Scenes from GDC

Introduction

They've sent me here and turned me loose. One day it's a discussion of sex in games, the next it's a Sony cheerleading session with Phil Harrison. I can't say I'll be comprehensive, and there's a lot more I'll miss than I'll actually see, but here's the view from where I was sitting.
--Tom Chick

Entry #10, 5:30 p.m.: Trawling for gamers

I've been running around with my Nintendo DS is my bookbag. It's loaded with Metroid Prime Hunters, powered up but sleeping, running a feature called "rival radar". The idea is that it will try to ping other Metroid players in "rival radar" mode. When we pass each other, our respective names are logged so that we can later play online against each other. I feel like I've got an invisible force field of Metroidness emanating from my bag. It will collide with other such force fields and our identities will stick together before we move on. We're like atoms, forming virtual molecules of gameplay.

That sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it? There's not much else to think about when you're walking through the halls of the San Jose Convention Center, going from one talk to another.

The fine folks at ATI have tried to alleviate that problem in one stretch of hallway by posting lurid pictures of half-naked women and faeries on the verge of kissing each other and buxom damsels kneeling before snakes. It's supposed to be artwork, but it's mainly just embarrassing. Especially when you run into someone because you're not looking where you're going when you're studying the pictures closely just to make sure they're as offensive as you think they are.

So from time to time, I'll slip the DS open to see if I've formed any more gameplay molecules with some random stranger. It's kind of disappointing that I've only found three so far. I'm surround by dorky gamers like myself, so you'd think plenty of us would have force fields of Metroidness surrounding us.

Maybe the range is short and me the other other Metroid guy have to all but rub up against each other. Maybe you have to be standing still. Maybe my Metroid force field is spoofed by the Apple laptop I'm carrying around.

While I was waiting for the Nintendo keynote to start in the Civic Auditorium, which was packed with about five thousand presumed Nintendo fans, I flipped Metroid on to see if I could get into a game. Ah, look, someone named NST Katie is hosting a game! I figure NST is some kind of clan tag. Looking around, there are no fewer than a dozen people gazing into opened DS's (as well as one gadfly with a PSP). But none of them looks like a Katie. It's probably some dude anyway.

I join the game only to discover that this Katie person has turned on a large map and set the game mode to 'Bounty', in which you carry a flag to a base for points. But she's set the point total to one. So while I'm fumbling around trying to figure out the map, she grabs the flag, takes it to the base, and wins the game, thereby adding to her ranking total. Not very sporting. I set Metroid to rival radar and sulk. Why hadn't I thought of doing that?

During the presentation, when they're demoing the wireless support for Metroid, I notice that all the guys playing in the demo have NST before their names. This NST clan Katie belongs to ois no clan, but actually Nintendo Software Technologies.

I guess there's a thin line between molecules of gameplay and newbies waiting to be farmed for experience. So here's my friends code: 2706-5043-7825. Add me to your list while I figure out the shortest path to win a one-point Bounty game. We can form and molecule of gameplay while you help me rank up.