Show me your moves!

~Warning~ Most of this is a geek post!

GDC was as fun as snail pie (which is fun)! First, I'll mention what mom saw on the news. There's a new little headset thing that lets you play games with thoughts AND your facial expressions. The one I played was by Emotiv, but I was told there was another one. Anyway, I played a demo where you do things like lift rocks by imagining the rock lifting, repairing a bridge the same way, and eventually conquering a challenging of lifting a mountain. Some people found it challenging, but I RULED. It was very empowering, lifting a mountain with my mind. The demo seemed a little rough around the edges, but it is currently scheduled for Christmas, so I'm sure there will be a lot of hype then.

There was several technology things on display, like motion sensors and new kinds of input. Sony had a thing that could scan parts of a tank you drew on paper and put the tank in a playable game. My favorite games were the independent ones, because they are allowed to do more innovative stuff. Some were featured in the Indepdent Games Festival, including a Digipen one that won best student game. There was also some good ones part of the XNA Community, only featured on XBox Live. They are made with XNA though, which means any ol goober can have a game on XBox Live.

By the way, I was a volunteer at the conference so that I got a free $2000 all access ticket (still had to pay for travel and lodging) for 15 hours of work. The downsides are waking up at 7am everday, not having as much time to look at all the cool stuff and setting up job contacts, and putting up with a bunch of childish weirdos. It was RA-style silliness, where you don't mind the work and even do a little extra, but they treat everyone like kids. Not my thing. But still, completely worth it, and I will probably do it again next year. Just a note, there were a lot of lectures on how to make good music scores and audio stuff too, so if anyone wanted to do this, it'd be worth it for them too (BWILEY).

I was in a Smash Brothers Brawl tournament! I was in the top six out of 160 enthusiastic Brawl fans. It was just a fun tournament, so items and goofy levels were on, but still, it was great to experience the game so early. By the way, the game is a ton of fun to watch! Everyone was going crazy! In the first tournament bracket, I played as Ness, because I assumed he'd be a crowd favorite, and I was right. I got a huge rush out of beating people with hundreds of people cheering "KELROY!" Seriously, I'm not sure if I'll be able to play anymore without an audience. In the final bracket, I chose Zelda, because I win more with her. I was one fight away from the final game, and at first I was winning hard, but then a person I beat in the previous round starting heckling me. People told him to shutup, but he did not. It messed me up because I got a little madder than I should have. I still enjoyed myself a lot, but it is too bad that people like that exist. Anyway, a friend of mine won, so it was still celebratory.

Those were the highlights! I will probably have more to say next time, and maybe pictures and videos.