Oklahoma Video Game Expo (OVGE)

[Tdarcos]

I am gonna fly into Oklahoma City Friday night and drive up with Flack to the show, which is on Saturday. Sunday I am either gonna fly back to Denver, or I am gonna rent a truck and leave

Uh be careful, That's what got Timothy McVeigh into trouble, he rented a truck then left it in Oklahoma City.

...especially the Chairs...

[Flack]

It is very appropriate Rob as an actual DK upright is scheduled to be a part of the OVGE arcade setup at this years event!

I've already posted the info about Robb and Rob on the website.

I didn't hear anything back, but I need to confirm that you saw the rider and will comply to all of Mr. Sherman's demands. The throne I spoke of is to be exactly 13'6" tall and should be plated in mithral. No one is to talk directly to Mr. Sherwin or even look at him. Anyone caught breaking this rule will be smashed with a barrel in a horribly realistic fashion. He likes his women like he likes his coffee (strong and bitter) and if there are any color of M&Ms other than green in the bowl expect him to go all Fukushima on the place.

Brought to you by, "this bit was funnier in my head than it ended up being in reality."

[Flack]

The show is Saturday, so wish us luck!

ICJ flies in tomorrow night, so wish me luck!

[AArdvark]

Pix to round out the drunk base would be greatly appreciated!

[Flack]

And you will have some!

The show was pretty awesome. Somehow I accidentally bought a giant pile of Apple hardware. I thought I was only buying an Apple IIgs but I actually bought a pile that included two Apple IIgs computers, two Apple IIe computers, about eight different Macintosh computers, a monitor, a printer, five or six keyboards, some mice, and a few other odds and ends. Ironically, this happened just a few hours after I relayed to ICJ the time I accidentally bought 300 keyboards. Oh, and the time I accidentally bought a bunch of computer monitors. I guess if you're going to have a problem, accidentally buying old hardware is an okay one to have.

At the table today we had seven computers (six and one iPad) up and running: a C64, and Apple IIc, a netbook running DOSBox, an Amiga 600, a portable TRS-80, the iPad (running Frotz), and my laptop. All of them were running text adventures, and almost unbelievably, during the majority of the day there were people playing text adventures on one or more machines, and on at least one occasion, there were people playing all six at the same time!

I was least surprised by the fact that our table was (a) greatly enjoyed by adults and (b) not greatly enjoyed by modern gamers, but I was completely surprised by the number of young kids that spent vast amounts of time at the table, trying to figure out these old games. Throughout the day we had a steady stream of kids ages, oh, probably 9 to 13 or so, who spent a good chunk of time playing these games. By the end of the day Zork (which was running on the TRS-80) was about 1/3 of the way through the game. No one person advanced it that far, it was just the culmination of people playing it throughout the day.

I gave away a couple of CDs full of text adventures and copied a ton of text adventures to dozen or so people's USB drives (I had advertised that if you brought a USB stick by, I would fill it up with text adventures).

I think ICJ had a good time. I would ask him but boy does that guy need his beauty sleep. I think I can already hear him snoring upstairs.

I'll post pictures and write up a more lengthy review tomorrow.

[Flack]

Boy, that Sherwin needs his beauty sleep. I think we (figuratively) wore his ass out. Here are the pictures I took from the show:

http://robohara.com/photo/index.php?alb ... FOVGE_2011

[Flack]

You know, before I was joking, but now I'm starting to suspect he may really be dead. I haven't heard a peep from upstairs all morning and I think I smell decomposition.

[bruce]

I smell decomposition.

We prefer to call it "Necrotic Drift."

Bruce

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I left my BASIC Programming cartridge at Flack's place (it'd be in the blue plastic tub, I think?) and I left my goddamn Kindle on the airplane. I need a moment to process these two horrible things, and then I can speak about the trip properly.

[Flack]

If you send me your address, I will mail you the cart. And disregard all the stuff I said over the weekend about how I'm a terrible shipper and never ship things. I will definitely ship the cart.

As for the Kindle ... UGH. That's brutal. You would hope maybe a flight attendant would find it and turn it in but ... gah, I mean, even WWJD, you have to think Jesus would just keep it and read eBooks while sitting on a cloud next to streets of gold.

The only good thing about losing your Kindle is, whatever was the worst part of spending a weekend in Oklahoma just became the second worst thing.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I thought I'd be covered thanks to purchasing it via American Express, but that only covers you for 90 days. Nnngh!

Flack, I'll write you a mail and get your address so I can send you a SASE. I have to get to the post office, which is in walking distance here at work, and mail a plate I got my mother for Mother's Day. As an awful son, I need the extra pressure on me to get over there and mail stuff.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I am going to write about my efforts with the Amiga in this Caltrops thread, as Caltrops is dying: http://www.caltrops.com/pointy.php?acti ... pid=138730

I will probably throw my thoughts together about the OVGE on Caltrops as well, only because Caltrops is dying.

But yes, it was absolutely amazing to see so many kids enjoy themselves playing text games. They really saw the parser as a challenge to work with, rather than stuff that sucks to overcome because of how old some of the games were.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Not sure if this made it into either of our blog posts, but here's me and the BASIC Programming cart for the 2600. Thanks for taking the picture, Flack.

[bruce]

Not sure if this made it into either of our blog posts, but here's me and the BASIC Programming cart for the 2600. Thanks for taking the picture, Flack.

We can take that photo in my basement and you can take as long as you like programming, too. Yes, of course I have it. For real, not just emulated. And the keyboard controllers though I'm not sure they work, and no idea if I can still find the overlays.

Bruce