12:24 AM
GDC Day Two Report Begins Now:

(A little shorter today, hopefully; I need to get to sleep.)

Woke up too early again, grab a quick breakfast and made it downtown and into Harvey Smith's "Systemic Level Design for Emergent Gameplay" talk. I learned a lot about the way Ion Austin does their stuff, and I like it a lot; it's precisely tied into the kind of things JP and I have been discussing lately. When I get back, I need to email Harvey and get a copy of his Power Point presentation--hopefully this idea will start percolating through the masses (added bonus that will aid in this happening: Rowan came to the talk as well, and also agreed with the whole thing.)

Then, across the street to the main lecture hall for the one keynote I wanted to catch, a talk between Will Wright and Scott McCloud. The setup was pretty cool--a couple couches, a coffee table with their laptops, and enormous screens to the left and right of the stage--left showing Wright's desktop and the right McCloud's. Both made great use of visual aids, and their discussion evolved into an interesting theory on games and storytelling as a Sisyphan and futile attempt by humanity to control the flow of time. Then they opened it up to the floor, and the pseudo intellectuals came out of the woodwork and ruined the whole thing.

Lunch at exotic (no) Johnny Rockets, then next door to Waldebooks, where I picked up a book for the ride home. Then it was back to the expo hall to shake down the Epic crew for more technical details on the Unreal tech, and a couple meetings with folks varied and sundry.

Then, the Heads exploded across GDC to go to separate sessions. I went to the session I've been looking forward to the most since January, a talk on the AI Game by the lead designer on the project. Very illuminating and great fun, so much so that I don't want to undervalue it by trying to type about it here. Afterwards I got to sit down and talk to the designer, along with the lead writer for EA's now defunct Majestic, who happened by. Much enthusiastic talk by three like minds was shared; if I weren't happy at the Head, I now know exactly what I'd like to be working on...

Talking made me run late to meet Tim and Rowan, so I jogged through the rain back to the convention center. Along the way I called my folks and said good bye; they're going to Branson of all places, and I wanted to tell them I loved them before they were replaced by the Missouri Pod People.

Found Tim and Rowan, and we embarked on the Booth Crawl, an official event that is basically wandering through the exhibit hall, but many booths are handing out free beer. As I don't drink, I was free to concentrate on gathering the cool non-beer stuff being handed out. Best swag: PS2 plastic glass (a beer stein, but it's still kinda cool). Worst: another gMax pellet straw, and a T-shirt that somehow tries to connect the game industry and Maryland. I don't get it.

Leaving the exhibit hall, I noticed that the free T-shirt/survey line was only one person long. As I had discovered earlier in the day that there was no actual way to purchase a GDC shirt, I jumped in line. As Tim and Rowan were going to wait anyway, they did as well. We paid the price by filling out the survey, 72 mind-numbing questions and an electronic interface every bit as bad as I'd been told. But I now have the ticket that will get me my T-shirt tomorrow.

By then, it was already 9:00. It took us almost another 90 minutes to get dinner down the street at Original Joe's (classiest diner in the world, decor-wise; sadly, the personal service and great food also meant a lengthy dining experience, a bad thing for three hungry people.)
However, much good discussion was had, and I'm still in the stage where I'm convinced GDC inspiration will actually come back home with us. (The quiet cynic in the back of my mind keeps reminiding me of the odds of that, though.)

By then we were too tired to do anything but find the trolley and ride back here. Here is no longer exciting. It is a place to update this page for all of you, then go to sleep. I have done the former, and will now do the latter. Until tomorrow, friends.