- Earlier this evening was the second NY/NJ IGDA Demo Night (dubbed “Demo or Die”) and it was pretty hectic affair, especially for myself since I was doing literally seven things at once.
In addition to seeing some offerings from local game developers, it was a chance to touch base with fellow “Gamoids” such as David Allen and Bill Folsom regarding a new website for the NY chapter which I have been given the duty of administering. So I finally got the chance to speak with IGDA’s Executive Director, Jason Della Rocca, who’s going to set me up with everything that I’ll need for the task.
Also spoke with Eric Zimmerman, not only in regards to IGDA business, but to set a date for an interview I’ll be conducting on the behalf Gamasutra.com. Plus, my entire game design class was in attendance as part of a class field trip; I figured it would be an excellent chance for them to get some up close exposure to the local game development. Like a retard, I waited till the last minute to let the folks at Large Animal Games, which is where the event was taking place, that I was brining seven additional folks. But Wade and Coray from Large Animal was able to accommodate them, cuz they’re cool like that.
And of course, there was the general smoozing that comes with any IGDA event.
Anyway, the games: there were six demonstrations in total, three for the web, on cell phone based game, and two Xbox titles. It was nice to see the new gameLab game, Diner Dash in action, but perhaps the breakout game of the night was Zam BeeZee the first game from a young outfit, Blackburst Media. A sign of a successful puzzle game is not just when everyone gets the concept by just looking at it for five seconds (hearing directions really wasn’t necessary) but when folks are shouting their answers like they can’t help themselves.
But the real surprise of the night was the appearance of Tim Schafer’s Psychonauts (the game is being released by Majesco which is located in beautiful Edison, New Jersey), a game which I, along with many other fans of his previous work (Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango) have been dying to see the light of day (and as well all know, it came dangerously close to never happening). But the main reason why I’ve wanted to see this game is… and I know this going to sound like total bullshit, but… I once had a game concept that was extremely similar that I proposed to Ubi Soft back in the day.
Unfortunately we didn’t get to see too much meaty stuff in action, just the game’s beginning and a few bits and pieces of the game’s core concepts at work. It would have been nice to see some highlights cued up, but oh well… everyone was still mightily impressed. And the whole evening was a success, and even tops Demo Night I. Plus I think my class had a blast.
- In other news, MK current topic of research is robots (awesome), so this morning I got to share with her the time I went to a robot show at Eyebeam a while back and got totally fooled into thinking that the Sico was a real deal, totally independent, free-thinking robot. I even convinced my editor at Nickelodeon that it would be a great idea to interview him.
What I should have done once I found out that it wasn’t for real was suggest the crazy hacker lady from MIT who knew how to convert every robot dog on the market into feral, killing machines.
So MK told me about AIBO day at the SonyStyle next month, which we’ll definitely be checking out. And then this afternoon I discovered this: the TERA, a.k.a., the cutest robot on earth.
Then, I came across this: the trailer for the new live action Tesujin 28!
I love how freaking realistic it looks! But the best part is how the robots still lumber around and fight like dudes in goofy outfits.
And finally, as mentioned before, I’m going to be appearing at ICON to talk about… Superman and Batman? Nope. Video games of course. No confirmation on my schedule of panels, but they have created a nifty page featuring the only picture of myself that I truly like.
