at home in lovely El Cerrito, I opted to give the Second Life conference a go.  Most people reported having a beautiful stream of the conference, but unfortunately my sound and picture was choppy throughout.  I blame my “broadband — but barely” internet connection.  Nonetheless, I was able to glean enough from the talks and the virtual attendee’s  chitter chatter to really learn alot and have a great overall experience.

I have a huge list of things to look up — games, books, articles, people, and got alot out of just chatting with people.  But here are my top three personal highlights from the actual talks.  Its not really fair, because the following people spoke after my stream was more or less under control, and I know there were folks before this point that said some really interesting things.  But I am going to have to look those people up later I guess.  For now, here are my favorites from what I actually got to see.

Craig Kronenberger of Good Egg Studios gave a talk about his (and his wife’s) company’s game, Elf Island.  Even though this talk again was pretty choppy in my stream, this game and whole concept just blows me away!  This game is an online game for kids which, through the kids playing it and participating in it, actually translates into building REAL houses for Habitat for Humanity.  I didn’t really get how it all came together (again, the stream’s fault, not the speaker’s) but this game is amazing, the concept is amazing, and you can be bet I’ll be delving in to find out more.  Just take a look at this.  I’m in love.

Sam Lewis from Cartoon Network’s Fusion Fall had this simple but clear and brilliant message for designing games for kids.

1) Know what they find fun.

2) Know what they don’t find fun.

3) RESPECT THEIR FUN!!

This should be instinctual to game designers designing for any audience, but its one of those messages that helps to be spelled out from time to time.  The third point is especially important: Once you know what your audience wants, don’t try to make a game that they don’t really want because you want  to implement the features YOU think are fun.  This isn’t to say you shouldn’t innovate or try to find new ways to do things, but just be clear about your goals and who the audience is.

There was preview of Fusion Fall during the lunch break, but unfortunately my stream was so bad I couldn’t really see what was going on.

The last panel of the conference was the Pioneer’s Panel, featuring Richard Bartle (MUD1), Randy Farmer (Lucasfilm’s Habitat), Pavel Curtis (LamdaMoo) and Brian Green (Meridian 59).  It doesn’t matter how much I read about the history of online games or how often I hear guys like this speak, I just eat this stuff up. This was also the panel for which my stream was least choppy, so I got to really enjoy it.  Here’s what I took away, in a sentence, from each speaker:

Richard Bartle: MUD wasn’t a stroke of genius, it was a collection of almost hapharzard influences and circumstances and this kind of thing could easily happen again.

Randy Farmer: VRML based worlds failed, mostly, because companies confused cool technologies with social needs.  (Good lesson there, and one that companies in this industry seem to have to learn over and over again…)

Pavel Curtis: A big reason LambdaMoo grew is because it was a nice and welcoming place, but eventually the wizards had to put their feet down about certain things and not apologize for it.

Brian Green: Love your players and they will love you back.

They said alot more of interest, of course, but those are the kernals I appreciated the most from each one.  Also this AMAZING promotional video Randy Farmer showed for Habitat.

The other bonus of attending the conference via Second Life was getting another chance to check out Second Life itself.  My first go at Second Life was not overly successful.  Second Life is NOT a very newbie-friendly place.  The UI is a mess, there isn’t very helpful help, and the options you have when you first enter the world are overwhelming and confusing.  The first time I tried Second Life, I couldn’t figure out how to do anything, couldn’t find anyone to talk to, and couldn’t make my way to anyplace that sounded at all cool.  This time I was given an easy way to get to where I was trying to go (the virtual conference space) and when i got there I was given alot of hand-holding and  help (not to mention some very groovy items) from established SL residents.  It was through these patient and friendly gals that I began to get the hang of things and see just a teensy sampling of the variety that can be found in SL.  I visited an awesome pirate ship, an Alice in Wonderland inspired tea room, and heard rumors of a very cool sounding Steam-Punk world, Fairy Land, and role-playing environments.  Now that I have  a little bit of orientation, I am definitely intrigued enough to stop back in and see if I can’t explore a little more.

Here is the schedule of the event, if you’re curious who all was there talking.  Hopefully they will post videos of the individual panels so that those of you who missed the talks, as well as those of us with crummy internet connections, can see what they missed.

