I’m so pleased to be included in this. My submission for A Torn Page stands alone, but I think it will eventually be part of a loose collection of myth-related short fiction that I’ve been working on. (The first, The Age of All-Nighters was in In The Snake’s October 2011 issue)
My sister came down from Boston to crash with me for a couple nights, while she visited the labs at NYU and met more professors and researchers. She had a lot to do in a short visit, but she had time to meet up with Harold and me for dinner one night.
“NYU?” Harold said, as she told him the reasons for her trip. “A good many of Spiderman’s villains got their start in the science labs at NYU. “
Coverage from the Flash Gaming Summit over at Indie Game Magazine:
At the Flash Gaming Summit, a one-day conference on the edge of GDC, Kixeye founders David Scott and Paul Preece discussed how to succeed as an indie dev in their talk ”It’s A Long Way To The Top…If You Want To Be An Indie Flash Dev”. Fortunately, the advice given isn’t “have rich friends” or “plagiarize popular games”, as Paul and David look back on their “pitiful” revenue and give their past selves advice on game development.
Friday afternoon at GDC, I went to hear Josh DeBonis from Sortasoft talk about Designing In Parallel, his process of working on two games with a similar theme simultaneously. Since not every idea can be used in every game, even though that element might be excellent in itself, this way one can move good elements into another creatively interconnected project. I like this synergy better than the editing directive to kill one’s darlings, or the novice error of trying to create the One True Game, a massive enterprise encompassing every concept, character, mechanic and clever bit of dialogue the freshman designer has ever enjoyed. A really worthwhile talk on harnessing creativity.
I became interested in this session because I reviewed Sortsoft’s Funky Farm 2 several years ago. This was actually my very first review copy, thanks entirely to Josh’s kindness. It was a fun game to play, and I remember being quite proud of the review, even though it’s sometimes awkward now to reread my old work and see how proudly I “discovered” really basic gameplay concepts and how clumsily I related that to readers.
Two MMO designers are looking for a post-GDC dinner.
“I thought there would be a sushi place around here.” one of them says.
“Yeah, me too — you’d expect one in a city like this,”
“Weird. Let’s email the mayor, and tell him he’s the worst mayor of all time for not forcing sushi chefs to set up right here.”
“Then let’s post on every sushi-related forum we can find!”
“And say we’re uninstalling San Fransisco RIGHT NOW!”
Today’s press pass picture.
Yesterday, a player wrote on the forums to tell me that every thing under my control is great, that they enjoyed solving my puzzles, had an emotional reaction to my story, and actually liked the content.
Hey Meg, After the slight stutter start this morning (which I can’t say didn’t benefit me in some strange fashion), I have to say I think the storytelling you’ve introduced today has to be some of the best story content I’ve seen on any planet so far. I’ve been wondering what you meant by “special” for these last few months and I had a BLAST figuring out the little puzzles (the last one was my favorite and I got it on the first try). It all felt very serendipitous and sneaky and explained some questions that had been nagging at me.
Thank you.
Seriously, thank you.
Monday morning, I went to the GDC press room to check in. I always think I’ve gotten a press invite as a mistake, so when there was some difficulty finding my name on the press list, I was absolutely sure of it. Clearly, the GDC organizers had offered me the pass before they’d figured out that I’m not terribly insightful, that I make desperately bad tech trend predictions, that I am biased towards any game that involves a desert island, and that I have to check affect and effect every time I write one of them.
At that point, I ran into Paul Philleo, a freakishly well-connected journo friend. He’s has been a great source of journalistic advice on everything from how to pitch stories to how to cadge drinks at conferences. Also he knows where the parties are. And who everyone in the room is.
Oh, yeah, the organizers found my name in a couple minutes. So I guess the entire world isn’t really laughing behind their hands at my lack of talent.
(This time.)
Harold’s been offered a job out of NYC and we were at a coffeeshop midway between our apartments, talking about it — Oh, sorry! I might not have expressly stated that where Harold lives and works has a direct impact on my happiness. It does! Harold is the best! I can even overlook that he’s southern, and I sort of hate the south.*
So, after that conversation, I walked back to my apartment, which was a nothing-special place to sleep and keep my clothes before the thought of leaving the city had entered my mind.
I liked walking back. I like walking instead of driving, I like the rundown brownstones and the late-night bike traffic in Bed-Stuy. I like the bodega next to my house, I like the hipster coffeeshop by the train stop, and the other hipster coffeeshop by the other train stop.
I like the subway. I know I’m not supposed to, but I love that my commute is reading my Kindle on the G train, and not trying to merge and park and deal with traffic. I love that my commute is into Manhattan, which we all know is the center of the world.
I like that doing my laundry involves dropping off a bag of dirty laundry and coming back the next day to get a back of folded, Tide-scented clothes. It’s magic, I’m never out of detergent and I never forget about clothes in the dryer.
Sometimes I tell Harold how much I love the subways and laundromats, and when he is done looking at me like I’m insane, he tries to tell me Chapel Hill doesn’t smell like pee and or have rats crawling around, and I could probably adjust to that, too, given time and encouragement.
Southerners, man. I don’t understand them.
*Please disregard the “sort of” in this sentence.
