Did Jason EVER post the recording of the table?

What a great article! I don't know that words could ever accurately depict what it's like to sit behind one of those tables, but I think you came damn close.

I have ended up behind the table on multiple occasions, hawking copies of Commodork and Invading Spaces. Usually I'm at video game conventions, where people are there to buy, sell, and play video games. When 80% of the people would walk up to me and realize I'm selling books, you could literally see the smile fall from their face. Sometimes they would say "books", but in the same tone one would say "blech". Some of those stand around and listen to your spiel because they're polite. Others nod, try to break eye contact, and keep walking.

Then there's the 10% that are the odd birds that no one else will talk to. Those are the hardest to get rid of, because my one socially acceptable escape -- walking away -- has been removed from the equation. It's not like you can throw out, "Well, I'm going to scoot over to the other side of the table now ..." You're pretty much a captive audience. I once got cornered buy a guy who had been dreaming to write a book about fly fishing, and said he would buy a copy of my book in exchange for information on how I wrote and self-published my first book.

But finally there's the 10% that make the writing and the shows and everything else worthwhile -- guys that were into old computers or old arcade games, and I've just provided the ice breaker. Most of them are male, and my age or older (I often lament about my groupies; I wish I had written about something hot chicks are into). But man, it's awesome when their eyes light up and they say, "Oh, MAN, I used to have one of THESE!" And then it begins. The OVGE show is particularly great because I usually take my C64 and have lots of games on hand, so when people say, "Man I used play GAME X," while we're talking I'll dig it out and blow their mind.

And sometimes I tell those guys stories, and sometimes they tell me stories, but it's always a good time. Unlike the crowd of people you described waiting around to meet Jason, there's typically not a long line of people waiting around to meet me, so I have plenty of time for each person. We'll swap stories for five or ten minutes, they'll buy a book or not, and then move on just about the time someone else comes wandering up and the process starts all over again.

It's both physically and mentally draining, but you're right, it does kind of feel like being a rock star.

I can't remember if I posted a link to this somewhere on this BBS or not. This is going to make me seem like a colossal prick if I did, but whatever search term I used isn't picking it up. Anyway, here is an article I wrote for the e-zine SPAG about PAX East, Boston 2010.

http://www.sparkynet.com/spag/backissue ... html#story

(And it should be noted that a lot of text gamers are descending on Boston for PAX East 2011 as well!)

I'd love to see your own work and more of those crazy collaborations you used to do.

I just want to go on record, albeit a bit late, that it was very cool meeting Robb, Roody & Worm. Thanks for letting the old guy hang out and such.

Of course, just as I was pumped for IF again and had all crazy plans to do stuff, the storm of the century+ hits southern New England and my office, neatly located in a no-flood zone, became a floating workplace. And, water in my basement wasn't fun either.

But, there will be IF produced this year, damn it. I will just need a little bit of help... ;)

-- Mike

It also might be a good idea to link to PLANET IF, which is like Planet Hollywood, except it serves up text game blog posts rather than nine dollar Buds, and I don't get depressed walking into Planet IF:

http://planet-if.com/

Parts 3 & 4 from Paul O'Brian:

http://paulobrian.livejournal.com/25914.html
http://paulobrian.livejournal.com/26345.html

Here's the official page for Roody's thoughts, blog style:

http://www.joltcountry.com/index.php/fe ... ody-yogurt

And Zarf is also working on something. I'll post a link here when he releases it.

Bruce, if pissing on people's cheerios was being a jackass...well, okay, it probably is being a jackass.

ICJ, I've already been outed by Jenni as the kind of person who shows a picture of a robot unicorn performing auto-fellatio to a perfectly nice near-stranger, so I might as well add violence to my list of crimes.

I've actually lurked here for a while, but now the gloves are off. Unless we're going to box, in which case I'll put them back on.

I did want to also say that everyone missed you. I hope we can do another one of these things with you there at some point, my friend.

Wow! It's like a RAIF-non-jackasses reunion around here.

Me excepted, of course.

Bruce

klembot wrote:Busted! I have to end my epic career of lurking JC now that I've been called out by Roody. (This is Chris Klimas.) It was great saying hi to everyone at the suite, even though I've been out of the IF scene for a long long time. It was kinda hilarious to be all, "Hey, remember that game you made like ten years ago? Man, I dug that" to a couple people. And it was really cool to see that some people still remembered my games. I ended up writing up my own PAX experience over here... the IF bit was definitely the high point.

One of my biggest disappointments actually was not meeting Robb -- I think he was flogging his wares in the convention center when I was at the suite. Too bad. Remember Chicks Dig Jerks? Man, I dug that.

Yeah, I was pissed - for whatever reason, I didn't see your name on the lists and wiki pages going around, so I didn't know to look for you. Roody mentioned that you were there when I talked to him on Monday and I was mad, as I would have made sure to go back to the suite. Frustrating! But it seems more and more likely that another IF Gathering is going to happen at some point in the future. I could have used an entire week for everything that went on, especially with a video game con in the background.