This was a great time, and I intend to attend next year as well.  I’d like to go in person next time though if I can swing it.  I wonder if anyone would mind if I wore my pajamas to the GVU?

Finally he leaned over, a big grin on his face.  “You know why I love game designers?” he asked. We paused our conversation and I bit. “Why’s that?” His face was practically glowing.  “You guys have such great jobs, and you make my life so HAPPY!” he beamed.  I thanked him awkwardly and he went back to his omlette.

It was chilly that day in San Francisco, but I felt warmed to the core all day long.  Game design can be fun for many reasons — the challenge of it, the creative excercise, watching an idea you have had blossom into reality.  But in the end it’s all about the people who play the games and whose days are just a little bit brighter for it.

And that’s why I love Game Designers.

So what are these treats?

Well, I have a handful of features on the way.  Look soon for Quick N Dirty Game reviews, and 20 to 20, in which I talk about 20 MMOs I will play to level 20.  I also am starting on a book project (hahaha) so I have that to keep you updated on as well.

And E.T.?  Well, the little bugger is always on my mind.  We’ll see.

So keep an eye on those RSS readers, and I’ll try to make sure you have plenty of treats.  And that this is not just a trick.

I know. But its ok, really! I’m working on this awesome new game called Earth Eternal and I get to work in walking distance of possibly the best iced soy mocha on the planet!

Earth Eternal is a new entry into the exploding “play for free, pay for bling”* MMO market. It is among the first completely American developed games in this space, as most of the others are made in Asia and then localized for this market. It may also be the first 3D completely anthropomorphic MMO. Oh and somehow (I suspect dark magicks) it will run in a browser window.

I will miss that crazy group of talented and tenacious folks that make up Telltale Games, and I wish them the best in everything. But the future looks tastier than a boston cream donut, and I’m eager to take a big ol’ bite. I’ll let you know what the custard’s like.

*Thanks Seg!

Yeah well, we all knew that was doomed from the beginning. I think the people who actually blog during GDC either are obsessive compulsive laptop toters or else professional journalists. Since I am neither (my laptop weighs 7.5 pounds and I’m not luggin that thing all over the damn place!) I didn’t really have much of an opportunity to write anything while the conference was going on. I mean, I could’ve tried to do it on my DS with my Opera browser, but I still can’t figure out how to go back from a text field to the page the field appears on so I can click buttons like “save” or “submit”. Sooner or later I’ve got to sort this out. As it was, my post-GDC evenings consisted of limping back home, feeding my baby and crawling pathetically into bed. Hopefully I’ll remember this next year and not set such a ridiculous goal.

2) Post pictures before GDC next year (I still have some awesome ones from last year I haven’t shown you).

Hey, its not next year yet, is it? Anyway, I’ll have to see how many are worth posting. The only thing that stands out in my mind is that I took some pictures of the Wii Balance Board. Which I need immediately, incidentally.

3) Avoid tripping over incredibly stylish interior design elements at 3 Rings’ offices, falling on my face and spilling my drink everywhere.

This I managed to do. Or, I mean, not do. I did make it to the hush hush 3 Rings’ party, did have a drink, did eat lots of their yummy brie, did chit chat with some rad folks (including the devs of PMOG). I also did wish that the interior of my offices was nearly as stylish as this place. But I did NOT trip over the “sucker flanges”, which is what I am now calling those little spiffy looking spurs at the bottom of the columns in the main room which make you feel like you’re in a submarine designed by Lemony Snicket and which can cause just as much anguish as one of his books.

4) Stand in any given line for no longer than 10 minutes.

Take that lines! Not only did I make it to the Experimental Game Design Workshop in time to get a seat without standing in line, but I also simply didn’t go to any talks that required ridiculous linage. Which is a good thing, since I was about to fall over any second come day three.
5) If I get stuck in some stupid “overflow” room without audio for the Game Developer’s Choice Awards, leave.

This happened at the first SF GDC, and it so sucked. But this time, because of my parental duties, I actually didn’t even make the awards. Its the first year since I started going to GDC that this was the case. Thursday was my designated stay out late night. I had assumed that the awards would be Thursday night, as I think they always are. But they weren’t and my schedule got screwed up as a result. I am sad I missed the awards, but I had a good time at the Women In Games International mixer, and then I went home to my family. So it all worked out.
6) Avoid spending money on food by going to every party I can and filling up on miniature quiches and crackers with goat cheese.

