Independent Gamer Festival

I had a goal at work to join some organization and meet other people. Well today I made some progress. After lunch, I followed my GPS and ended up going in a circle. So I got myself a large Coke at McDonalds, then pressed on. The GPS then took me on the highway. Lots of traffic. That was strange seeing as how it is the weekend.

Got down into a city south of me. There was a lot of construction with multiple lanes closed. Downtown was crowded with people and slow moving cars. I tried to find the public library where a game developers demo was going on. Passed the library at least once. Then I circled around and got into a parking garage. The garage was full on many levels. I did find a space. Luckily it was free parking on the weekend.

I knew I was at the right place when I heard a live band playing in the hall (they said there would be live music). The library was on the third floor of a high rise building. There were tables and lots of kids playing video games. I made a beeline to a guy standing in the corner. He was a developer. His game was like Guitar Hero on the PC. At first I was confused, as the keys I pressed did not seem to affect the spaceship above. Apparently I had to concentrate on the symbol on the bottom of the screen.

Next I headed to the center of the room. A lone board game developer was there. He and I played his board game. There were cards for my people. I got some money and food to start. The basic mechanics of the game were like Uno. The most interesting part of the game was when you played one card from your hand, you would temporarily draw for a special deck and ask you opponent the question on it. The opponent got to earn points for that. The questions were geared toward teaching you conflict resolution in life.

After playing a long board game, I checked the other stations. Still a lot of kids playing video games. I decided to hit the road and return home to work on building my trash bin enclosure.