Game Developers Conference
So last week I got to attend the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, and thanks again to Michiel for covering for me while I was off doing that.
While I was there I jotted down some notes for things that I thought my readers might be interested in.
1) I used to go to school in San Francisco shortly after I got out of the Army. And I used to walk everywhere I went. I figured it would be a piece of cake to do the same thing this time around.
Unfortunately my hotel was in the North end of the city, and the Conference was somewhere in Southern Baja, Mexico.
Also, it turns out that the past five years of grueling video game design did not keep me in as good shape as I might have hoped.
2) I got to watch people play the new Guitar Hero: Metallica game. I could have probably had a turn, but I didn’t want to wait in the line. I figure I’ve already played GH, adding Metallica won’t change the way it plays. I am curious to know if you can use downloadable content with it, or if the band will sue you if you try.
3) Flragle!!! I don’t know what this means, but it was in my notes. I may have been drunk when I wrote that. I added several exclamation points, so whatever it was, I clearly felt very strongly about it.
4) My hotel had high speed wireless internet. They didn’t even have a password, so they were providing wireless service to pretty much an entire densely packed city block. The connection was so slow that you might as well have been shouting ones and zeros down two cans and a string.
5) I am developing a pet peeve about fat people that stop walking in the middle of a choke point. It’s not that I have anything against people of size, god knows I’m wearing a few more pounds than I’d like. People come in all shapes and sizes and that’s fine.
It’s just that the whole week I was in San Francisco I kept finding myself trapped. I’m approaching a narrow pathway, which is the only way to get to where I’m going when BAM! A large person stops moving right in the middle of it, deciding that this is the ideal spot to catch their breath, make a phone call, and contemplate the divinity of pie.
6) I’ve decided that Flragle!!! is some kind of Lovecraftian muppet. An eldritch being of darkness and sponge foam.
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April 1st, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Kinda like an evil Fraggle Rock character?
Captcha: G.M riders–what the CEO of GM found out about when they didn’t start getting their sh!t straight.
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April 2nd, 2009 at 2:44 am
quite possibly flragle is the key word in which will eventually be the downfall of humanity. the word trigger that turns a normal person into an abnormal, zombified, homicidal maniac.
in reference to fat people in doorways. i completely agree. i hate waiting in line to begin with. to have some jackass stop and block me from going forward usually gets a deathglare, if they stand there for more than 2 seconds, usually something mean like “move it tubby/lunchbox/rosie/oprah” except not as polite comes out my mouth. 5 seconds and me (not being skinny) and whatever i am carrying get a bunch of forward momentum, and generally plow through them.
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David reply on April 2nd, 2009 9:17 am:
And then tubby picks that moment to float an air biscuit.
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April 2nd, 2009 at 3:56 am
Move… move… move… MOVE MOVE MOVE!!!!
At that point I usually go blind with rage.
(Actually I usually just make a sarcastic comment. “No, no, no I have nowhere to be. You just stand there as long as you want and we will all wait for you.”)
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April 2nd, 2009 at 4:13 am
In addition to tubbos stopping, people who walk slowly but managed to stay directly in front of me suck. I’m skinny and I move fast. If there’s a gap I can squeeze through it. But if there’s a crowd, get moving or get out of the fucking way! On the plus side, fat people will rule come Z day. The rest of us can outrun them, so the zombies will get them first, and we can all outrun lardy zombies.
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ineedhelpbad reply on April 2nd, 2009 5:05 am:
Not if Humpty Dumpty is standing in front of the only exit (and you know they will). “No, no, no, take your time its not like there is a zombie gnawing on my leg.”
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steelcobra reply on April 2nd, 2009 7:18 am:
You’re ignoring the bigger problem though – they’ll become Boomers.
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StoneWolf reply on April 2nd, 2009 11:53 am:
Dear god! That’s where they come from. As of this moment I feel we must declare Jihad on lardo’s, in preperation for the comming Z-Day!
Captcha: Dept. painful-Insert US Government here.
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David reply on April 2nd, 2009 9:32 am:
I’m not particularly skinny, but I do walk fast. Briskly, as they’d say in England. So here I’m popping along at a good clip walking across the parking lot and BAM right in front the door (chokepoint) some doughball gets out of her car and starts hobbling up to the automatic doors. I jink left, she staggers left, I jink right, she staggers right. Now we’re in the entryway (extended chokepoint) and she decides to hobble right down the middle leaving me with no choice but to hold up and take my own sweet time along with her. Until we’re past the chokepoint, and I smile and say “good morning” as I pick back up to full speed and turn a corner around her to go off in a different direction.
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April 2nd, 2009 at 5:18 am
3. Flragle! – probably a cheat code for GH Metallica.
5. I think there’s a choke point gene in the greater population, but you don’t notice it until rotund ones fall under its influence. I took the escalator down to a DC Metro station a few years back behind about 100 Boy Scouts. They all stopped at the bottom to brush the hay out of their hair and caused a pile up straight out of a Marx brothers’ movie.
