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Given the fact that I didn’t have much in the way of editorial support, I had very few opportunities to attend the actual conferences which speckled the landscape of the GDC. Given the nature of IC, it seemed as though my attentions should be directed more towards the expo.
But I couldn’t resist the Programmer’s Challenge, as it came extremely highly recommended by all in attendance. The setup is rather like jeopardy or quizbowl. There are two teams , each populated by various recognizable individuals from the development community (Oddworld Inhabitants supplied two persons, for example). They choose from a category, but are not allowed to choose the dollar amount, because it ‘takes them too damned long’.
The thing took over an hour to start up, beginning with a room change, and reorganization of audio equipment. In fact one of the judges had to wire a new buzzer system out of stuff he found in the room, ripping the power supply from one of the monitors! Once it got underway, the hilarity ensued.
The first question was this:
You’ve just made a new racing game. What would make it better?
a) allow cars to run people down
b) (missed this one)
c) use the new X-men license you aquired
d) if you had any talent and/or a clue.
The answer was D, but hey surprise! The moderator/host had 'opened up the wrong app' and was reading from the Producer’s Challenge instead. Har har.
The game was indeed quite humorous (see the video), with judges even awarding style points to those who bashed their team. The first fifty points were awarded the team who brought beer for their own team, brandy for the judges and Canada Dry to the opposing team (because they thought it was all they could handle). Fifty points for outright bribery, not bad!
Sadly, given the fact that the event started an hour late we had to leave after the first round. At that point the teams were separated by only 25 points (with the total scores being into the 1300s), thus I’ve honestly no idea who won. So let’s say...team Cheetos. They seemed like nice guys.
After that it was off to the Nokia party. I would have stayed on till the end of the programmer’s challenge but...you don’t turn down the Finnish!
brandon sheffield
[next: Nokia Party]
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