[A few months back, I went to the 2009 GC Summit, where Game Control people exchange philosophy, anecdotes, and techniques. I didn't take notes then. I retain things better when I take notes. So this morning I watched the video of Teresa Torres' lecture. And I'm jotting notes here. When I'm noting my own thoughts vs jotting notes on what Teresa said, [my thoughts are in square editorial-ish brackets]]
GC Transparency
- Why the Muppet Movie Game has a blog
- She's working on a game and working at a startup. [OMG no WAI I would die]
- Want people to run games. Want them to know what running a game is like.
- Traditionally, GC has been secretive. It's cool that a GC can run a game and you don't know who it is until you reach the end.
- Inspired by Curtis' letter to aspiring GCs
- Why be transparent? Let aspiring GCs know what's involved.
- Even if a team isn't an aspiring GC, let them know what's involved. [Don't think for a second that that shit is easy.]
- Let teams know what the game will be like so they can decide whether they want to play in it. [If we come up whining at the end that the puzzle difficulty was not up to WPC standards, Teresa will kick us in the shins]
- Wanted to blog day-do-day existence. "ambitious goal". Want to blog the ups and downs. [blogging when you're down ain't easy, though.]
- Running a game is like...
- ...planning a wedding
- ...starting a company
- she wakes up at 3 in the morning about something that she forgot to do at work. a fortnight before the lecture, she woke up at 3am because--she forgot to write a blog post [presumably for the muppet movie game blog] They're analogous! [OMG no WAI I would die]
- A while back, there was a flurry of [dum ^W ignorant] questions on the mailing list: why don't GCs take on more teams in their games? why not run your game twice? Those things aren't very feasible. [Damn right.] One of the things we wanted do through our blog is help explain why.
- Game weekend takes tons of energy. You're not going to repeat that next weekend. Next weekend, you're sleeping.
- So... let folks see the GC perspective, written while GC is in the thick of it.
- After a lady gives birth, she'll say she never wants to have a baby again. Three weeks later, they love their new baby and saying Awww it wasn't so bad. Right? Running a game is the same way: you forget the pain.
- Demand for games is going up. Different games have different styles. So we're telling people about our game so that only folks who want to play our style of game will sign up. [Hmm. Good luck with that.]
- Maintaining operational secrecy while blogging. So what to share...
- GC's motivation. Is it great puzzles? Great theming? Great locations?
- Goonies Game was all about theme. All puzzles had to fit the theme! Except, uhm, for the puzzle we ended up writing during the game weekend because Blood and Bones was breaking the game
- Dragonhunt paperless
- Snout does an endgame where all the team can get together [so I can exhaustedly collapse while surrounded by cool people]
- Overnightmare flow control
- Discuss your thought process
- Orange Snood has philosophical debates about what the game is. You can blog about some of this without giving away too much. E.g., you don't have to say how the help system is going to work. [Heck, depending on how the help system will work, you could probably announce that ahead of time without spoiling anything.]
- They've been blogging about scouting for clue sites. [I think a plurality of posts have been about this. Does that mean that's an especially important topic for this GC? Or that it's something they can blog about w/out giving away too much? Or ...?]
- Every potential blog post leads to debate w/in GC: how much to share? This is probably why there haven't been so many blog posts.
- GC's motivation. Is it great puzzles? Great theming? Great locations?
- You can leave comments on our blog! Part of promoting transparency is promoting discussion! [And yet here I am jotting these notes over on my blog because... that's easier and I'm lazy and... oh well]
- Question is the blog a pre-clue? Answer No, that's not our style.
- Question Even if you're transparent and say "We're running a game. Blood and Bones will hate this game", Blood and Bones will still apply. Teams will still apply. Answer OK, when 60 teams apply to your game it's going to be tough. I want to decide based on good fit. Not first-come-first-serve, not solving millions of puzzles. In Goonies, we did interviews, it worked really really well. GC does this as a labor of love. Talking w/teams is a good way to make sure that they share your philosophy, that they'll enjoy your game and that you'll enjoy GCing them. [The logistics of setting up 60 team interviews... OMG no WAI. Hmm, well maybe if you let out-of-towner teams in w/out the interview. Hmm.]
- Applause!
[So... my best chance of getting into the Muppet Movie Game is convincing all other potential teams that they won't like the game? Say, did I ever mention some of the conversation between Mystic Fish and Orange Snood when we were going through the scrabble puzzles in No More Secrets? Yeah, we were talking about game philosophy. The Orange Snood folks were saying "This game has been pretty interesting. That's a real problem. When we run a game, we try to run a really boring game. Like, capture the essence of non-interestingness, you know?"... What's that? You're not buying it? OK, never mind.]
Labels: link, puzzlehunts