The WIGI mixer had some lovely food; tasty little burgers, little potatoes with some stuff inside along with some other nummies which I can’t remember. Delicious. Best of all, it just kept coming and coming! Everytime I thought we had polished off the last of the goodies, some guy with a bowtie would bring out more trays of it.

Unfortunately, the bounty ended there. I simply did not wind up in enough locations with free food at the right times. Someone was always dragging me off to breakfast, lunch or dinner where I had to pay myself. Lame. My pal Jose got me into the Speaker’s party, and I did have some snacks there, but we had just come from dinner and there was a monstrous crowd around the food table. We then went to Three Rings’ party where I did enjoy some tasty cheese and bread as well as some other noshes, but I still just wasn’t that hungry. Note to self: Parties instead of dinner plans!
7) NO Red Bull!

The worst I did on the caffeine level was an iced mocha and a frappaccino on the same day. But I had barely slept the night before, so I needed it just to get through. I did avoid the Red Bull system shock though.
Only take home free schwag that I actually want.

I killed on the schwag this year. Seriously. I brought home one piece of maybe junk — it is a little squigey-like thing for cleaning dust off your monitor. And I did get plied with a Disney Online shirt I wasn’t too into — until I got it home and realized that it’s a girl-style shirt and fits me great and is really soft and a cool color. But I also got the best schwag I have ever gotten at GDC. Two free games, one is an Indie game that I’ll have to play and review here since the guy gave it to me for free. The other one is called Lost Odyssey and is an RPG for the 360 which I was dubious about at first but which has really caught my attention. I also got a 2GB key-chain drive with a 30 day trial of Eve Online on it (maybe that counts as three games?). And speaking of key-chains, I got one of those adorable Wiimote flashlight key-chains that I so coveted last year. I also took away a few nice pens. I’ll always take pens, especially if they seem half-way decent. So I would call this year total success on the schwag front.
9) Play more than 2 games at the IGF booth.

Failure.  Maybe some day I’ll learn to actually go to the IGF area and play games on the first day of the conference when I am fresh and excited, and not the last day when I am worn out and just want to crawl in a hole and sleep for a year.  The only one I put hands on was The Path, and then I got stuck early in the game and felt rather silly getting angry at my gothy girl for not ceasing her patty-caking with this girl she found on the side of the road.  I couldn’t get her to leave her new friend.  I’m still not sure if this was a bug or part of the game, but I was very self-conscious of my desperately pressing every single button while onlookers looked on.  It seems like the kind of game I’d want to play in the privacy of my own home, anyway (tho looking at the site just now it seems I can’t yet).  It’s lush engrossing quality seemed terribly diminished by the noisy clamor of the expo show floor.

10) Meet lots of great people, have lots of fun conversations, go to some great talks, and walk away completely inspired and exhausted. (Gotta have at least one I know I can accomplish in order boost my confidence for attaining the rest).

Yeah, this was a gimme.  We all knew it. I had an extremely fun time indulging in my game-industry geekery.  Although I miss the days when the conference was in San Jose, it being in SF this time did make it pretty easy for me to go out there then come home to the baby at night.  I’ll probably never be able to be my party-hopping hard-drinking game-smack-talking self again.  But maybe that’s for the best.

Here are my goals for GDC this year:

1) Post a little each day.

2) Post pictures before GDC next year (I still have some awesome ones from last year I haven’t shown you).

3) Avoid tripping over incredibly stylish interior design elements at 3 Rings’ offices, falling on my face and spilling my drink everywhere.
4) Stand in any given line for no longer than 10 minutes.

5) If I get stuck in some stupid “overflow” room without audio for the Game Developer’s Choice Awards, leave.

6) Avoid spending money on food by going to every party I can and filling up on miniature quiches and crackers with goat cheese.

7) NO Red Bull!

Only take home free schwag that I actually want.

9) Play more than 2 games at the IGF booth.

10) Meet lots of great people, have lots of fun conversations, go to some great talks, and walk away completely inspired and exhausted. (Gotta have at least one I know I can accomplish in order boost my confidence for attaining the rest).