Spit ‘n’ Polish: GameX

So this thing happened to me over the weekend. Here are some of the highlights.

• Yes, that’s me with Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation and Paul & Graham of Unskippable over at The Escapist. If you think that Yahtzee is unapproachable or caustic because of his yellow-background minimalist Internet persona, you’re a moron. Paul & Graham are very cool guys who appreciated clever wordplay. I didn’t spend nearly enough time with them for my taste, but I also was trying not to be a pest.
• I also got the chance to meet the wonderful Susan Arendt and Russ Pitts who run a good deal of the show over at the Escapist. Susan, like the wonderful Amanda D’adesky, herds cats like a badass and deserves a very long break after this hectic weekend. On advice from Russ, I will try to be about 25% less clever than I usually am. It’s never good to be more clever than your editor. Also, they love kittens.
• I ran demos of D&D 4th edition for Machine Age Productions and they went well. As the weekend wore on I stripped out more and more of the ancillary stuff I had added. The Saw-inspired Flash intro was cool and all, but it was a convention full of very loud noises and even louder off-key rhythm-deficient screeching Rock Band singers, so the effect was sort of lost. Still, folks seemed to have fun. That or they were just amused by my spastic flailing about as I described the damage they did to the zombies they fought.
• Speaking of Machine Age, Machine Zeit is a fantastically atmospheric and very free-form game that you will enjoy if you like science fiction, horror, mystery or just plain having a good time.
• Finally met Chuck Wendig in person, speaking of cleverness.
• Met all sorts of people and I’d love to name them all but I’m running out of time before returning to the rather mundane day job I’m currently holding.

Things will continue to change around here. See that new logo? I did that. I started this weekend with 23 home-made business cards bearing that logo and info to bring people here. I ended with 2.

If that’s not a success, I don’t know what is.