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Thursday, March 9th

From Geoff Howland:

The 8 hour sessions continued the second day of the conference and my course of choice was Lee Sheldon's "Storyplaying in the New Millenium" which covered a lot of insightful information in dramatic story telling in game's and their effect on game design. He went through an introduction on using the tools of dramatic writing, then modular writing for games and finally their place in online environments, which he has been his focus in the past year.

The IGF booths were just starting to be set up today, but were already one of the main attractions of the show. They are placed directly in front of the expo floor (opens Friday) instead of inside it, as they were last year. I think this will bring a lot more attention to the games as they arent surrounded by giant 40 foot tall structures of various video and software manufacturers, and is also in the center of all foot traffic between the lectures.

Check for Dave Astle's commentary on the 3DFX party we attended tonight, as we're in total agreement on it.

As I had to attend to other business on Thursday, I'm only able to comment on the AMD/3Dfx Opening Night party. Having heard so much about GDC parties, and this being my virginal experience, I had high expectations, but was sadly disappointed. After having to wait in line to get in, I was met with a dark room, filled with nasty smelling smoke, topped with techo music pumping so loud I could barely hear Geoff standing next to me yelling. There was the usual free drinks and food, but I had been looking forward to a chance to meet some new people, but the party seemed designed to make that impossible. Two thumbs way, way down on this one.