I'm glad you had a good time!

sgranade wrote:Man, I had no idea I was so angry all the time. I shall have to crush you all.

This is the best first-post on here I can remember. Usually it takes a while before someone (rightfully) wants to punch the people here in the throat. Welcome!

RobB's a guest star! I need you to autograph my JC comics now.

Seriously, way cool!

THE
SAG MEMBER
AARDVARK

Man, I had no idea I was so angry all the time.

I shall have to crush you all.

Busted! I have to end my epic career of lurking JC now that I've been called out by Roody. (This is Chris Klimas.) It was great saying hi to everyone at the suite, even though I've been out of the IF scene for a long long time. It was kinda hilarious to be all, "Hey, remember that game you made like ten years ago? Man, I dug that" to a couple people. And it was really cool to see that some people still remembered my games. I ended up writing up my own PAX experience over here... the IF bit was definitely the high point.

One of my biggest disappointments actually was not meeting Robb -- I think he was flogging his wares in the convention center when I was at the suite. Too bad. Remember Chicks Dig Jerks? Man, I dug that.

I was going to write my thoughts on my lj, but hey, I haven't updated that thing in like two years- why start now?

First off, these days, I'm kind of surprised when I meet people that I haven't met before and find it especially enjoyable (I dunno, I'm fatalistic enough that I just get to a point where I figure I've met everyone I need to meet so far). I could list everyone I enjoyed talking to, but for fear of leaving anyone out, I'll just give a special shout out to Mike Sousa, Worm, Chris Klimas, and Paul O'Brien since they are the most likely to read this.

I was very impressed with the quality of panels we had over the entire weekend. I was a little worried going into Robb's panel that, being the one where people unfamiliar with the medium would go to, it would be the most watered-down talk of the weekend. Instead, it was quite the nice talk about various aspects of IF, and unsurprisingly, Robb delivered many of the funniest lines.

We had a panel the next day in the IF Suite about "IF Outreach"- promoting IF to new people. I was impressed with the caliber of the panelists. One guy was an AV Club writer for The Onion and another did stuff for jayisgames. It was great getting outside-the-community perspective from people who still appreciated the format.

The last talk on "adaptive difficulty" was good, too, but I'd like to chew on it some more before I really say much about it.

"Get Lamp" was good fun (and gave me my chance to finally thank Lebling personally for The Lurking Horror).

I think the weekend did a great job at showing new people that, yes, there is a community bundled with this gaming interest (which, sure, everyone knows but there's just something about being crammed into a room full of people you've only known virtually). For us older people, many of whom are not as excited as we were when we found IF on the internet 10+ years ago, it was a great reminder that there are still new frontiers to be discovered in IF and that more progress and innovation are still ahead of us.

I know of at least three IF authors who haven't written anything in years that have either already started coding something new or intend to, and I'm sure there are several more.

Near the end of the weekend, I was once again reminded that some of the recent IF games most mentioned aren't similar in scope to the games I intend to write (I aim to continue writing games that are somewhat old-school, in at least limits-of-implementation and keeping-wordage-on-the-less-verbose-side aspects if not actual old-school puzzles), but the weekend was effective in making me rethink some scenes in the game I want to write (and I think it will be better for those changes).

Also, I have to admit, watching people code in Inform 7 is pretty even if I intend to stick with Hugo. Just the same, seeing that in person helps contribute to the whole "brave new world" feel.

All in all, the various game design talks were great, but just because I personally didn't get into work-in-progress game mechanic discussions, I have found myself wanting another IF meet-up for authors where we concentrate on more on the applicable than the theoretical. Some other people feel the same way; we'll see if it happens.

This thread is really making me want to write an IF game.

Hey! This whole thread is Awesome!

You think this is over?? This isn't over, Ukilicoz!

http://inventory.getlamp.com/2010/03/31 ... e-success/

http://paulobrian.livejournal.com/25752.html

http://nickm.com/post/2010/04/pax-blurb/

http://selfasfractal.blogspot.com/2010/04/pax-east.html

http://emshort.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/more-post-pax/

Emily's has links to even MORE articles. This is what you get when you hold a convention for people who like to write. You get articles about the con- more?? Did you ask for more?

Everyone thinks Granade is angry all the time, but that's because he hosts the IF Comp and more apropos to our sentence here, the last 10 games each year of the IF Comp. He's not angry, quit projecting! He's a survivor - of PAX East!

http://granades.com/2010/03/31/i-survived-pax-east/

Gonna try to use this thread to keep track of PAX East blog posts I liked. Here's one from Paul O'Brian about life in the IF suite:

http://paulobrian.livejournal.com/25435.html

And here is one from Jenny (Didnotcatchherlastname) with her notes from the panel I was on:

http://pissylittlesausages.wordpress.co ... nel-notes/

And a blog post from Aaron Reed:

http://lacunagame.blogspot.com/2010/03/ ... aways.html