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OK, this entry has little to nothing to do with technical stuff but I thought I would bring it up…
So this weekend I was away at the PAX East 2010 helping my fellow Binary Takeover buddy Keith Morgado promote his game Turba. The first day was a cluster fuck of madness but there was ONE major observation I made: Boston is filled with red heads. For a guy who’s been loving red heads since Gates McFadden (of Star Trek: TNG fame) when he was 12 I felt like I was in paradise or hell since I couldn’t really do much other than promote my boy’s game and go home.
So now that we’re caught up…
The first girl I noticed was this beauty with red hair, blue eyes and a charming look and she kept hovering around the Boston Indie Showcase (where I was chained down). At first I kept looking because she caught my eye but after a while I fell back on a lesson I learned at Full Sail University: if the girl is hot and hanging around us geeks then she’s definitely taken. So I continued to look elsewhere. After all, I’d already been caught staring at her a few times and I was just a few more glances away from becoming “that stalker guy who won’t stop looking at me”.
The next day came and sure enough there she was again! This time I was more curious as to WHO in the world she was. Was she some administrator for the event or for the Indie Showcase? Was she the wife/girlfriend of one of the developers? Could she be a marketing person or part of the press covering the event? She definitely seemed too serious to be some booth babe on a break.
As the mystery persisted I decided to try and find a name tag somewhere or maybe overhear her talking about something relevant to her purpose there. No dice. However it did cause me to get caught looking at her more than ever and I couldn’t help but keep hovering near her to try and eves drop. By the end of the day the title of “that stalker…” was well in place or at least I felt like it was and I left the expo feeling like I just came out of a “Wonder Years” episode.
The last day came and went and now I was avoiding even looking in her direction. In hindsight it was amazing how much my mind was operating like a high school kid’s. Tired and acting silly I pretended to try and pilfer some of the Sumo Bean Bags under my jacket and I caught a laugh from her; a brief jolt of confidence overtook me. The booth across from us was playing some cool song and I found myself rambling some nostalgia laden monologue and finished it with “so fuck y’all!” which was hilarious in my mind right up until I realized I said it…
Facepalm…
Anyways, on the way back to the hotel I find out from one of my cohorts that she was actually a developer invited there as a guest of the folks presenting next to us. Now I really felt stupid because I honestly feel invigorated talking to folks from my industry but especially those who have been successful as independent developers. To think, all I had to do was smile, introduce myself and then ask what she was doing there and I probably would have enjoyed a decent conversation instead of making an ass out of myself… :-(
But nooooo….
I checked out her game the next day (yesterday) and it was a really cool concept. It reminded me of my final project in the gameplay mechanical aspect and it really bummed me out that I could have been talking shop with a fellow developer with seemingly similar approaches to gameplay, maybe get some advice. :-(
Ironically I saw the publisher she’s currently working with last night presenting the sequel to HER game at the IGDA Demo night. Thankfully he wasn’t as striking (to me) so I kept my composure and pitched him my final project, Lost Marbles, which I truly believe to be a great IP worth a second look if not a chance to perform out there in the market. I did accidentally drop a Rockstar Games sticker on his chair which might have been misinterpreted as a lame attempt to gain favor from him but hopefully that wasn’t the case.
The moral of this story? Put yourself out there because if you’re waiting for life to throw you a bone you may just end up looking like a bitch or more specifically, you’ll look like either a dumb bitch, hungry bitch or worst of all a dangerous bitch. I can only hope that I only looked like the first two.