I just noticed: 3,5, the punchline from an old joke – 3, 5, 3, 5, 3, 5…
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Minty reply on April 2nd, 2009 9:44 am:
And that joke is?
Captcha: “all Hellman” be advised, the Circle 3 portal to Earth is temporarily out of service due to blockage.
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Podmunki reply on April 2nd, 2009 11:38 pm:
Minty, the joke goes thus:
Jimmy goes into a coma when he was 3 and wakes up when he is about 13. His mom and dad take him home and start the arduous journey of teaching him every thing. It gets to the point of using the bathroom and he kinda looks confused, so his dad takes him into the bathroom and tells him there are six things:
1-stand in front of the toilet
2-pull down your zipper
3-pull out your junk
4-pee into the toilet
5-put your junk back inside your pants
and
6-pull up your zipper and flush
Jimmy says ok and Dad leaves. Dad stays out in the hallway and listens to his son go through the numbers of the list: 1…….2……3……4……5…..3…..5……3….5
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Minty reply on April 3rd, 2009 9:23 am:
Well, he was thirteen. . .
April 2nd, 2009 at 6:17 am
In re: fat people at choke points. Here in the Boston area, the city buses all have a choke point by the rear door, about half-way along the length of the bus. Some moron invariably chooses to wedge there like a sponge in a toilet, blocking off the entire back section of seats. There they stand, empty seats behind them, the population crush of a Tokyo subway in the aisle in front of them, a bovine expression on their faces. I am not above whacking them with my briefcase to get them to move.
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David reply on April 2nd, 2009 9:34 am:
Its frustrating because in a lot of games you can just walk right through people unless you choose to talk to them or get aggro. Well, I don’t want to talk and I don’t want to fight so why do I have to be impeded by these cattle?
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April 2nd, 2009 at 8:21 am
Yes, yes. One of many reasons to allow the open carry of broad swords!
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Grayson reply on April 2nd, 2009 12:05 pm:
Amen to that, brother.
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April 2nd, 2009 at 9:07 am
Flragle!!!! – maybe a missing part of the prayers to Cthulhu?
Fat people choke points, yes, they WILL become boomers come Z-day, but then you get something that slows up the flow of zombies coming towards you that also handily explodes. Fat people will be our greatest weapon come Z-day (actually probably not greatest, cause chainsawas and shotguns take that, but they will help us reclaim the cities, at least, until they all halt outside krispy kreme and remember shit from before they were zombies)
Here’s a thought, If zombies have an ultra low nonexistant metabolism how come they still need to eat?
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David reply on April 2nd, 2009 9:39 am:
Even more troubling:
If zombies don’t NEED to eat, they’re dead, they have no metabolism, they have no need for digestion, then what becomes of the matter that they do consume?
If a zombie consumes 2 pounds of brains, for example, shouldn’t they shart out at least 1.8 pounds of brains? Shouldn’t zombies be killing each other for brains, and shart-brains?
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Stickfodder reply on April 2nd, 2009 12:25 pm:
The zombie survival guide covers that I think (it may have been world war Z it’s been a while since I read them). It winds up that in the end it comes out their end. Forced out by all the other flesh and body matter they have eaten. And in some cases it just burst out their stomachs.
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April 2nd, 2009 at 10:56 am
I can never understand why so many fat people think that while they can cause a jam in a choke point, that they have an excuse for not slipping through some spots. Now, being of a larger size myself, (not obese or anything, just a “muffin top” whatever the hell that is) I am able to slip through these spaces perfectly fine, and here is why. Fat is fluid, it can move, and it doesn’t stick to your skeleton very well. If a normal person can get through, and you can get your arms through, you can move the rest through like one big flabby balloon.
captcha: Goritz calling, he wants his time back.
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April 2nd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Now, see, we don’t have that issue at school. We have groups of people that stand so close together, that it’s roughly the equivalent.
Right in the middle of the hallway.
When people want to GO HOME.
I’ve gotten to the point where I will say “Excuse me” once. If you don’t hear me or don’t react, you are going to get pushed. I’m a short girl (roughly 5’4″) but you WILL notice me pushing you out of my way.
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David B reply on March 20th, 2014 9:33 pm:
Do you go to Fondy High?
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April 2nd, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Mayble Flragle is name of the second game you make that will made and mass produced. Second of course because coming first would be;
Shpadoinkle: adventures with the Microsoft Dancing Paperclip
It will be
Flragle!: and the Zombie Microsoft Dancing Paperclip
Captcha: Frostburg Prospect- ah yes Frostburg….It was a cold and dark map for CnC: Red Alert 3.
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April 2nd, 2009 at 8:03 pm
One of my former co-workers is about as round as he is tall, and we nicknamed him “Bob The Building.” Come Christmas, we bought him a T-shirt that said “I BEAT ANOREXIA!”
The shirt was a size-4X… and it was too small.
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April 4th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Me if a fat person stops in a choke point in front of me they had better be dieing because im comeing through.
NO warning they are just going to get pushed out of the way.Im usely in to mucha of a hurry to have the patince to deal with them.
Yeah i know im a a**hole
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